soup for dinner

When B. and I were up in Ashland, Oregon, last June, I stopped in a grocers that carried interesting stuff that I didn't see at home. I bought several packets of a northwest brand of soup fixings - one envelope of pasta or beans, another one of seasonings, a recipe card inside.

It was hard to believe, in June, that it would ever again be cold enough for soup for dinner to be desirable, but at last it's come. I got down the bag from the back of the pantry where the packets had been sitting all these months, pulled out the basic chicken noodle soup mix, and made it. Of course it expected you to add chicken, but on the back of the card there were some additional suggestions, one of which was a cup of fresh vegetables: "We like summer squash & broccoli." Substitute zucchini for the summer squash and it not only sounds good to me, I was already planning to put those in before I saw the back of the card.

So that was our nice small dinner, and I'll make the others soon.

And that was our Halloween. No trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood in recent years, so no costumes, no decorations, no candy, no lights on, just a normal evening at home.