Sometimes I feel this way

Courtesy of XKCD

This Saturday I made Margarita Mac and Cheese from "What Megan's Making," a blog I've been following for longer than I've even had a blog, thanks to my trusty Google Reader. (J looks at my Google Reader sometimes and shakes his head sadly, as if there is no hope for me and my endless stream of recipes... he's probably right.) Unfortunately, despite the lovely pictures on Miss Megan's blog, my Mac and Cheese was far less delicious. First of all, I am pretty sure I cooked the pasta too long. Secondly, I didn't have a casserole dish and so I had to use a square-ish brownie pan. Thirdly, my "diced" tomatoes from Aldi, while a mere 59 cents per can, were not exactly "diced" and more like chunked, which overpowered the pasta, which were small. It came out of the oven looking more like a casserole, which is fine, and the mozzarella was yummy, but not the best experience when making my first baked mac n' cheese... I just wanted it to look as nice as Megan's! Maybe next time.

So apparently around here we're preparing for a storm of "historical proportions" that includes "snow squalls" (whatever the heck those are) and I was planning on making some shrimp bisque tonight, but I might have to settle for something a little more quick because I should probably run to the store and stock up on the essentials. We'll see. If a snow day happens in my near future, (keep those fingers crossed) I may be working from home with plenty of time to shrimp it up!

In the meantime, everyone stay safe and warm! I hope this storm of epic proportions blows over relatively quickly and keep on eating warm and healthy food!

Soup (it's what's for dinner)

Surprising no one (except maybe me), the $1.19-for-five servings lentil soup was not a smashing success. While it wasn't the worst soup I've eaten, it was pretty... lentil-y... kinda salty, and not very exciting. I really think that it would have been helped if I added a can of diced tomatoes, ground turkey, really ANYTHING. But mostly tomatoes. Maybe the same kind from when I made that chicken, those were amazing.

Anyway, the soup I made last night? Delicious. It even had garbanzo beans in it, not my fave. But yum! So hearty. Very filling. Nice and eggy. Fiberous (yes I know fiberous is not a real word) pasta. Serious Eats wins again! Thank you for saving my evening.

The wonderful thing about this recipe is that it is ridiculously easy to make. 25 minutes from start to finish, and the hardest part was getting the spinach chopped to put in the soup. You begin with your chicken broth base, add nutmeg, pasta, garbanzos and boil... add spinach and cook for one minute, add eggs and cook for two more minutes. It was really nice and zen to listen to the State of the Union on the radio while shredding spinach and chopping green onions. (Side note on green onions: my favorite "condiment" ever? I think yes.)

You can find the recipe here. Although it didn't cost me $1.19, it is definitely worth going the distance to get good spinach, whole wheat pasta, and reduced sodium broth (all those things just make a good tasting soup feel even better).

Stay warm! Next time I'll be plying you with creamy shrimp bisque which is basically the furthest thing from healthy... so suck it up now, get your greens on, and thank me later.

Happy New Year!

So I'm already way behind on one of my perpetual New Year's Resolutions, which is to write more. Faithful blog reader of mine, I can only beg for forgiveness. Something tells me you're not too beat up about it :)

In talks with with the other Martha, it seems she is resolved to up her repertoire (what an oddly spelled word!) this year by trying a new recipe each week. I've encouraged her to chronicle her journey here but unless we get a new name/url for this little guy, I'm thinking it might not happen. I hope to hear from her soon on her kitchen adventures!

As for me, I'm about to head on a soup kick. I feel like the soup options in my life are pretty bland and boring, so I'm hoping to try out a few new recipes in the next few weeks... First one, starting tonight, will be soup from a lentil package I picked up from Gene's on Sunday because omg hello this store is my absolute dream come true and I'm so depressed it's taken me so long to discover it. M had visited it before with rave reviews, but I'm not gonna lie, I thought it was too fancy and expensive and just never bothered. Newsflash, kids: the soup I'm making tonight will make five servings and cost me a whopping... $1.19. Let's see how it holds up (it is, after all, lentil soup...eek)! Gene's is so wonderful not only because of their inexpensiveness, but also their crazymazing meat selection, and I will definitely be coming back here for special occasion dinners... or just to get their chicken thighs, which at $2.99/lb, are half as cheap as Whole Foods (sorry Tyrone) and I am sure just as quality. Produce selection was definitely not as cheap as Harvest Time, my new Stanley's, but hey, a girl can take having a nice deli mere steps away. Seriously. Amazing discovery, so so happy!

Other soups on deck for the next few weeks: Shrimp Bisque and Italian Egg Drop Soup. It's nice out today but I have a feeling winter's going to stick around a bit longer... like til April or May. Call it my Chicago intuition ;)

In the meantime, stay warm and healthy! Eat that vitamin C. It's a nasty time out there.

love love,
a