During the week we manage our farm, a slaughter house/processing plant/smokehouse, and a food distribution company.  We love being busy and intellectually challenged.  There are days when everything together feels unmanageable, but mostly it is the most amazing life I never knew I always wanted.

Plus we have two kids, our daughter is almost 4 and in preschool half-days 3 days a week. Our son is almost 2 and he’s with me 24/7. Our weekdays go like this —

—4 am awakened by son who must snuggle

—5 am daughter comes to bed and they both argue over who gets to be on top of mommy

—6:00 – 7:45 is a blur of breakfast, dishes, coffee, dressing, diapers, mittens, hats and barking orders between Drew and I about work

—9 am I’m in the office (or farm or plant) with my son.

—11:30 am I leave to get my daughter and we are off racing again

— 2pm I think –       Oh, Dinner!

Today this is what I made,

Potage au Shrimp 

that’s fancy for shrimp stew….

Ingredients–

Tomato Sauce (recipe below)

1 lb. shrimp, peeled and de-veined (save shells for stock if you buy them in shell)

1 cup dried shrimp, rehydrated in water for 24 hrs

1 green pepper, chopped

2 red peppers, chopped

1 red onion, chopped

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 cup tomato sauce

4 cups stock (either from shrimp shells or chicken)

1/4 cup sugar

Sea Salt

Pepper

Tomato Sauce Ingredients

1 Spanish onion, diced

4 garlic cloves, minced

6 tbsp olive oil

1 carrots, thinly sliced

3 fresh tomatoes, peeled and chopped

28 oz. tomatoes diced

1 tbsp fresh thyme

Sea Salt

1 tbsp sugar

1/4 tsp pepper

Make tomatoes sauce first, you only need 1 cup for recipe but rest can be saved for other meals and hey you have 1/2 of another meal done!

Prep-

Heat olive oil in skillet and add garlic and onions. Cook over medium low until translucent and light brown. Add chopped tomatoes and cook for 5 minutes. Add carrots and cook for 10 minutes. Add thyme and cook for 5’minutes. Add canned tomatoes and rest of ingredient and cook for 15 minutes. Set this aside.

Cook –

Add olive oil to a stock pot and heat it up to almost smoking, then add onions and garlic. Once cooked until translucent add peppers and cook until they are soft. Add the tomato sauce and broth and sugar and salt and pepper. Cook for 15-20 minutes! Rinse and dry shrimp and heat frying pan with olive oil. Salt and pepper each shrimp and sauté. Do not crowd shrimp, cook them in batches.

Serve –

Ladle soup into bowl and add shrimp to top of bowl. Enjoy with bread and I’d recommend some wine. (You deserve it! It’s Wednesday for crying out loud and look what you made!)