Thursday, October 25, 2007

Soup's On!!! (and cookies too)

After nearly a week with ED&BV sitting on my shelf, I've finally gotten around to making something from it!! I must be the only person who owns ED&BV that didn't start cooking from it right away. It's that whole menu planning thing, you know. I had my weeks meals already planned before I purchased the book, so it kind of set me back a bit on getting to try some of Dreena's tasty creations.

Last night was cold and rainy, again (I think it's been raining for a week now). I'm trying really hard not to complain. We were 10 inches behind normal for rainfall this year and in the past week we've gotten 8.36 inches, so we're nearly breaking even now. And, I've been hoping for awhile now that soup weather would get here. However, the grey rainy days are starting to get old......how about chilly and sunny for a change.

Anyway, it was again, another perfect night for soup, so I finally pulled out ED&BV. One Wild Chick Soup was what caught my eye. I followed the recipe pretty close, however, I didn't have any wild rice. I did have a combo of long grain and wild, so I used that. I also threw in a vegan vegetable bouillon cube to amp up the flavor a bit. I left out the fresh herbs and used slightly more (on Dreena's recommendation) dried herb. And finally, I had a bunch of red kale in the refrigerator that needed used up, so I chopped it up and threw it in too. The result was savory and delish!! Rob thought it tasted like Thanksgiving (isn't it funny how anything with sage reminds us of Thanksgiving). This one was comfort food for sure, and it will be frequenting our dinner table this winter.


Yesterday started off kind of rough for us. Mairin hates getting up in the morning and getting ready for school, it's a battle every time. Thank heavens it's only 3 days a week......we're in for it when she starts kindergarten next year, oy.

So, to make everyone feel better, I thought baking cookies together would be a good idea. What kid doesn't love baking cookies with their mama? And who can feel bad when there's chocolate involved? So, we settled on Chocolate Chunk Spice Cookies (also from ED&BV).


I didn't have everything for this recipe either, so we winged it, and they turned out fabulous. I didn't have any dark chocolate chunks, but I did have semi-sweet chocolate chips, so I subbed those. I also didn't have any barley flour so we used all-purpose baking flour. And, believe it or not, I didn't have any baking soda (I used the last of it to scrub my bathroom last week), so I had to skip that. Otherwise, we followed the recipe. They were so gooey and chocolatey, and without all of the sugar that regular cookies have they felt so "unsinful".......I had 2!!

It's left-overs tonight, so I'll be back with more in a few days.

3 comments:

Amy said...

Mmmmm those cookies are calling my name! I almost wish I had your problem with your daughter. 2 of my 3 are always up before the birds ::yawn::

Susan Chipley said...

I am so getting ED&BV! That soup looks sooooo good. I'll definitely be trying that for my Sunday Soup soon. So true about the sage and Thanksgiving. It's been raining and cool for days on end here too. I was so frustrated with 80 degree weather and just wanted fall to arrive. I was more hoping for those cool, sunny and brilliant fall days.

carrie said...

I was just looking through ED&BV again, and I think our menu for next week is going to be heavy on recipes from it. Everything sounds wonderful, and while the ingredient lists look long, they are a lot of pantry staples, so they aren't really as ingredient heavy as they look.

Try to soup, it was incredible. The addition of the kale was just right.