Hot Soup for a Summer Night

What am I, nuts? It's hot. Muggy. The floors feel damp on my bare feet. However, I am making soup for dinner tonight. I am making soup for dinner tonight because I have this great leftover gravy from a pot roast dinner I made for last night's dinner. It was hot yesterday, too. I just wanted to have a dinner without too much trouble, since my friend Susan was visiting from Dayton, and we were going to a matinee over at Porthouse Theater at Blossom Center. We went to see "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee", which I had seen but she had not. I didn't want to be enjoying a funny play while wondering what to fix for dinner or even having to fix dinner after spending an afternoon enjoying a funny play. So I threw all the meat and vegetables into the slow cooker early in the morning so I could relax and enjoy the funny play and have dinner ready when we came home. The performance was superb and the dinner was tasty and hot and we had a fine sparkling wine to cool us off. Cynthia made one of her delicious salads with lettuce from her garden, and John had gotten some strawberries and fixed them with ice cream.

Now I have all this nice gravy and some leftover potatoes and carrots and why not make soup, for cryin' out loud, even though the atmosphere is warm and humid? Sure, I could freeze the stuff, but it's never the same. So, I'll throw in some broccoli, peas, parsley from the garden, and serve it with some of Rafael's great bread. He's the charming Spanish baker who's at the market on Saturdays. He said it is Spanish bread because he is Spanish and if he were French, it would be French bread. I think I have enough lettuce, which has been slow to grow to add to store bought spring mix for a decent salad. No sparkling wine, but some Cheap Chuck Sauvignon Blanc and I'll have a nice French/Spanish peasant meal here. It'll be a tad warm, but nourishing.

I also made some chicken stock today from part of a carcass (see above picture) which I can freeze because it keeps well in the freezer and I can use it for all sorts of things. It's not the same as good beef gravy. And the usual summer soups, like gazpacho, or cool cucumber, are very labor intensive and don't taste nearly so good.

So maybe I'm not nuts.