Cold summer soup | Probably a smoothie | Something icky

I just made a summer dinner for eight that was so easy and relaxing I barely felt like I'd cooked.  I did cook, but I also let Costco (stuffed grape leaves, hummus) help a little. And I made two of the dishes (quinoa salad and raw candies) the day before. Don't you just love when a dinner party comes together just the way you'd hoped — great guests all getting along and making vibrant conversation, nice food, and a calm and entertained hostess. (Yes, that's right, entertained. I want to be entertained rather than entertaining. Why not?)

I'm focusing here on the first course — a cool and refreshing chilled cucumber and avocado soup that I whipped up in my VitaMix. (Any decent blender will suffice.) I was recently served the soup at my son and daughter-in-law's house, and immediately made plans to serve it at my upcoming dinner party. The recipe can be found on the Whole Foods Web site, and the soup is so easy to prepare it practically makes itself. I pretty much followed the recipe, though I substituted almond milk for the soy milk, and upped the basil. I made the tomato topping ahead of time with a little extra lime juice and it was still perfect three hours later when I served it, so I don't think you have to make it at the last minute like the recipe says to do. I added a few drops of stevia to the soup to balance the extremely tart flavor of the yogurt, and I didn't add extra yogurt to the bowls when I served it. The soup is thick, creamy, cooling and delicious. I served it with Food Should Taste Good chips on the side.

I was still feeling the quinoa salad I'd prepared for a potluck last week so I made another bowlful. My husband and I were the only ones having it again so why not repeat a good thing? It's so delicious I doubt I'd ever get tired of it, but just  to change it up a little I topped it with toasted pumpkin seeds this time.

Here's my plate with the rest of the edibles. We had grape leaves, carrot sticks, hummus, grape tomatoes, quiche topped with fresh tomato sauce, and a wonderful salad brought by my good friend, Wendy. For dessert we had ice cream and raw candies.

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Probably a smoothie but tastes like juice

Cadry's been juicing up a such a creative storm over at her kitchen that it's been giving me a bad case of juicer envy. Truthfully, I don't know where the hell I'd even put a juicer if I were to get one, so I'm depending on my beloved VitaMix, the workhorse of my kitchen, to make me something that may be a smoothie but tastes like a juice — smooce? Here's what went into my "juice":

1 ripe organic peach, with the skin
1 stalk of organic celery
1 heaping tablespoon hemp hearts
1 heaping tablespoon goji berries
1 date
1 cup almond milk
1/2 cup prepared organic carrot juice
1/2 cup filtered water

It was thin like juice, and tasted like juice, but I suppose it was probably a smoothie. I had it for breakfast and it was really, really good.

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Something icky

Click if you dare.

Thanks for sticking with me all this time, and to thank you I'm giving you a warning that if you don't like icky stuff, you should leave now and go get the soup recipe. To those who stay, I'm sorry but this has been on my mind all week and I just have to get it out, and hopefully be done with it. You're the first people I've told.

When we got back from our trip to Wisconsin, I was snacking on some toasted nori while unpacking a stained glass art piece. I thought a small piece of nori had fallen onto the glass, and, following the 5-second rule, I picked it up and popped it into my mouth. Only it wasn't nori. I spit it out and saw that it was a dead, dried-up earwig. Sorry, sorry to have shared that. Eewww eewww. Gross, right?