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!