Still knitting away on the sleeves of the Sand sweater. I discovered last night that somehow I got a couple rows ahead on one sleeve and had to do some correcting. The sleeves are close to half knitted.

I also worked some on my quilt (quilting the Spools quilt) this weekend, but it was too hot to work on for very long.

And I had my SECOND serving of tomato-stuff out of the garden! Yeah! I made homemade tomato soup, following my mom's recipe:

Core and cut up 1 quart (4 cups) of fresh garden tomatoes. Combine in a large saucepan with 2 c. chicken broth (of course, vegetarians can use veggie broth), 1/4 tsp cloves (or 4 whole cloves if you have them), 2 tsp sugar, 1 tsp salt, and one big slice of onion.

Let that simmer for 20-30 minutes, stirring occassionally.

Then: strain the broth (I used a strainer into a bowl and used the back of a spoon to mash all the juice and goodies out of the tomatoes. The skins, seeds, and big onion slice should stay in the strainer. (I want to get a food mill; that would make this go smoother).

Then reheat the broth, and while the broth is heating, make a roux of 2 Tbs. butter and 2 Tbs. flour. Add a little of the soup to the roux to heat it up (you don't want to dump it in or it will coagulate and be nasty). Add the roux to the soup, heat, stir, and enjoy.

This soup is heaven. It is the best soup ever. It is so far superior to the stuff out of a can you won't believe it. I used about half Arkansas Traveler tomatoes (a pink tomato) and half Big Boy tomatoes, with one Roma thrown in to make it thicker.

Having a garden makes me so happy.