Sunday Soup

Hi Everyone. I have moved this blog because of the advertising. Please click anthonysundaysoup.blogspot.com/ or cut and paste it into your browser. Sorry for any confusion. The blog is now called AnthonySundaySoup.

I've been contemplating what soup to make all day. I've mostly done this in front of the woodstove while I read. I know...not much contemplation going on when I'm reading, but I'm reading a Diane Mott Davidson mystery and she's a caterer and her books have recipes...so you never know.

I went to the farm gate today (once the summer season ends, instead of letting everyone into the farm where they have a big shed for produce, they just bring a bit out to the gate) to stock up on veggies. I got some lovely spinach, a butternut squash, some leeks, onions, and bok choy. I'm not sure that any of them will end up in the soup except maybe the onions. I've been craving a potato soup of some sort..which is good since we still have a lot of lovely potatoes that The Southerner grew. I make a killer potato leek soup (Julia Child's recipe), but I've already made that for SS and my goal is 52 different soups. I've already made 26 soups (including the one week that The Southerner made the soup), so I'm exactly half way there. Hmmm...now I'm thinking tomorrow's soup should be special in some way. I guess I better get a cup of tea and sit in front of the stove and read some more! I wouldn't want to rush my decision. And then once I've done that I can ponder bread possibilities!

Sunday Soup is getting mighty relaxed around here. Not the event, but the preparation! I didn''t make the soup until last night, didn't blog at all, and didn't clean the house until 3:10 this afternoon. Luckily, our house is pretty tidy these days and we totally atribute this to SS. We got tired of the mad dash to uncover flat surfaces and dust them every Sunday and now we're keeping a tidier house all week long. I'm still hoping for a maid to do the floors though!

Last night I roasted some pumpkin and butternut squash (yes...The Southerner did grow it, but you knew that, didn't you?) and then about nine o'clock I made the soup. It was a totally made up recipe and I'm sorry to say, I'm way too lazy to type it up now. However, The Southerner is going to hand write it down while I chill and sip a nice cup of tea. Then I think I'll get him to type it up because I've been teaching him to use Microsoft Word and he can use the practice. Haha! So if you really want the recipe, I should have it sometime soon. It had the aforementioned pumpkin and squash along with leeks, apple, apple cider...and a few other yummy things. Okay...yeah, butter. It had butter and brown sugar. So sue me!

We had a nice gathering of about eight people besides us today and they came in shifts so we all pretty much crowded into the kitchen for the most part. There were lots of goodies too. Steve O. brought Halloween candy and Roger brought cookies! And it looks like we've finally made the Irish One realize that she really truly can drop in without bringing anything and we're all still thrilled to see her! That's quite an accomplishment as the Irish are like The Southerner and they can't just drop in without some sort of gifty thing.

I made garlic and parmesan bread sticks using pizza dough and they were a big hit. In fact, I caught Steve O. stuffing his pockets with them before he left, but as he'd brought quite a large handful of my favorite Cadbury Crunch Bars, I did not tackle him and make him give them back, and instead sent him on his way with some soup to go with the pilfered bread sticks.

The casserole is in the oven, the dishwasher is running and soon I will have my last meal of the day on the table. If I can get The Southerner to go to bed within an hour of eating, we might even be able to fall asleep before his stomach starts growling for the night!

Click on this link to find out what Sunday Soup is, how it got started, and who inspired it! And thanks for stopping by.

I did make the soup yesterday, but I didn't post. I've been taking weekends off from writing and so I don't even heat my office or go in there much. I'm calling the soup this week Harvest Vegetable because it was made with all kinds of yummy fall veggies. It was a very simple soup that I made up and turned out pretty darn good.

I sauteed leeks and garlic in oil and butter and then added diced parsnips, pumpkin, the white parts of bok choy, and carrots. Then I added a bunch of homemade veggie stock, chopped fresh spinach, the green parts of the bok choy, and white beans (drained, but that I'd cooked myself, not from a can) and some roasted tomatoes that I had on hand from The Southerners garden. I'd roasted them in olive oil with garlic and salt and pepper and before I added them to the soup, I removed the skins and chopped them roughly.

The soup was very tasty today, but it was really beautiful and bright yesterday, and it lost some of that vibrancy. I'm not sure if it's worth giving up the colour for flavour by making a day ahead or not...it tasted pretty good yesterday too.

We had a nice turnout today even though there was a lot going on here on the island. The people from the Senior Garden at The Commons threw a special thank you lunch for all the volunteers and since The Southerner spent many long hours down there, lifting heavy things (mostly shoveling dirt and alpaca poop) for the Senior Garden (also known as the Dragon Garden) we were both invited. I was pretty much the only person there who hadn't helped in any way whatsoever, but I was told, "You feed The Southerner so he's able to come here and do all the work, so you've contributed." True enough! Some of the people there, also went to another event this afternoon, and then came to Sunday Soup! Despite being fed all day, they were more than willing and able to dig into the soup. And the muffins I made were quite popular too. We had a couple of new guests and sent them home with a few muffins in hopes that they had a good time and will come back again!

Today I made up a muffin recipe, based very loosely on one I found on the internet. Here are the ingredients and instructions. It is doubled, so if you don't want so many, cut it in half.

1/3 cup melted butter
1/3 cup corn oil
2 1/2 cups buttermilk
2 eggs
Mix together

3 cups white flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 TBS baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup shredded parmesan
Mix all ingredients together

Add 1 cup chopped fresh spinach, a handful of dried chives, and 1 cup shredded Swiss cheese to the egg mixture, then add the dry a little at a time. Stir just to incorporate, don't overmix. Bake in non-stick or greased muffin tins at 400 for 18-20 minutes. Makes 24 muffins.

The original recipe is here: http://www.recipezaar.com/175764 You can see I changed it quite a bit.

Unlike in the US where Thanksgiving is a specific day, here in Canada, you're free to have your big meal whichever of the three days of the holiday weekend that suits you best. Although, I guess, legally, today, Monday, is the actual holiday. Most people we know had their big dinner yesterday.

We still had a nice turnout for Sunday Soup. Steve O. brought two friends from across the pond (as The Southerner likes to refer to Vancouver Island since you have to take a ferry to get there) and Carol was here. Calvin even came inside after getting his catnip fix (it was a cool day and we had a fire and sat inside). The Southerner made two rounds of his famous cornbread and our new guests brought a pie! Strawberry-rhubarb...my favorite.

The Southerner did two (excellent) performances of Tuesdays With Morrie at the Theatre Centre with the fabulous Antony Holland this weekend, so he had to leave early to go do his show. A few more people showed up after he left, too stuffed from turkey to eat, but it was nice to see them and visit. And then Steve and his friends scurried off to see the play (Carol and I saw it the night before, but Calvin had stayed home because he heard they only had scones and no catnip).

I've discovered that the easiest way to feed The Southerner supper after Sunday Soup (because soup is just an appetizer) is to make a casserole ahead of time. I didn't have time yesterday because we'd gone for a long walk, so while he was doing his play, I cleaned up and made the casserole. The second benefit to the casserole is that I can often talk him into eating leftovers on Monday, so I don't have to cook then! He's hard to presuade...here's how it usually goes...

TS - What's to eat for supper?
Me - Leftover soup and casserole and bread.
TS - Let's eat.

Haha! And if I'm really lucky, sometimes I can do that again on Tuesday. And then on Wednesday, he has Boys Night Out, so I can go all the way to Thursday without having to cook. And then I can say, "Well, I'm kind of tired from writing...will you make omelettes if I fry the potatoes?" and another meal is taken care of! In case you haven't figured it out The Southerner is an easy man to live with.

And for that, and my many, many blessings...I am grateful. Happy Thanksgiving!

Click on this link to find out what Sunday Soup is, how it got started, and who inspired it! And thanks for stopping by.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian pals! We're grateful to be here and to be celebrating with you!

The reason I didn't update yesterday is because I didn't even make the soup until this morning. I usually make it the day before for two reasons...one soup is just generally better for sitting 24 hours or so, and the other reason is you know...just in case it doesn't turn out, then I'll have time to make something new!

I had planned to make a pumpkin soup using pumpkins that The Southerner grew, but I had a long (and productive) writing week and just didn't feel like tackling anything that time consuming. I ended up making a soup today that is an original recipe, for the most part, and is very simple, fresh, and delicious (if I do say so myself). I was inspired by a recipe in The Soup Bible, but this is quite a bit different, so I'm claiming it as original! I'm even going to share with y'all because I think it turned out pretty darn good. Plus, I went to all the trouble of typing it up for my records, so I might as well post it here:

Spinach and Bok Choy Soup – Joëlle’s original recipe 12 October 08

2 large bunches of fresh spinach, rinsed and chopped

1 large bunch of bok choy, rinsed and chopped

4 TBS butter

1 large onion, diced

1 can of coconut milk

10-11 cups of vegetable stock

2 ½ cups half & half (warmed)

Salt

Pepper

Nutmeg

 

Melt butter in a large skillet and add onion and bok choy (including leaves). Cook until translucent, move vegetables to food processor, leaving liquid in pan. Then add spinach to pan and cook until wilted. While the spinach is cooking, process the bok choy and onions with a little stock in the food processor, then add the vegetables to the remaining stock (in large soup pot). When the spinach is wilted, put it with its liquid in the food processor and process and then add it to the stock and other vegetables. Add the can of coconut milk. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and add warm cream. Adjust seasoning as needed.

Makes 4.5-5 quarts

Click on this link to find out what Sunday Soup is, how it got started, and who inspired it! And thanks for stopping by.

It rained. You know what that means...only a few guests. I'm starting to think that maybe it has to do with our tiny kitchen. When we can spill out onto the porch, it is more accommodating. It's kind of funny because we have a nice large window in the wall between the kitchen and the living room, so you could sit on the couch and practically be in the kitchen, but no one does. Instead we all crowd around the kitchen table...and you know, I like it. It's cozy.

Anyway, Steve O., Carol, and Rick joined me and The Southerner yesterday and we had Yellow Broth and Irish Soda Bread, and pie. Yellow Broth is basically a very simple soup of vegetable stock, onions, carrots, celery, and spinach, thickened with a roux first and then a bit more at the end with oatmeal. I heard tell that after SS, Rick ran into some of our friends and told them they missed a really good soup! I thought it was good, but you know...that's just me. Glad everyone else liked it too.

Steve brought a pie called "summer harvest" so I was kind of wondering if when I cut into it I would find things like new potatoes, peas, carrots...lettuce...but no. It was raspberries, cherries, strawberries...yummy!

If you're interested in soda bread, you might want to visit this site: http://www.europeancuisines.com/Peters-Mums-Soda-Bread-Recipe It's a little trickier than you might realize and so I was glad to read all the tips on this page. I made one plain loaf and one with an extra teaspoon of sugar and currants. I had to add quite a bit more buttermilk than the recipe stated, but I was using all-purpose flour, which might've been why. I took the dutch oven idea from the site, but instead of cooking it in the coals, I pre-heated it in my oven for thirty minutes at 450 degrees, added the dough, put the lid back on, cooked it at 450 for 10 minutes, turned the heat down to 400 and cooked another 30 minutes and it came out PERFECT! If I do say so myself.

And that's about it until next week. Eat well and prosper.

P.S. About those Cubbies...I don't wanna talk about it!

Click on this link to find out what Sunday Soup is, how it got started, and who inspired it! And thanks for stopping by.

Quite a few years ago, The Southerner and I were visiting Victoria and we were having tea at my favorite tea shop, Murchie's. If you've never been there, well, it's worth going to Victoria just for Murchie's! Anyway, we were sitting at a small table eating scones with clotted cream and drinking tea (well, I was eating scones...The Southerner always gets a Danish...at an English tea shop!). Anyway, there was a young woman sitting next to us, having tea with her mother. The tables are small and close together, so it's really quite easy to hear other people's conversations, especially if you're a talented evesdropper writer who needs to listen to other conversations so that you can write good dialogue. Anyway, they were going over a pile of books that they'd scored next door at Munro's Book Store (the second best reason to go to Victoria). One of the books the woman had bought was called The Soup Bible. As they flipped through the book I was practically falling out of my chair trying to see the pictures and read the recipes. I whispered to The Southerner (in case any other writers were around evesdropping) that I HAD to have that book. I slurped down my tea and dragged him out and over to Munro's.

"There it is!" I said, when I spotted it in the window.
"Yeah, okay," he said, still licking the Danish off his fingers.

I hurried inside only to discover that I couldn't find the book anywhere! I finally asked for help and it turned out that the one in the window was the last one, so I made the helpful salesclerk climb into the window and get it out. And get this! It was 30% off!!!

So I took my new Soup Bible all the way back down south where it sat, unopened, for...I don't know...a couple of years, maybe. You see, this was pre-recipes. After I learned the basics of cooking, I made everything up. The food was good, but after a couple of years of this, I started to run out of ideas and so I turned to recipes. I usually alter them some, but lately I've been following them more and more and it's all pretty exciting. In fact, last night I made buerre blanc and served it over a faux chicken breast served on a pile of sauteed mushrooms. The Southerner is still salivating over that. Anyway, short story long, I have finally cracked The Soup Bible and it is as magnificent as I knew it was way back in Murchie's. So there you go.

Tomorrow is an Irish themed day. I'll tell you more about it afterwards.

It was brought to my attention today (by Carol), that I am a total slacker and forgot to update SS yesterday. I believe I have now forgotten two Mondays in a row! Bad hostess!!!

Last week I had an excuse (my deadline), this week...not so much. But anyway, here's the scoop.

The font is red in honour of tomatoes! While there weren't any tomatoes in my Red Beans & Rice, I did cut up several tomatoes that The Southerner grew and put them on a plate with salt and pepper. Also, all our windowsills are lined with tomatoes he grew. And there's more coming! Also, nearly every dish, except the desserts, included fresh, homegrown tomatoes. It's that time of year. Some of the fabulous salads were packed with island grown produce and everything looked as good as it tasted! We had about twenty-five or so people, which breaks our record for SS (Carol's birthday held the previous record) and we also broke the "I brought pie" record, but believe me...no one here, least of all The Southerner, is complaining about an abundance of pie. Yummmy!

The Red Beans & Rice was a hit, although there were a few funny looks as people bit into the sausage, but that was because they thought it was real sausage and didn't realize it was fake (or faux if you want to get fancy). I pretty much made RB&R the way our friend Ross had taught me, except I used Frank's Red Hot Sauce instead of tobasco because I like it better. It still forces you to open all the windows and doors once you add it to the sausage pan though...the vapours are pretty toxic and we were both coughing for a while (not on the food though). I'm sure some chemist or chef could explain it, but all I know is that if everyone around starts choking while you're making it, you're doing it right.

Only one person said they were disappointed that I didn't make an actual "soup", but the beans were somewhat soupy, so I think it counts. For the first time since I started SS, I actually made soup just for us on Monday night. Guess what kind? Yep...Creamy Roasted Tomato.

Until next week...or whenever I manage to remember to update... Everybody eat some soup!

P.S. The Southerner did not make cornbread because our kitchen was too packed with people. We now have a quart of buttermilk that needs to be used up, so I am just guessing that next week might be a cornbread weekend.

Click on this link to find out what Sunday Soup is, how it got started, and who inspired it! And thanks for stopping by.

Hello y'all! Tomorrow we're having a Southern Sunday Soup...well, okay, it's only sorta southern (my part of it). I'm making red beans and rice, which is not really soup either, but sort of soupy so I guess it counts. My good friend Ross from Louisiana taught me how to make it last year before we left Tennessee. The thing is, a true southerner would cringe at my dish because, and this nearly killed Ross to do it, we made a vegetarian version of it using Tofurky sausage! In my opinion it was great! And even Ross admitted, albeit grudgingly that "it's not as bad as I was afraid it would be". Also, there are a lot of hippie-dippie Sunday Soup goers here, so it's likely to get a pass tomorrow too.

Tomorrow is our one year anniversary of moving to Canada, so we're having a special Sunday Soup potluck. I haven't decided what bread to make, but I might see if The Southerner (who is back from his trip down south, where he ate the vegetarian special every time he went out to eat - a grilled cheese sandwich) could be coerced into making a few rounds of cornbread. I think he loves the oohs and ahhs and attention he gets when he does this, so I doubt it will be too hard to convince him!

Our good friend, and occasional Sunday Soup attendee, Steve Elder, is doing a gig with his band in the evening, so I think that most everyone will clear out quickly around 7pm so they can hurry over to hear him play. The Southerner is probably going to go, but if we have people here who aren't going, I can hardly kick them out (even though Carol says I can) so I might end up giving it a miss. Of course that means I will have to do all the cleaning up eat all the leftover dessert.

Hope to see y'all here!

Click on this link to find out what Sunday Soup is, how it got started, and who inspired it! And thanks for stopping by.

It rained. Rain can do one of two things. It either brings everyone out and over for soup, or they all stay in. This time they all stayed in. Except Carol, her friend, and Calvin. Even The Southerner was gone.

I barely got the soup done, and it tasted good, but my brain was so fried from doing all my edits (7 1/2 hours on Saturday and 3 1/2 before making the soup), that at a quarter to three, I said to myself, "today we're having crackers". And that's what I served with the soup. When only two people showed up, I was really glad I hadn't forced myself to make two dozen muffins!

We had a nice chat, sat under the eaves and watched the rain, and by 5:30, they'd gone home and I was back to work.

Next week is our big one-year-anniversary-in-our-new-country potluck, so I expect things won't be quite so quiet then!

For the first time, I had to make the soup ON Sunday instead of yesterday. I am on a very tight deadline with my new book, but this of course, makes me very happy because it means that MY AGENT SOLD MY BOOK!!! Oh, wait, we covered that last week. Anyway, I ended up working all day yesterday and all morning today, so I just made the soup at noon. It's pretty much done now, and it's tasty, considering I mostly made it up! Yes, I like to live dangerously.

The soup is a cream cheese broccoli soup with egg noodles. Yummm! I have to take my lactose pills in order to eat it, but I think it's worth it. The Southerner is away today, so it's just me and the cats hosting today. Sophie got ready for her hostess duties by rolling around in the dirt, so she's not really white anymore. But she's still cute.



Okay...now I have two hours to come up with some sort of bread. I'm thinking...muffins? Yeah, muffins.

Oh, and by the way, here's another thing that makes me very happy, besides the fact that MY AGENT SOLD MY BOOK! The Cubs have clinched their division and we're going to the playoffs! Wahooo!!!

More later....probably tomorrow as I have several hours of work left to do tonight  in order to meet my deadline tomorrow.

I totally forgot to update SS this week. I have plenty of excuses, like I did two performances of a play on Sunday and I'm on a very tight deadline for my book edits. Cool reasons, eh?

But this was a special Sunday Soup so it must be blogged about! Not only did The Southerner make a most excellent barley vegetable soup, but we had a Guest Hostess! Carol stepped in to welcome the multitudes of guests in our absence. Okay, it's true, we came home from the matinee performance to find her sitting in the sun, reading...alone...but the soup was hot, the spoons had been retrieved from the dishwasher, and she was READY. We feel confident that should we ever actually have to leave town and put her completely in charge, she is ready. Carol can handle Sunday Soup on her own. Yay, Carol!

Calvin did not come. We're still not sure why, but I guess he just needed a little time to himself. Just because he is usually a social butterfly-cat does not mean he is obligated to come to SS every week. Although, he really missed out because I forgot to hide Miss Sophie and Grinder's cat food! We did send home a dire warning with Carol...The catnip is not long for this world. You see, if I leave it outside...the frost will probably get it sometime soon. And if I take it inside, Grinder will definitely get it, or die trying. It will become his reason for living. There will be no safe place for it within the house. As it is, I've had to hang it from the eaves, almost unreachable by us, just to keep it safe outside. In the house, the catnip should be afraid, very afraid.

By the way, The Southerner's soup was delish and everyone thought so. There were quite a few people sitting on the porch, enjoying the veggies of his labour by the time we had to go back to the theatre for the evening performance. He better be careful or I might start asking him to make the soup once a month! Nah...he's really good about cleaning the house when I cook. If he cooks, he might actually expect me to do the cleaning!

For those of you in the area, don't forget that on Sunday, 28 September, we're having a special Sunday Soup Potluck to celebrate our one year anniversary of living here in Canada! From 4pm on. Here's your chance to bring something (you always ask!). Except Roger...I still have your pie and ice cream in the freezer so you don't have to bring anything. Of course, Roger is the one person I know who doesn't have a computer, so he won't even know I said he's off the hook. Hmmm....I wonder what he'll bring?

Due to the fact that MY AGENT SOLD MY FIRST NOVEL last week, I am suddenly very, very busy with edits! What a wonderful thing to be busy with! Because I am so busy, The Southerner is making the soup this week! He's making a lovely vegetable and barley soup and I'm shouting instructions from my writing room. I expect it will be most excellent as he has proved to be a very good sous chef and is perfectly capable in the kitchen.

Tomorrow's SS will be a little different in that we won't be here. Well, we'll drop in, but for the most part, Carol is the hostess tomorrow (so if you bring a hostess gift, make sure the card is addressed to Carol). The reason she is doing this is because The Southerner and I are acting in plays! Really. I used to be an actress, once upon a time, and he has been an actor for a while now. There is a lovely theatre here, run by the fabulous Antony Holland, and he asked us to do some one-act plays with him. The Southerner is doing The Duck Variations with Antony, and I'm doing a one-woman play called Waking Up. Anyway, we have a matinee at two o'clock and an evening show at seven o'clock, so we'll be running back to the house for soup in between.

One of the other reasons I have been so busy is because I was trying my hand at Little Susie Homemaker and I entered three categories in the Fall Fair today? My bread got third place, my cookies, while delicious to us, did not place, but my Walla Walla Sweet Onion and Cherry Chutney won FIRST Place! That's a blue ribbon! Not bad for my first time out, eh? And thanks to C-----, both the bread and chutney will be at SS tomorrow because she stole it from the table! She was terribly afraid it would go to waste, so I took my ribbons off and looked the other way while she made a run for it with the bread tucked under her arm. The next time I saw her, she looked as innocent as ever...so I guess no one saw her.

All in all, a very satisfying week!

P.S. You'll have to wait a bit longer for photos of the Ugly Mug Club mugs as we haven't had time to photograph them. And if you want to read more about my book and the sale, drop by my website: http://www.joelleanthony.com

If I had a loonie for every person who told me yesterday, "I don't really like kale, but this soup is fantastic," I'd have...well, about two or three loonies (for the Americans reading this, loonies are Canadian dollar coins). The soup really was a big hit, and the cheese and onion bread disappeared fast. Luckily, Antony Holland (yes, THE Antony Holland, the famous Canadian actor who lives here but locally is almost more renowned for his baking) brought four lovely loaves of bread which everyone also enjoyed.

We had some...interesting...music, and below is a picture, taken by The Southerner, of the nutter  Ken who made this crazy instrument. And yes, that is a garbage can!


At first he just played it like a regular bass, with his fingers, but here, he is using The Southerner's fiddle bow to...er...play some jazz. If that's not wacky enough for you, The Southerner has decided they should start a jug band. I'm not sure who's going to play the jug, but I know they're looking for a washboard player who can keep time. If you're interested in chasing cats from your yard, this instrument will do it. Every time the cats would come around, basking in the weak fall sunshine and getting pats (and catnip), Ken would pick it up and they would scatter fast! Of course, I'm just teasing Ken because I know he reads this occasionally. We enjoy both his ecentricities and his music!

Oh, one more Sunday Soup note. After reading Anne's comment last week about her SS and the possibility of using mugs, I totally stole the idea. Of course, my inclination was to go to Williams Sonoma and buy the two handle soup bowls with saucers that go with my dishes, but The Southerner thought we should try GIRO (the recycle center/thrift shop here). I was not too excited about that because...while I don't like to think of myself as a grown-up, I do like some grown-up things and matching dishes is one of those things. Anyway, I gave in because I was sorely lacking in funds. Boy did they have some ugly mugs. And thus the Ugly Mug Club was born. I now have seven ugly mugs, and I encourage anyone who comes to Sunday Soup, to bring their own ugly mugs. We might even have prizes for the ugliest one someday. Watch for pictures next week. Oh, and instead of $150 for WS soup bowls, we spent two loonies.

We're still waiting for the tomatoes to ripen and then all our gardener friends and The Southerner are going to provide me with a enough to make a gazpacho. Until then, I assumed I was on my own, but then our friend, Rick, offered us lots of kale from his garden. I was going to cook it up and then freeze it for later since we can't eat it all and then I thought, why not soup? So I dug around on the internet and found a recipe that looked pretty good, but one that I could alter some too. So tomorrow the soup should be a lovely pale green and very, very healthy! We better thaw out the pie Roger brought last week. We don't want to get a bad reputation for serving health food at Sunday Soup!

As I was drifting off to sleep last night I suddenly remembered that I'd forgotten to update Sunday Soup. It was probably total exhaustion due to having cooked for three days straight. Usually, I cook on Saturday and Sunday, but last Friday I was feeling like cooking, so I made a bunch of stuff then too.

I made practice rolls on Saturday and they were supposed to come out like sandwich rolls, but ended up more like hotdog buns. I might be a vegetarian, but I LOVE Morning Star faux hotdogs (all other ones are TERRIBLE), so I am planning to split and freeze Saturday's bread and use them with hotdogs. Yesterday, I made more of the same dough (a sort of light whole wheat/all purpose bun) and played around with them, making crescents and other shapes and then sprinkling them with poppy seeds, Italian seasonings, and Parmesan. The Southerner took this photo:



We had an out-of-town guest, some of the Regulars, and a few of the Occasionals for Sunday Soup, and while I wasn't that excited about the soup this week, it seemed to go down pretty well. It was a Lebonese inspired lentil soup seasoned with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and lemon. It looked totally different than it actually tasted because it had the appearance of any lentil soup you've ever had, but then had this sort of fragrant and almost smoky or exotic taste. This is not a soup I would make again, just because I was sort of lukewarm about it, but The Southerner thought it was pretty all right, so he can eat the leftovers.

We really cashed in on the desserts this week too! I made a carrot cake, as is my tradition for our anniversary, to share yesterday and Carol and Calvin brought chocolate chip cookies. After everyone had left, I discovered Roger had brought an apple pie (unopened) and then found a quart of ice cream in the freezer! I am going to freeze the pie and serve it next week.

Two last things...one of my cyber pals and reader of this blog, had her own Sunday Soup yesterday! She promised to post in the comments (and is probably just waiting for me to get my act together and post this) all about it and tell us how it went! And the other thing is just a teaser...we have a very special Sunday Soup coming up at the end of this month...more details soon!

Quick update: Anne has left a long comment in the comment section all about her first Sunday Soup! Make sure you read it, it's great. And I might be stealing her idea of using mugs instead of bowls, because it makes all kinds of sense! Thanks Anne!

I didn't update yesterday because I was busy cooking. And it was my fourth wedding anniversary! The soup is a Lebonese inspired lentil, and quite possibly the easiest soup I've ever made. It's rich with cinnamon and tastes yummy. There's not much to say about it now though, so instead, I'll leave you with this little piece of wedding cake humor. Enjoy!

I don't really know what that means, "here's mud in yer eye", but it's some sort of toast or something, right? Anyway, I took Julia's advice (and The Southerner, who agrees with her) and didn't mention to any of the guests that I thought the soup looked...well...less than appetizing, and they all dished it up and many of them had seconds and I think you could call it a success. I ended up making a peach and onion chutney to go on the homemade bread that I toasted on the panini grill. That was VERY popular. And two of our guests brought these nifty crackers - pumpkin seed and cranberry - along with a round of Brie. And Carol donated truffles to the cause, so all in all, it was a very lovely Sunday Soup.

Nathan brought his friends from Dawson (Yukon) and a bouquet of beans from his garden. Later we examined the map and marveled over how far north Dawson is and that anyone can survive in minus forty degree weather, but there they were, living proof that it can be done. There were a few Sunday Soup virgins too, and the "regulars", although Calvin missed since it was raining and we were all inside. He'll be wondering about his catnip fix. I should've sent some home with Carol.

I spent most of yesterday and a lot of today in the kitchen. Besides the soup, I cooked a lot of other things, put up ten pounds of peaches (I sliced them for the freezer, but "put up" makes me sound like Suzie Homemaker and there's something appealing about that!) and a whole bunch of zucchini too, and did a lot of cleaning to boot. You'd think I would've earned a well-needed rest by now, being that it's nine-thirty pm, but alas...there's still a hungry Southerner in the house. Soup is just an appetizer after all. Luckily, I planned ahead and turned some of that squash into a cheesy-mushroomy-squashy- pasta casserole. It should be done just about...NOW!

Today was joyfully loud, the conversation fun, and the food good. All in all, a very pleasing, rainy afternoon. See y'all next week.

Truth be told, I'm a little worried about Sunday Soup tomorrow. I made the soup today and well...has anyone ever tried to set you up on a blind date and when you asked what the guy (girl) looked like your friend said, "He has a nice personality"?

Well...as The Southerner would say, "I'll tell you what's the truth." Tomorrow's soup tastes great, but it ain't pretty.

It was super labour intensive too. And ironically, it was one of the labour intensive steps that turned it the colour of mud. If you are a Harry Potter fan, you might remember when they made polyjuice potion to make themselves look like Crabbe & Goyle? Well, that's about what my soup looks like. But it tastes great, I swear! Maybe we can have a theme day tomorrow...like...how about Blindfold Sunday? Or Eat With Your Eyes Closed Cuisine. Oh, I know! I'll have The Southerner get the first big bowl and once they see him eating, they'll know it's okay. No...that won't work. Everyone knows he'll eat anything. After all, his other nickname is No Dog.

Julia Child would be so disappointed in me if she were reading this. She would say that I should just serve it and never admit that it doesn't look exactly the way I meant for it to look. And I suppose she's right. But she has the advantage that instead of calling it Black Bean Soup with Roasted Vegetable Stock, it would have the fancy name: Soupe aux fèves noir avec les actions végétales rôties. That sounds so much better! Even if they do both look like le dirt.

I'm going to go for humour (here) and distraction (tomorrow - bruschetta with spicy peach topping) to complement it. And if all else fails...maybe I'll break out the biscotti I made tonight too.