Tomato Orzo Soup + Seasonal Recipes

I blinked and it was Friday.  That wasn't so bad.

I set the meal plan weeks ago, but I must have had a psychic prediction I would be drowning in tomatoes from the garden and crop share.

Tonight's dinner was Barefoot Contessa's Tomato Orzo Soup with Grilled Cheese Croutons.  I threw in a couple of chopped tomatoes from the garden so we keep 'em moving!

I didn't make the grilled cheese croutons because I had homemade regular croutons on hand I wanted to use.

Since I hate to waste, whenever I have bread that is about to get old I usually cut it into cubes, toss it with a little bit of melted butter and either italian seasoning or garlic powder. Bake at 350 degrees until browned - 10 to 15 minutes usually - and store in an airtight container.  Couldn't be easier and great for soups and salads.

I got good use of the croutons today.  My oldest son loved the soup and had 2 bowls and the baby ate his and took his spoon to hunt for more.

I threatened my middle one that he could not go to karate if he didn't eat.  Since my older son would be lost without his personal audience he was instrumental in helping his brother shove down a enough spoonfuls to appease me.

They decided they wanted to pretend they were on a picnic and eat their (cooled!) soup while sitting on the floor.
It was Friday at 5:30 after a long week; I pick and choose my battles.

After dinner I took my big boy to karate and had my middle one do a trial lesson.  He loved it and did great, so we signed them up to go together from now on.   They are SO excited to do this together.

Came home to a clean house compliments of the husband who then left to go play poker at my brother's house.  He'll sleep over since it will be a late night and they live far + my brother and his family have chickens and he is on a mission to feed someone breakfast with all the eggs he collects!

Little ones are in bed now and big boy is next to me playing with the kindle.

Tomorrow we're excited for APPLE PICKING!

Get It Done Tip: I have boards on pinterest for seasonal recipes I come across.  I collected all the apple recipes that sounded interesting over the past year and plugged it onto my Fall board.

But in addition to pinterest, I still enjoy looking at old cookbooks; many which do not have their recipes online.  For those recipes, knowing we go apple picking mid to end of Sept,  I marked my calendar the first weekend in Sept with an invite called "Apple Recipes".  In the body of the email I made notes of the recipe name, cookbook name and page number.  I collected 3 over the past year that looked really cool - Fresh Apple Pound Cake, Apple Kuchen Bars and Fresh Cranberry Apple Crisp.

Now tomorrow when I have 20 pounds of apples I won't have to wonder what to do with them - we'll eat most fresh, make some applesauce and I have a few fun recipes to choose to make 1 dessert this weekend and 1 for next.  Tonight I will go to grab the cookbooks to pick one recipe so I can make sure I have all ingredients on hand.

Which reminds me, my older son begged to make fresh apple turonvers, so that'll be on the schedule for breakfast Monday!

This is my kind of fun!  So looking forward to a nice Fall day tomorrow!

Wishing everyone a great weekend!