I'm ready for fall

Just today I said to the hubs, that I was so done with summer and I'm ready for fall.

I'm ready for sweaters and flannel pajamas.
I'm ready for apple picking, leaf peeping, and pumpkin carving.
I'm ready for the crunch of leaves under my feet and the smell of a crackling fire.
I'm ready for crock pot dinners, hearty soups and stews, and snuggling in earlier at night with a good book.

And when I look back at my months of photos I'm behind on blogging and finding pictures of dishes I made back last winter, it makes me really long for fall.

I made this dish sometime in early spring and it was simply a wonderful and easy soup, but I most certainly strayed from the recipe. The concept of the soup sounded delicious to me, but I'm a picky soup eater, I prefer a creamy soup to a chunky soup. Enter Immersion Blender!!

Thanks to 365 Days of Slow Cooking for the starting point for this recipe! It's fantastic! I can't wait to make it again.


Realistic Eats Version of 365 Days of Slow Cooking Tomato Basil Parmesan Soup
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes, with juice + 1 14 oz. can diced tomato with juices
1 cup finely diced carrots
1 cup finely diced onions
1 tsp dried oregano or 1 T fresh oregano
1 T dried basil or 1/4 cup fresh basil
4 cups vegetable broth
½ bay leaf
½ cup flour
1 cup Parmesan cheese
½ cup butter
2 cups low fat milk warmed
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp black pepper

1.  Add tomatoes, celery, carrots, chicken broth, onions, oregano, basil, and bay leaf to a large slow cooker.
2.  Cover and cook on LOW for 5-7 hours, until flavors are blended and vegetables are soft.
3.  About 30 minutes before serving prepare a roux. Melt butter over low heat in a skillet and add flour. Stir constantly with a whisk for 5-7 minutes. Slowly stir in 1 cup hot soup. Add another 3 cups and stir until smooth. Add all back into the slow cooker. Stir and add the Parmesan cheese, warmed milk, salt and pepper.  Add additional basil and oregano if needed (the slow cooker does a number on spices and they get bland over time, so don’t be afraid to always season to taste at the end).
4. Place your immersion blender in the crock pot and blend the soup until it's smooth and creamy
5. Cover and cook on LOW for another 30 minutes or so until ready to serve.

It may not look like a pretty bowl of soup...

But in fact, it's flipping fantastic. I found this recipe at Jamie Oliver's site  and am so glad we tried it out. The combination of the fresh flavors of the asparagus and the richness of the egg, combined with the texture differences with the creamy soup, the runny egg yolk, and the crunchy toast, it was WONDERFUL.

Couple with a beautiful salad and dinner is done!!


1 lb. asparagus, woody ends removed
olive oil
2 medium white onions, peeled and chopped
2 sticks of celery, trimmed and copped
2 leeks, trimmed and chopped
2 liters good-quality chicken or vegetable stock, preferably organic
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
10 small very fresh free-range or organic eggs
8 slices of ciabatta bread
extra virgin olive oil

Chop the tips off your asparagus and put these to one side for later. Roughly chop the asparagus stalks. Get a large, deep pan on the heat and add a good lug of olive oil. Gently fry the onions, celery and leeks for around 10 minutes, until soft and sweet, without colouring. Add the chopped asparagus stalks and stock and simmer for 20 minutes with a lid on. Remove from the heat and blitz with a hand-held blender or in a liquidizer. Season the soup bit by bit (this is important) with salt and pepper until just right. Put the soup back on the heat, stir in the asparagus tips, bring back to the boil and simmer for a few more minutes until the tips have softened. ** MY NOTE ** I did not stir in the tips - I  don't like a primarily smooth soup with some bits of things in it, it's all chunky or all smooth for me!

**MY NOTES ** Just before you're ready to serve the soup, make poached eggs and leave the yolk runny. Also use this time to toast up some fresh bread - we rubbed our fresh bread with some garlic cloves to get the flavor on it when it came out of the toaster. To serve, divide the soup between eight warmed bowls and place a piece of toast into each. Put a poached egg on top, cut into it to make it runny, season and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil.