Okra Tomato Corn Soup

Longing for the okra of his youth, my husband made this Cajun flavored okra tomato corn soup.

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
3 clove garlic, minced
3 rib celery, sliced
2 cups chicken broth
4 cups diced fresh tomatoes
10-15 okra
3 cobs worth of corn kernels (cut fresh off the cob)
3 teaspoon Cajun seasoning (we use Penzy's Cajun Seasoning)
dash freshly ground black pepper
salt, to taste

Directions:
In a medium saucepan, heat olive oil and butter over medium-low heat.

Add onion, garlic, and celery; sauté, stirring, until celery is tender.

Add chicken broth, tomatoes, sliced okra, corn kernels, Cajun seasoning, and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, or until okra is tender.


Add salt to taste.

Okra is a fun ingredient that isn't used much in the Midwest. I love that okra has a star shape when sliced.

Tomatoes have arrived!

It has been a cool summer, which has been great for us (no AC) but has lead to sparse yields from our 15 tomato plants.

We've been able to harvest some cherry and grapes daily for the past month.




We even got a occasional larger tomato. So exciting that we had to take pictures of them.


But mostly, we had a whole lot of these:


Well, we had a warm weekend and now we've got tomatoes. We've got heirloom and yellow and beefsteak, oh my! We've got a wide variety (can you see the purple ones...fancy shmancy):



You may ask, "now that you've got all these tomatoes, what are you going to do now?" We've got all sorts of plans for salads, caprese, fresh salsa, stuffed tomatoes and bruschetta. When you've got tomatoes, the possibilities are endless and delicious.