Believe me, you do not want a reservation for my home cooking. I think I'm allergic to the kitchen. I always joke when I set fire to a pan of shrimp or forget I'm boiling chicken and almost burn up the pan (last week!) or cut myself while chopping vegetables that I'm just trying to get out of KP duty. Frankly, I am not a good cook. I can put meals together. But it's just not my thing.

But have you seen the movie No Reservations? It's really a good movie. And these folks enjoy being in the kitchen! It was a lot of fun to watch and made me cry a couple of times. But it did not make me want to be a chef.

Now that our lives are really picking up the pace as the school year starts, we have several nights where the kids have activities and I'm busy running them around and no time to cook. Which leaves us at 7:30 without dinner made. Kind of late to start. So I needed something I could put in the oven and leave for four to six hours. Which led me pull out my dusty crock pot that I haven't used in years. My husband actually thought I'd bought a new one.

Last night I made this delicious tomato soup. It really was wonderful, a bit chunkier than LaMadeleine's but delicious. You could probably chop the tomatoes finer, if you're not afraid of chopping the way I am. Or you could puree it. What I loved: I threw it together and left it in the crock pot. And it was ready when I got home with the kids. I'll post the recipe later this week.