Leftovers Soup

Depending on your leftovers, here was my solution last night, before we knew what our night would be like:

• Open refrigerator and scope out everything that is still usable (dispose of slimy, moldy, smelly and questionable items)
• Line everything up and do an overview of the situation
• In my case, this meant look, smell and taste the following: chicken and onions topping from the pizza last week, the twice-baked cauliflower take 2 from a couple of nights ago, the raw carrots languishing in the produce drawer, the lemon crusted chicken from another dinner and the butternut fries.
• To the pot add a quart of boxed chicken broth, and add raw carrots. Cook for awhile, then add any cooked vegetables and a few cups of water. Use an immersion blender once the soup has reached simmering.
• Add 1 cup or so of milk, taste for seasonings, add the meat (chicken) and heat through. Scoop into bowls and serve.

The next order of business was to turn on the television and watch approaching wildfires in our area of Southern California. At about 6:30 pm last night my DH spotted a huge, black smoke cloud as it spread east and south of us. He'd been watching football games, so we switched to news, only to find the only fire they were reporting was the very serious one in Malibu (which is still raging out of control as of this morning). It was at least an hour or more before they began reporting our fire, by then raging out of control, virtually no firefighters on tap because they were mostly sent to Malibu.

We've known that our area is a potential tinderbox after the very dry spring. Throw in a relatively hot summer, and only one day of showers a week or so ago, and you have a potential for disaster.

After dinner, we lost power. Quick hunt for candles and candle lighters. Knowing the fire was within about a mile of our home, we began packing up our most precious belongings (using flashlights), evacuated our station wagon full of valuables, mostly paintings and artwork. We took turns driving to a ridge near us (along with dozens of other lookie-lous) to watch the fires as they whipped more our direction from the further ridge. Scary. Very, very scary. Our firefighters are taxed beyond comprehension with fires that are blazing all over Southern California. As I write this, there are 10 fires, major fires, here and the winds have already picked up now that it's dawn. Today we're expected to have continued very high winds and temperatures in the high 90's. Bless the firefighters for holding the fire line beyond our homes.

Spent a very wearying night, listening to these Santa Ana winds just whip around our home, toppling potted plants and trees, leaves everywhere, the pool a mess of dirt and leaves. We lost power for about 11 hours, so only had battery operated radios. Power was restored at about 5:45 this morning, so we now have TV reception again. It's going to be a long day. The fire is far from contained (5% contained at 6 am this morning), but at least it's not burning our direction. Thank you, Lord, for sparing our home.