Sometimes Simple, Sometimes Grand, Always Declicious
I’m not sure why I waited so long to get this soup up on the blog. I love one pot meals and this dish definitely fits into that category. It’s a staple at our house all through the cold weather season. Not that you need convincing, of course, but here’s why I can’t stop eating the stuff:…
As I sat down with the intent to compose a post all about the glories of soup this morning (more on that in a minute), it came to my attention that I never formally introduced our new family member on the blog. He’s been glorified on facebook and I even dropped a shot or two of him on instagram and twitter, but the blog has been surprisingly baby free.
…
Spring has officially arrived, and with it comes the end of soup season. As much as I love the warmer weather, I always find it a little bittersweet to put away my hot and hearty creations. There is just something so satisfying about a steaming, restorative bowl of meat and veggie-filled liquid goodness.
If I’m honest, I’ll tell you that even though you won’t see a hearty soup on this blog in the blazing heat of July, chances are that a bowl may still grace my dinner table every now and again. I just can’t get past the benefits soup provides:
Lobster is one of those indulgences that never loses steam with me. I will always remember Christmas Eve dinners as a child where the standard holiday fare was steak and crustacean. Normally my dad would buy the tails and cook them up as they were, but one year he decided to try and boil whole live lobsters. Being the animal lover that I was, I found this a bit perturbing that we were going to kill a living creature for our dinner just a short time later. I couldn’t bear to watch the moment my friend became my meal. Of course, once he transformed into that familiar red shell with the rich white meat nestled inside, all was forgotten and dinner resumed.
Fast forward about 20 years and here I sit again with a live lobster, chilling on my kitchen island, claws rubber banded, looking at me as though he thinks that if he can just bat his eyes a bit longer, I’ll relent and make a drive to the beach for a movie inspired freedom release instead of a three step walk to my pot rack. I eye him carefully, thinking about what I’m about to attempt and hoping it won’t be as difficult as it feels. I think about the lobster bisque reward at the end and it keeps me moving forward.
…
It’s that time of year again. Time to grab your most inspired, most creative, most lip smacking recipes and join me in friendly competition for the 2nd annual Pacific Foods Everyday Chef Challenge!
Last year I entered my Chicken and Asparagus Saute with the determination to win (I didn’t quite pull it off but managed to finish with a respectable showing nonetheless) and this year I’ve had the distinct honor of being asked to participate as a celebrity judge. Little ol’ me, a judge, can you believe it?
…
When I was a child I hated beans. No wait, let me rephrase that. Not just hated, despised. On nights when beans were served, my mom would make my brother and me sit at the table until we finished every last bean on our plates and sometimes we’d sit there for hours. We didn’t have a dog to help in our demise and the cat was as turned off by the whole ordeal as we were so she was no assistance in the bean disposal department. My brother eventually developed this ingenious idea to declare an “emergency bathroom break” immediately after taking a huge bite of said round nuggets and would magically come back with a cleansed palate. I still owe my brother one for his shrewd method of bean extraction.
I’m not sure what happened between childhood and today, but at some point in time, unbeknownst to me, my palate adapted, ate a bean, and declared it good. Now I suddenly find myself cooking with beans on a weekly basis and dare I say, enjoying it. Fortunately two of my three kiddos enjoy the beans with me. One, Nicholas, does not. Life experience has taught me that forcing a bean despiser hater to eat beans does absolutely nothing for expanding the palate and only causes said child to have a sore bum from spending too much time seated at the table with no dog for assistance. So, for now, I allow Nicholas to bypass the beans in the hopes that one day, he too will declare beans good.
And so, this soup is in honor of beans. Plain and simple. There aren’t many bells and whistles in the recipe. Just what it takes to highlight my gratitude for a sometimes under acknowledged, non-meat, healthy as all get out, protein source that with time and appreciation, I have truly come to enjoy.
Grab your bowl and let’s cook up some Simply Bean Soup.
…