Sunday Soup This Sunday!

Don't forget, this Sunday is the first Sunday of the month, as well as 2011, so don't forget to come to Sunday Soup. Looking forward to seeing y'all!

Last Sunday Soup of 2010

Tonight was the last Sunday Soup of 2010. Time does fly when you're eating soup with friends and family! It's been a big year around here and SS has gone through some changes. There was the second annual SS in May, Sunday Salad, hosted by the Sous Chef and the Pastry Chef when I was on my book tour, a hiatus in July and another in October. And we also lost one of SS's greatest fans, my grandmother (see post below).

Another change is we only have SS on the first Sunday of each month (which apparently still does not mean I will have my act together enough to blog each month as I totally forgot in November). All in all, it's been a wonderful year though and I'm glad the SS tradition will carry on, even if it is just once a month.

It's actually a good thing because we found out that I'm allergic to potatoes. Thanks to the Southerner's excellent use of deductive reasoning. For years either he or the Sous Chef has had to cut up the potatoes when we made the soup because otherwise I would have a hay fever-like reaction. Turns out, all those stomach aches? Yeah...potatoes! Who knew? Apparently, The Southerner. He said, "Ummm...maybe if you're allergic to the peels, you're allergic to the potatoes." Turns out, he was right. Once a month he gets to be right. I was glad that's how he used his opportunity in August. And if we had soup every week now, I don't know how I could possibly come up with that many soups and not use potatoes! Seems impossible to me.

Tonight was a very nice, quiet evening. Chili was on the menu, along with some of my regular bread and The Fleece Lady's wonderful red pepper dip. We also had mandarin oranges and vanilla tea and red wine too. And of course, lots of candles and a fire in the woodstove. They've all left me to clean up (surprise, surprise!) but they had good reason...tonight is the island's holiday choir concert. I hope they all have a wonderful time. And after I'm done...perhaps I'll have that last glass of wine and read a book with the cats in front of the fire. Sounds like a good way to end SS for the year. How about you?

Happy holidays to you all and Happy New Year (a bit early, but you can hang on to the sentiment). Have a great week, and eat lots of soup!

A True Lover of Soup

This is a very special Sunday Soup post. I come by my love of soup honestly. It's generational. Over the last few years, my grandmother has lived on her own, but not really been up to cooking much. Whenever I visited her, I would make her a big pot of soup and put it in small containers for her freezer because she loved nothing more than a bowl of soup for dinner.

A couple of years ago, my aunt and uncle bought my grandmother a machine that allowed me to email her copies of this blog and then it would print out for her automatically. No computer, no new learning curve, just a weekly update of Sunday Soup. She saved them all in a three ring binder. She loved the blog so much, whenever I knew I'd be going down to Portland, I'd start saving one bowl out of each Sunday Soup and freeze it, then I would take a cooler full of frozen soup for her so she could enjoy all the soups she'd only read about.

Yesterday, Grandma passed away after a short battle with pneumonia. One of the very last things she ate was a bowl of tomato soup. I'm sorry to say it wasn't mine, but I did see her last week, and she was eating soup then too. She was so proud of my book being published, even the nurses knew about it. I always joke that there are two things in my family a person can do to make everyone else proud...be a major league baseball player, or write a book. I think in Grandma's eyes, a good pot of soup also gave you a certain status. It's sad to think I won't be sending her anymore Sunday Soup blog posts, but when my mum asked me if I wanted her collection of SS posts back, my aunt said quickly, "I want that!" so maybe now I'll send the posts to my aunt instead.

Please join me in raising a bowl of soup to one great lady.

Norma Tommerup
1922-2010

The Times They Are A Changin'

When we started Sunday Soup, we decided to try it for one month and then continue doing it after that for as long as it was still fun. Don't worry, it's still fun, but my life has gotten a lot busier over the last year, as has The Southerner's. It seems like there are more things we'd like to do on the weekends too, and since I work during the week, and The Southerner does a lot of volunteer work on Saturdays, we don't really have a day off to just hang out together...and we like each other, so we want to!

Next week is our third anniversary of our move to Canada. As we have for the last two years, we're having a big pot-luck during Sunday Soup on 26 September. It should be lots of fun! After that, the things are going to change a bit.

First of all, there will be no SS in October. We have a few things planned for a couple of Sundays, so it just makes the most sense to give SS a miss in October. Starting in November, we'll be on a new schedule. We will only have Sunday Soup on the first Sunday of every month.

So...to get you through the rest of the year, here's our schedule:
September 26th - potluck
October - No SS
November - SS on 7th only
December - SS on the 5th only

Today was a very nice SS. Kind of quiet. The Southerner made the soup, a yummy black bean, because I was busy off at a woodworking workshop with The Neighbour. We each made very cool cutting boards and we showed them off at SS. The Pastry Chef arrived with her first place ribbon for her dressage competition today too. She won in both her events. Congrats to you, Sous Chef!

And that's about it for this week. Hope to see you at the Potluck!

Double Dose of SS

I forgot to post last week because a friend loaned us his entire box set of Monarch of the Glen and we started watching as soon as the last person was out the door. The Southerner was hooked on the Scottish scenery from the first frame and he wants to move there now. But don't worry. We're not going anywhere. He would freeze to death in Scotland!

I know some of you watch TV regularly. Or at at least occasionally, but we watch TV so rarely we have to dust it off in order to see the screen each time we use it. This week, because of Monarch of the Glen we have watched more hours of TV than we've watched in the last three years combined. And we're only through Season 3 (of 7)! And yes, this is why I did not blog last night too.

Anyway, the soup last week was one of my all time favourites. It was a coconut milk-red-curry vegetable soup. You can put any kinds of veggies in it, and/or tofu. It's really yummy. I can't really remember who came last week because all I can think about are the characters in that TV series. I don't think any of them were here, but I can't be sure.

Oh, wait! We actually did have a guest from Scotland last week. The Sous Chef brought her houseguest who was over here for a visit from Glasgow. I made sure she got some nice English Breakfast tea since everywhere she went on this hippie island all she could find was chai and organic herbal blends. I even sent a tin along with them for their road trip to Banff.

This week, I was going to make a nice coriander scented carrot soup, but when The Southerner saw how many of his homegrown carrots it would take, he got a bit shifty. "All of those? But those are for us.... " It kind of reminded me of how The Pastry Chef let her celery die from frost last year instead of eating it because it was too cute to harvest. Anyway, since carrots were out, I made another of my favourite soups, a yummy red lentil dal soup. And there are lots of leftovers in spite of having a pretty full house last night.

I have to admit that I was planning on letting this blog post slide, but then I saw that The Shark mentioned SS on her blog! The Shark has never been to Sunday Soup, but it's on her list of "Things to do Before I Die" so I expect she will swim into the harbour someday and show up at our door.

There's probably more to tell, but I'm taking the day off from work for Labour Day and it's rainy and cool, so I think I'll go see if The Southerner wants to meet on the couch and watch TV, er...read a book.

Drop that egg!

Today we had egg drop soup with New Zealand spinach that I picked out of the garden this morning. It's best freshly made, so I had hot stock on hand and then had all the other ingredients ready and I made four bowls at a time as people wanted them. It's quite easy and fun to make. You can find the recipe here. Obviously, I used vegetable stock, not chicken stock because this is a vegetarian house.

The Southerner was away for ten days, but got here just a few minutes past four o'clock, so he was in time to visit with everyone and tell us about his trip to bicycle mechanic school in Ashland, Oregon. He's now passed out on the couch, resting up for bedtime (after riding over to the garden to make sure I didn't kill it while he was gone...I mean, to check on its progress).

All in all, a very nice Sunday Soup today. Although, we do have an unusual number of wasps (or yellow jackets, depending on where you're from) on the sunny porch, and it was too cold to sit on the shady porch, so we did have to stay inside. It wasn't that warm though anyway. Fall is already in the air.

By the way, if you're wondering why there wasn't a post last week, it's because only The Neighbour showed up and while our conversation was scintillating, and we actually had a seven course meal, starting with fresh vegetable soup and ending with raspberry mousse in chocolate cups, I was too full to write about it. I'm sorry y'all missed it though. That'll teach you to skip Sunday Soup just because it's 34 degrees outside (that's 93.2 for you Yanks).

Zucchini coming out of our ears...

Last summer was a great year for zucchini (what summer isn't?). We had one plant and this year, as I defrosted the last of it in June, I begged The Southerner, "Can't you just plant half a plant?" He laughed and then planted TWO! One yellow, one green.

As fast as I can figure out things to do with them, he brings me more. But abundance is a good thing, so I just try to be creative instead of whining. And it turns out, yesterday, he saved my tofu bacon.

We had rain yesterday for the first time since June and because of it, laziness ensued. I slipped on my raingear over my pajamas and went to the farmer's market for breakfast essentials - doughnuts and egg sammiches- and before The Southerner had realized I'd even left the house, I was back and in my pajamas again. I spent the day drinking tea and reading, and then took a nap and when I woke up, The Sous Chef was on her way to cook. Egads! Cook what? I had no idea. At least until I looked around the kitchen and saw the pile of yellow zucchini overflowing in the fruit bowl.

I quickly ran to to my computer and typed in Spicy Zucchini Potato Soup and this recipe popped up. And yes, I did just make up the name of the kind of soup I hoped to make and a recipe did exist online. Magnificent thing, the internet! By the time The Sous Chef had arrived, I had showered and actually looked like I knew what the big cooking plan was. I was back in my pajamas though, so she was a little suspicious.

I've made a lot of zucchini soups. In fact, you may remember last year The Fix-it Guy challenged me to make a zucchini soup every week for the month of August and I did it. And people still came to SS. But this was by far the best one. I think it was the addition of red potatoes. It was also probably the easiest one.

I wasn't quite so quick on the "What are we making for dinner tonight?" question from The Sous Chef though, and we ended up getting The Southerner to make a salad while we "ran an errand." In other words, went to the coffee shop for take-out panini sandwiches - is panini sandwiches redundant? Maybe it should just be panini or sandwiches...either way, it was a lovely day and a nice evening with good food, and today's Sunday Soup was full of friends and frivolity. I hope you have an excellent week and I'll see you here next Sunday.

We're Back!

Happy August, Everyone!
Boy, July just flew by and Sunday Soup is on again. We've decided to take July and January off each year. We did miss you all, and we're surprisingly low on island gossip, considering I never really thought of Sunday Soup as a gossip hub. I think it's more like we just don't know what our friends are up to these days, what trips they're taking or what concerts they've been to, that sort of thing, not actual gossip.

Today was a fairly quiet, ease-back-into it Sunday Soup. The Pastry Chef and The Sous Chef showed up at the beginning and stayed for a few hours and The Fix-it Guy came alone and held court at the table. It was really nice and relaxing. So relaxing in fact, The Southerner had to make some vanilla black (caffeinated) tea and we had to break out the chocolate in order to keep The Sous Chef awake. After the chefs left, The Neighbour showed up, bearing gifts of our favourite kind...a bag of organic vegetables! While it's true The Southerner is growing us tons of great food, we're always happy to take more organic veggies off anyone's hands! Yay.

The soup today was a special one because it was entirely out of The Southerner's garden (except the celery which came from The Farmers, but don't tell him). It was a lovely and light soup, made with veggie stock, yellow and green zucchini, onions, carrots, potatoes, and the aforementioned celery. I made it this afternoon so it would be really, really fresh and it turned out quite delish.

Because we went to a potluck last night, I totally forgot to make any bread. Since I had the time this morning, I made the more challenging kind, you know...the kind that takes some muscle to stir up and then you have to knead. I used a recipe for herb walnut bread with lemon zest. It's really yummy! And even though we ate tons, there is one whole loaf left! Fabulous.

Before everyone arrived, I toasted a slice of the bread (just to make sure it wasn't poison - I'm thoughtful that way) and added oven roasted tomatoes and olive oil and it was sooooo good! There is definitely more of that in our future. Like, probably for dinner. Oh, guess what we're having? Roasted vegetables from The Southerner's garden and red quinoa. We're pretty much eating some variation on onions, potatoes, carrots, and greens for the rest of the summer and beyond!

I just read a great memoir on learning to cook at le Cordon Bleu in Paris, assuming you eat meat or you aren't too queasy about the details (I am, but I toughed it out) called THE SHARPER YOUR KNIFE, THE LESS YOU CRY. I highly recommend it to any of you foodies out there.

And that's about it for this week. I do want to say that during the hiatus, The Sous Chef had her birthday. While we didn't celebrate it at SS, I did make her a cake and have her over for dinner and she did wear the Birthday Princess banner. Anyway, Happy Birthday a bit late to The Sous Chef!

I'll leave you with this picture. The Neighbour's cat, Tigre is not a favourite of our cat, Miss Marley, so when he followed The Neighbour over to our house, Marley took refuge on top of The Fix-It Guy's truck! So cute, if you ask me.

Sunday Soup is on hiatus for the month of July

Hi All.
FYI, we're not doing Sunday Soup for the month of July. This was a tough decision for us because summer is such a great time to have wonderful soups made from fresh veggies right out of the garden. It's nice and sunny and we can all gather on the porch too. We usually get lots more people in the summer too, which is fun.

However, we've discovered that there are events in the summer that we'd like to attend and often can't because of SS. This year, two of them are taking place the first two Sundays of July, so we took it as a sign that it was time for a little break for The Chef and some adventures for both her and The Southerner.

So this year, after over two years of continuous soup, we're taking a short break. We'll be back in August though, so don't forget us. And you know what August is...right? Yep! Zucchini Month!

Garden Fresh!

Today we had Green Goddess Soup. It's called that because it's green and I like alliteration, not because I think I'm a goddess. But if you want to think so, that's okay.

The soup included, from The Southerner's garden: kale & New Zealand Spinach and from The Farmers' garden - organic broccoli. It also had potatoes, green beans, onion, and secret spices. Okay, the secret spices are actually not that secret. I used Italian vinaigrette salad dressing base from Penzey's. I once made salad dressing out of it and it was totally gross, but it's nice in soups.

The bread was the usual, with olive oil. And The Neighbour brought her famous chocolate chip cookies. We were treated to a lovely flute performance by The Flautist (new nickname, for those of you keeping a cast list) on one of those wooden Japanese flutes that I can't spell properly. Very charming and we all enjoyed it. The Fix-it Guy could barely stay upright and if The Southerner hadn't kept him talking, I'm pretty sure he would've slumped all the way down onto the couch and taken a nap. It was because he and The Fleece Lady had traipsed all over the island for the Garden Show.

The Pastry Chef did show up, but The Sous Chef decided to lay low since last night she came over to cook and ended up reading a novel on the couch while I made both the soup and the dinner. That's okay, next time I'm going to read on the couch while she cooks!

And that's about it from here. Hope you have a great weekend.

An absence in the neighbourhood!

It's that time of year again...the Neighbour's birthday. We laid out the Birthday Princess banner (most recently worn by The Fix-it Guy on his birthday - sorry, no photo) and the bread of choice was her favourite, corn bread....but where was the Birthday Princess? Nowhere to be seen, that's where! The banner sat forlorn and abandoned, the cornbread got scarfed down by everyone except The Neighbour, and the very mild (as in not-spicy) three bean soup was enjoyed by all...all except The Neighbour.

Never fear though. She did not fall down her stairs or trip over one of her cats, she simply spent the day on a hike with a friend. And I did manage to save her both soup, and one piece of cornbread.

We had a very nice time in spite of her absence and The Sous Chef brought a bunch of her friends from Uni, so it was something like a party (with soup instead of beer). We had a full house, and even spilled out onto the porch - a very nice day indeed.

And I still have the Birthday Princess banner for the next princess...I believe that might just be The Sous Chef (she's already "ordered" her cake - she wants a vanilla one like last year).

Have a great week everyone!

It wasn't my fault!

Last Sunday, blogger was down so I couldn't post about Sunday Soup. I actually didn't go to Sunday Soup, so it would've been hard to come up with much to write anyway. I had a big week on the road last week (book signings, yay!) and so I actually hid out at The Neighbour's house for a while catching up on my to-do-before-I-go list.

This week was quite the scurrying around for soup. I didn't even make it until 3pm! We'd gone down to Victoria for the weekend to do a book event at Tall Tales Books, and so yesterday was a bit crazy. But I made my old stand-by, Potato-Leek, and everyone was happy. It all worked out great. And The Fix-it guy brought a salad with the yummiest dressing ever. Mmmm...lots of garlic! He even let me keep the leftovers. Oh, and did I mention he grew the lettuce? Yep!

It was nice enough to be out on the porch for the FIRST time all year, so The Neighbour and I sat out there for a while, but there was fresh bread and olive oil on the table, so everyone else stayed in the kitchen, sopping up the oil with the bread and having a lively discussion on...yep, the oil disaster in the Gulf. Sometimes, it's not all fun and games at SS, but serious conversations are part of it too.

Anyway, thanks for checking in and see you next week!

Good to be home...

The menu was back to soup this week, although I'm quite impressed with my cooking students innovative approach to Sunday Soup last week - making it Sunday Salad instead. I heard that everyone who came kept asking them, "What went wrong with your soup?" and they had to keep explaining nothing went wrong, they hadn't even tried to make any.

Just so you know, they are both very capable of making soup, so I think it's great they tried something new. And The Southerner and I appreciate them covering for us too.

The Southerner and I have mostly given up dairy. If a restaurant salad comes with Parmesan, we'll lick the plates 'cause that's what we miss most, but dairy just isn't good for me and The Southerner is a good husband, so he's given it up too. Anyway, the reason I'm explaining this is because one of the favourite Sunday Soups is corn chowder. I can still make it with Silk (soy milk), but I wanted to try and make a clear corn soup like I'd had in a restaurant recently, so this is what I did.

I made a very light vegetable stock and then I added diced potatoes, sliced leek, red peppers, orange peppers, celery, onion, and a big bag of frozen corn. For seasoning, I used salt, pepper, and thyme. It turned out pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. Very light and fresh. I just realized I meant to add carrots, but I forgot. They would've been nice, especially for colour, but it was still bright and cheerful without them. This soup was really fast to make too, which was nice. This week The Southerner played the role of sous chef because we had guests coming all day Saturday and so we had to whip it up while we made dinner Friday night.

Today's SS was fun, with lots of people and a fire because it's cold and rainy, which made it cozy. And yesterday we had quite the bash here on our island, with music, food, a reading and presentation, and book signing to celebrate the Canadian launch of my new book. Wish you could have been there (or maybe you were, and in that case, thanks for coming!).For those of you interested in my book tour, The Southerner put together this very fun slide show of my U.S. events from last week.

See y'all next week!

S.S. - Sunday Salad!

Hello world! Pastry Chef Here!
First off I would like to say that if I get your nicknames wrong-I'm sorry.
Second you may be wondering why I'm here. Well, the blogger is off on a little road trip! She is traveling the coast with the Southerner to do book signings! How existing! I'm sure we'll hear lots about there trip when they come back.
But for the time that there gone, you get ME! Lucky you!
So back to what happened at SS this weekend. Well, instead of soup, Sous Chef and I mixed it up and made salad for everyone. (and no, nothing happened to our soup) We thought it would be a nice change, there was a fresh green salad with lettuce from,-I forget their nickname, but lets call them the gardeners, and Egg salad made by Sous Chief. We didn't made the bread, (partly because we didn't have time, and partly because we forgot how to!) but it was fresh from the fast sinking bakery(hey, look at that, I made up a new nickname!).
We also had delicious banana bran muffins made by yours truly!
Over all I think Sunday Salad was a huge success, the writer, the fix-it man and his wife(sock lady), One couple I don't know their nickname for (But they are gratefully thanked because they brought watermelon- yum!) and the neighbour and pooh Bear's friend all came over. And I think everyone of them asked us what we did wrong with our soup. (FYI We didn't make soup) And best part of all, we didn't poison anyone with out cooking! Well...I haven't seen any of them sense they left... but I'm sure they're fine. Maybe... Hopefully...
Anyway that's all for now, Pasty Chief has left the Blog!

Long day, but nice

Long day here...eating peanut butter and banana sandwiches for supper. All the soup's gone. It's because I made Thai Vegetable Soup with Coconut Milk and it was so fantabulous we ate all but half a bowl, which The Southerner generously offered to eat after everyone left so we could wash the crockpot. He's good that way.

I got the recipe here. And I made it times 4 which made enough for 14 people or so. I added thinly sliced carrots and broccoli, and instead of canned mushrooms I used diced white mushrooms. SUPER! It's a pretty easy soup to make, but does take a while to cut everything up.

Oh, the dinger on the toaster oven just went off. Gotta run and make the sandwiches. Next week, the Sous Chef and The Pastry Chef are making the soup themselves (and bread, I presume?). Should be very yummy. They've come a long way since I first showed them how to grate cheese!

P.S. If you're interested in my book, it came out last Thursday in the US, this Tuesday in Canada. Click on the link on the sidebar and visit my site for more info!

Ahhh...relaxing...

Today we had a nice, relaxing Sunday Soup. We had six people, including one newbie, plus us, which was fun. The soup was a lovely egg drop and spinach soup. Because it's Mother's Day, The Sous Chef didn't come, but she did come over last night and help me wash the spinach. The soup is best if it's made at the last minute, so I essentially made it just moments before everyone arrived. Cleaning all that spinach is a job though, so I appreciated her help last night.

It was nice and sunny, but it's been a cool spring so far and we haven't moved out onto the porch yet, although for the first two years, we've always been outside in May. Maybe next week.

It was such a relaxing SS, that the Fix-it Guy kept falling asleep in his chair, and the second everyone was out the door, The Southerner headed for the couch for his nap. Me? I'm too excited to nap. Why? Because not only does my book finally go on sale THIS THURSDAY, but it's already in some stores and today, someone sent me a photo of it "in the wild" as we say in publishing...in other words, for sale in a bookstore! It's the blue one, front and centre (Restoring Harmony).

Hope you have wonderful week!

Two Years and Counting!

Yesterday was the 2nd anniversary of Sunday Soup! Oddly enough, even though I forgot to remind people, and I didn't even tell them that The Pastry Chef was making The Southerner a birthday cake, we had a HUGE crowd. Including us, there were 18 people at Sunday Soup yesterday.

Not only did The Pastry Chef make a beautiful checkerboard cake, but The Fleece Lady brought a wheat-free carrot and pineapple cake. I didn't get any yesterday, but there's half a piece with my name on it in the fridge. In fact, cake is about all we have in the fridge. There's the orange juice cake I made The Southerner on his actual birthday, plus a little of the two from yesterday. Life is good!

We got a few cans of soup for the food bank, but since I forgot to remind people, we didn't get many. We'll keep collecting if anyone wants to bring any next week.

I had a pretty busy week and no time to cook this weekend, so The Southerner and I had extra coffee yesterday and then we did a speed clean on the house and made Potato Leek soup just a few hours before people showed up. We can literally make that soup in ten minutes if we work together and then it only has to cook for about 30 minutes. And people love it. Thank you, Julia Child!

How busy was I this weekend? Well...I bought bread! Yes, bought it! I think that might've been the first time for SS. But it was tasty bakery bread, and local...and organic, so it was all good.

How was your week? Eat any good soup?

Remember Me?

Hi All.
I'm betting you thought I fell into a vat of my own soup and disappeared, but that'd be silly because I'm a VEGETARIAN! I'd never fall into the soup or I'd be violating the most basic rule of Sunday Soup!

After a bit of gentle nudging (Anne) and some not so gentle kicks in the butt (Sous Chef), I am finally back to update SS! It's been an exciting few weeks since I posted too. Last week was my birthday and The Sous Chef made me a most delicious ice cream cake ALL BY HERSELF! She did borrow my spring form pan, but other than that, she did it alone!

The buttercream frosting was my favourite part. Why? Because the night before she made the cake, she was over here cooking with me and this is how our conversation went.

Sous Chef: I'm a little worried about the frosting.
Me: Why?
SC: Because I've never made frosting before.
Me: You didn't frost the other cakes you made?
SC: Well, yeah...but I got it out of a can.( BIG SIGH) I can't do that for you.
Me: (Evil laughter!) That's right, baby! And don't even try it.

So she made the frosting from scratch. And get this, she remembered I liked candied pecans, but there weren't any at the grocery store, so she got online and found a recipe and made them herself!!! I was so proud! And they were totally yummy.

In other news, I was supposed to help The Sous Chef make soup for the volunteers at The Commons one Saturday morning, but my phone got unplugged (it was an accident, I swear) and she ended up making soup for twenty people ALL BY HERSELF. And I got there just in time to eat it and it was DELICIOUS. You do realize what this means, right? It means that I taught someone who thought grated cheese got that way by buying it in a bag and frosting came in a can how to cook!!!!

Anyway, enough about TSC, who wasn't even here today, but did come last night and chop a LOT of broccoli for the Broccoli Almond soup. This is a yummy and delish soup. However, we won't be having it often because I almost passed out at the checkout when my tiny bag of bulk blanched almonds cost $12.47!!!

The Southerner and I are cutting out butter for the most part and so we've been offering up different things (besides the obvious one, soup) to go with the bread. Today I had a homemade hummus and also some blackberry-blueberry-chipotle sauce (which I think only The Fix-it Guy ate). It's really quite tasty though, so as The Southerner says whenever someone says, "Oh, I don't really like X," more for me!

Even though I try not to talk about my job/book here too much, I do have to point out that since my last post, my website has received an all new facelift and you can watch the book trailer and hear the music from the book, performed by The Southerner and The Fiddler.

I'll try to do better on updates, but you never know! I did miss you all though. Oh, oh! I can't forget, this is really important and I forgot to remind everyone who came today...Next weekend is the Second Anniversary of Sunday Soup! Two whole years! And what that means is that we will be doing our annual "soup drive for PHC." If you come to Sunday Soup, please bring canned soup donations for the foodbank and we will deliver them. Last year, we had around 25 cans. I think we can do better this year, don't you? See you then!

Tonight we had my favourite soup. A red lentil dal (that turns yellow when you cook it) and scallion pancakes. So yummy, I'm going to go have some more.

If I had spring allergies, they would probably make me too tired to write anything else, but I don't have them because I REFUSE to have them. So I'm just too tired to write more for no reason. Have a good week!

Two For One

Even though I haven't been posting much on this blog, I do mean to at least get the menu up every week! But last week, I totally slacked off.

The Fix-it Guy gave me a big bag of garlic from his garden and requested garlic soup. I made a roasted garlic and roasted potato soup, which was pretty good. The Southerner said, and I quote, "It tastes like dirt...or maybe just smells like dirt. That's why I like it." Ummm...okay...

Interestingly enough, The Fix-it Guy did not actually come to SS and so I sent him his in jars on Tuesday and he didn't even like it. So, that's the last request I'm taking from him. :-)

I also made a buttermilk quick bread which was excellent, and especially good later in the week when I turned it into this wine-cheese-egg bake dish. Oh, yum!

It's now just after four, and no one's here yet, so I'll just quickly post about today's soup. It is that time of year when the freezer needed to be inventoried and we have to start eating everything from last summer that we haven't (I know food guides say stuff loses it's flavour after 3 months, but I think that's just some organized food propaganda because we're eating lots of stuff from the garden still and it's fantastic). Anyway, I had a LOT of zucchini still from that one plant so last night the Sous Chef and I made a very nice curry zucchini soup with sour cream. I forgot to make the bread before bed, so today I made two loaves of whole-grain sunflower bread (made with whole wheat flour and whole grain cereal). It's about as hippie as it sounds, but it's actually quite tasty and I'm already thinking about breakfast tomorrow - toast with local honey (when I say local, I mean LOCAL, as in just down the street!).

So there you go, two SS in one, and I even rambled on a bit! My Grandma will be pleased as she's been missing her SS update. She'll be even more pleased to hear that since I'll be coming to visit, I'm going to start filling her soup containers again and I'll be bringing lots of soup to her!

Have a great week everyone!
P.S. The Fix-it Guy just showed up and says it's snowing! It hasn't snowed all winter! I think he's imagining it though. All I see is rain.

Happy Birthday to the Pastry Chef

This week is the Pastry Chef's birthday, so her sister, The Sous Chef came over on Friday night and we made a fabulous corn chowder. This morning, at the crack of dawn (okay, 9:30am), the Sous Chef came over again, and we made this cake!

It's The Pastry Chef's Sweet Sixteen birthday and she had informed me on numerous occasions that the cake had better be special and NOT vanilla, like The Sous Chef wanted. So while this cake might look like vanilla (we tricked her), it was actually a three layer Red Velvet Cake with butter cream frosting in the shape of a heart with sprinkles. Special enough? She thought so!


Happy Birthday, Pastry Chef!

Happy Chinese New Year!

So today just happens to be the Chinese New Year, which is very fitting because on Friday I found out that my publisher sold the rights to my book, Restoring Harmony, to CHINA! That's right, my book is coming out in China. Pretty cool, eh?

To celebrate, I made Hot and Sour Soup and Scallion Pancakes. It was all pretty yummy. Although, scallion pancakes for a crowd takes quite a bit of time. For the soup, I used a mixture of a couple of different recipes. And for the pancakes, I doubled this recipe. Enjoy!

P.S. Last week we had vegetable soup and bread and an obligation right after SS, which is why I didn't post anything at all. Sorry!

Sorry folks...

All I can manage today is the menu:
Tomato Orange Soup
The Southerner's Famous Cornbread

Yum.

24 January 2010

Potato Leek Soup
Buttermilk biscuits with chives and cheese

Sunday Soup ended early so we could go to the island's Concert for Haiti. Four hundred generous people and a lot of volunteers raised $14,000 , plus the silent auction proceeds (figures not available yet) in one evening.

We live on an island. It could be us. But it wasn't, so we will give, and give, and give. And the Canadian government will match our efforts.

Blessings to you all.

A Blog Break

Hi Everyone,
Well...Sunday Soup is still going strong. We've had several new guests over the last few months, and both The Sous Chef and The Pastry Chef are coming right along in the kitchen and making wonderful things to eat.

However...

Truth be told, I'm getting a little burnt out on this blog. I don't really know what to write each week anymore. I seem to be using all my words to write my new book too, which makes it hard to be creative here. So...I hope you will bear with me while I take a break from blogging. I will still check in each week with a menu update, but that's about it. I know that some of you who live off island like to catch up on what's going on here, but after almost two years, I just need a bit of a blogging break.

So, that said, the soup today was Pumpkin and Delicata squash with Sage and Maple Syrup. There were two kinds of bread: Challah and a whole wheat. Much thanks to The Pastry Chef for helping to make the soup and bringing wonderful cookies today!

Have a great week, everyone! And thanks for being so understanding.

Vacation

I know...I know...I'm letting all y'all down, but I really need a vacation from blogging this week because my deadline for my new book is pressing upon me (it's a good thing, but it takes all the words I have right now).

Just know that we had SS, it was fun, we missed you if you weren't there, and the soup was...oh, man...I can't even remember. No, wait! I do. Onion with cheesy toast.

See you next week!

Is Today Sunday?

The Sous Chef has bronchitis. Don't worry, she was banned from the kitchen and she's gone back to University where she can infect a lot more people than we get at SS (I know...I know...she's not contagious anymore...that was a joke, SC!)

The Pastry Chef came over though, on Friday night, and we made Chunky Garden Vegetable Soup. Guess where we got the veggies? Yep! The Southerner grew them. You knew that already, though, didn't you?

The Pastry Chef didn't actually come over to make soup, she came over to learn to make bread. You see, for holiday break homework, she was supposed to do a random act of kindness and so she asked me to teach her to make her bread and then she took the loaf of bread with her on a walk the next morning and gave it to the first stranger she met! How sweet was that? She met a fellow dog walker and handed it off, and because we live in a small community, the guy was just glad to get it, not worried about being poisoned or anything! Yay, small communities! And yay Pastry Chef!

Anyway, she ended up helping me make the soup, which is why it is pretty surprising that she did not show up today. I am sorry to say that The Pastry Chef has had entirely TOO MUCH TIME OFF FROM SCHOOL because she LOST TRACK OF THE DAYS and did not realize today was Sunday until I called her afterward to ask where she was!

Luckily for her, despite a huge crowd, and the fact that The Fleece Lady declared this "the best vegetable soup ever" there was ONE bowl left and I saved it for The Pastry Chef.

We had a lot of guests tonight, some new, some regulars. I'd love to be clever and give all the new guests nicknames, but basically I'm just too lazy...I mean, tired. We had a long, but wonderful weekend of brunches, and music and general frivolity. And now, I'm going to relax a bit with The Southerner. Y'all come back, ya hear?