Impressions from my weekend

- Phoebe can make great company....but only for so long.

- The King's Speech is a fantastic flick. You really can't go wrong with the actors in this movie - I've loved Geoffrey Rush since Shine, and Colin Firth since he was, of course, Mr. Darcy.

- Making white chicken chili that doesn't just taste like chicken corn soup with beans is easier said than done.

A vision in a red jumpsuit

Fact #1: The months leading up to a wedding can sometimes be full of some pretty intense, wedding themed dreams (a.k.a. nightmares). 

Fact #2: My family (in particular my dad, my sister, and I) are renowned for our especially whacky and vivid dreams.

These two facts together have created some real whoppers for me in the last couple of weeks, and I can only imagine this is going to get even better.

Last night, it was this:

For some reason unbeknownst to me, I was storing my wedding dress in a huge warehouse of a bridal shop that had hundreds of other dresses in it (my real dress is actually at my mom and dad's house, hanging in the computer room).  It just so happens that this bridal shop was also creating and altering dresses to be entered in to a fashion show, or some sort of contest (I might have watched too many episodes of Project Runway in my life).

Well, when I realized that this was happening at the bridal shop, I rushed over there to grab my dress and get it out of there before it was inadvertently added to the contest – and of course, as these dreams go, I was too late. Not only had my dress already been picked out to put into the contest, it had also been "altered" into.....wait for it......

a bright red jumpsuit.



Yes, it looked kind of like this.
Source

I was devastated. I started bawling and screaming like it was the end of the world (It kind of was!). I implored the seamstress (who happened to be a family friend who in real life is nothing comparable to a seamstress) if there was anything they could do to fix it? No. Could they give me the money to go buy a new one? They at least had to do that! No - they had spent all of their available funds on putting together the dresses for the show/contest. There was nothing I could do! I certainly couldn't afford to get a whole new dress! It was awful!

And then I woke up, and in my just-waking-up haze thought for one split second that maybe it wouldn’t be the TOTAL end of the world if I had to wear a red jumpsuit down the aisle.

But I'm pretty sure it definitely would.

Finally.....a recipe

It’s been a while since I’ve offered up a recipe. One reason for this is that I’ve been in a bit of a rut lately in the kitchen. I go through phases where I want the same thing over and over again. This time, it’s been brown rice with broccoli, and soba noodles with peanut sauce.

Another reason I haven’t offered up a new recipe is simply because, well, I haven’t had a good one. There was an attempt at pad thai at which I was WAY too heavy handed on the fish sauce and ended up with a super salty catastrophe (I’d like to give kudos here to fiancé Sven for eating that mess with a smile on his face). There was also a co-attempt with my sister at homemade macaroni and cheese at which we learned that homemade macaroni and cheese that isn’t lumpy is an art we have yet to master. I think I'm sticking with Annie’s boxed, for a while anyway.

But finally, this week I managed to not only break out of my cooking rut, but to also do it successfully, ending in a fantastic, soul-warming, delicious-enough-to-write-about Fennel and Leek Soup.

So here it is, folks.

Start by slicing up one fennel bulb.

It sounds so simple when I just say it like that, doesn't it?

I actually worked really hard to de-core the fennel (who knew fennel needed de-coring anyway), and then started cutting the bulb the wrong way, so I ended up with multi-shaped pieces of fennel, which isn’t really ideal. I finally came around to realizing that the best way to cut the bulb was longwise, resulting in strips.  I’m sorry there aren’t any pictures of this process, but trust me, it wasn’t worth documenting, and I was having a tough enough time of it already, let alone trying to take pictures in the middle of it. Moving on. Be sure to reserve the top of the fennel bulb because you’ll use the fronds at the end.

I added the fennel to a soup pot with about ½ tblsp of olive oil and ¼ tblsp of butter.

I then proceeded to cook the fennel over a medium low heat for 15-18 minutes until it turned a lovely brown and began to caramelize.

Next came two leeks. Leeks can be really sandy, so you have to take the time to clean them thoroughly. The best way I’ve discovered to do this is to cut the ends off of the leek and then slit it longwise so that it opens up in a fan, like so:

You can then run this under water and remove the sand from all layers of the leek.

I cut up the leeks and added them to the pot with the fennel.

Next came some thyme from about 10 sprigs, and I let this all go over medium-low heat until the leeks cooked down as well, probably another 10-15 minutes.

Even though it took awhile to get this part of the soup done (and I admit – I very rarely have the patience to get something to even a SEMBLANCE of being caramelized),  it went really quickly from here on out. I do think that letting the fennel and leeks cook down is what gave the soup so much of its great flavor in the end. And I’m sure the butter didn’t hurt.

I then dumped in one 15 oz can of no-salt-added diced tomatoes, one 15 oz can of rinsed and drained great northern beans (you could use any beans you want here, or even skip them all together), and about 4 ½ cups of low-sodium vegetable broth (you can also alter this amount as you would like to make it more soup-y or less). I added a ½ tsp of ground ginger and 1 tblsp of honey (I think the honey is also optional, but I like to add something a little sweet to almost anything with tomatoes in it to cut some of the acidity), and then salt and pepper to taste.

I let that all cook up to temperature, and about 5 minutes before it was ready I cut up 2 tblsp’s of the fennel fronds and added them in…..and with some parmesan cheese sprinkled on the top, that was it folks!  And it was delish!



Food styling courtesy of fiance Sven.

One note is that while this was excellent as is, my new ventures into eating meat have caused me to become mildly obsessed with sausage, so I think adding a nice chicken or turkey (or pork, I suppose) sausage to this would add a great flavor.

This really was the perfect dinner on a really cold February night, and the perfect dish to snap me out of my current rut….. although don’t you think some soba noodles and peanut sauce also sounds pretty good right now?

The simple things

Sometimes it really is the simple things in life that matter the most. This weekend, it was a trip back to our hometown and

...sharing dinner and catching up with a family we’ve been friends with since I was two

...laying in bed with my sister and 3 month old niece while we watch her play with her hands and listen to her babble and coo

...eating buttered cinnamon toast for breakfast

...playing charades with T's family that included made-up hand motions for “opposite”, “the”, and “it's a band”

...and eating our way through the Super Bowl game with a house full of old friends.

 

YUM

And tonight, it’s sitting on the sofa with T and Phoebe, watching and playing along with Jeopardy, eating stir fried veggies with peanut sauce and soba noodles.

***

In other news, Mr. T has respectfully submitted the request to be known in this blog hereafter by a new name: Sven. Who am I to deny him this? Sven it is.

Theories

We’re facing another day of winter weather tomorrow here in Philly, and I have to admit....I’m over it.

I’m finding myself floating away on thoughts of sun that's warm enough to feel, flip flops, green, orange flowers and butterflies, and the ability to walk outside without my shoulders hunched against the cold.

We had a really cold and snowy winter last year too, but I don’t remember feeling quite this anxious for spring this early in the year. So, I have a couple of theories for why I’m so over winter this year:

-  I am getting married this spring. I’m thinking this is a pretty good reason for chomping at the bit for warmer weather.

 -  My commute forces me to have at least a 15 minute walk every day. Unlike last year, there’s no just walking from building to car to building again. I actually have to be out and experience the elements everyday – and there’s been a good deal of elements to be experiencing.

-  I didn’t have much of a summer this past year. I didn't take a vacation, didn’t even make it to the shore, and I was commuting over an hour and a half to Philly for work, so I had really long days. I didn’t have much of a chance to enjoy the warm weather – maybe that’s why I miss it so much now?

I really don’t mean to complain. When I was living in Charleston, SC, we only really had two seasons, and while both of those seasons were magnificent, I admit that I missed having all four, so now I do really try to enjoy each season as it is. It’s just not always so easy.

But I am trying to make the best of it. And tonight, I did that by drinking spicy hot chocolate…

and whipped cream out of a great mustaches mug.

And that should at least carry me through tomorrow.