I'm Getting My Final Harvests for the Season - Peppers and Soup

I actually slept in until my alarm went off today, so I'm a bit rushed today. I got in my meditation, but now I only have 30 minutes to get this blog posted before I have to leave for the swimming pool. I was glad to get some sleep, however. I really needed it. 

My Tabasco pepper plant is doing really well, 
with a lot of peppers for me to pick. I'll leave that 
until this weekend, allowing them to get as much 
heat as possible over the next day or two. Then 
I'll stick them into the dehydrator and I'll have 
a lovely batch to grind into my own chili powder. 

Yesterday and today are gorgeous days - a bit of a fall-back into summer with warm temperatures. The garden is responding accordingly, and my peppers are ripening quickly. I have hopes of getting one more really good harvest from my Jalapeno peppers and a wonderful end-of-season harvest from my Tabasco peppers. I took some photos of my plants to share with all of you, and if they transferred correctly, I'm showing you here. 

These three large (and they're REALLY big) 
Jalapeno peppers are the last ones I'll probably 
get from this plant this year. I'll leave them on 
the plant for as long as possible to allow them 
to ripen more, but yesterday's 80 degree day 
was wonderful in getting them towards a 
beautiful red color. Hopefully today's 80 degree 
temp will be all that's needed for these guys, 
because we'll be colder and rainy over the 
weekend. 

I decided to make my Roasted Peppers and Tomatoes soup yesterday, and also have all of the ingredients for chicken fajitas in the refrigerator, waiting for tomorrow's cooking time. That soup is one of my favorites. It takes a bit of oven time since I'm broiling the red peppers, tomatoes and an onion before combining everything into my blender and making the soup. But the time is well worth it. It also tends to smoke up my kitchen a bit since I'm blackening the skins of the veggies and fruits in the oven (yes, tomatoes are a fruit). So I also had some smoke to contend with. But the kitchen was pristine by the time DH got home. 

My roasted red peppers and tomato soup is one of my 
favorite blender soup recipes. I broil the veggies, 
then put them into the blender with some clear stock 
(veggie or chicken, usually) and some herbs and 
spices, set the blender to "soup" setting, and let 
it do its' thing. Less than seven minutes later, I have 
a hot, steaming batch of soup that will last me for 
several days. Yummy! 

I was so distracted by cooking, however, that I forgot to turn on the clothes dryer for my final load of bedding! Duh! I turned it on shortly before dinner, though, and had everything folded and into the linen closet right after dinner. Silly me! 

Of course a blender soup would be impossible without a 
top quality blender, and my Wolf manual setting blender 
is more than up to the task. It cost a FORTUNE, but I 
use it every week, often more than once a week, and it 
continues to perform above my expectations. 

So, today's post is a bit short, but I can already feel that today's going to be a good day. I'm determined, so therefore, it will be - LOL. I hope you also have a wonderful Thursday. I'm heading out to the swimming pool and then to the shop to work for the day. I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini.