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?