Surprise Soup!

Until noon, I was operating on the thought that today was Thursday. It is not. After realizing this and staring at my desk for a couple minutes, I decided the day was done for me. Did November happen? It's all a blur for me. I think I say this every year but holy cow is the end of the year busy for me. 

Anyway, I'm changing things up a bit with Sunday Soup. I've missed the last two months and I miss talking food, because food, y'all. Instead of a Sunday Soup, I'm going to try Menu Mondays. I'm going to post the recipes that I made for the previous week and if I liked them or not; less pictures and more recipes. We'll see if I can keep up with this better :)

I will send you off with two soup recipes though, to make up for missing the last two months.

Cleansing Vegetable Turmeric Soup

From what I've been able to catch, this would qualify for a Festive square? Even when I don't have time to play, I'm playing! 

Not a bad start, right? Sounds pretty good?

A little different mash-up for ingredients but hey, we're all adventurous people here!

Looks, interesting, right? This soup was a total fail for me. I could barely eat it. Maybe, probably, my fault because I'm not sure I knew if Turmeric was totally and completely for me. I also think I'm a wannabe healthy person, I try because my stomach demands it but my heart is dark beer and donuts all the way. I would recommend not trying this soup because, Bleh. Unless you have a Turmeric cauliflower heart.

Onto,

Creamy Vegetarian White Chili

This is another first step Olive Oil heating soup! Peppers and jalapeno sizzling together, makes my heart warm just looking at it.

Garlic and cooomin! (Everyone mispronounces it the first time, right?) 

Beans, beans, and beans! I swear I'm not a stinky person to hang around ;) Bananas not needed in this recipe but feel free to admire anyway.

Looooove this milk! It's like a Sunday morning on my tummy.

Looks appetizing! Stay with me, folks.

Avocado, lime, and chips can turn anything into a fun party! I really enjoyed this one but the bf said it tasted bland, which is weird because I more often complain of this. Looking at the comments, I see others said the same thing. Whatev. I'm counting this one as a win. I also added cheese. Come at me Vegetarian police!

Now for dessert and because I'm a woman of my word,

Champorado

Remember rice pudding Sunday and the talk of what is we made it chocolate? Here you go. Hold on to your excitement because pictures are going to look a wee bit less appetizing from here.

Melted cocoa krispies twin.

Good but, very rich. I would add less chocolate chips next time. Makes a decent amount too and this is kind of a one bowl dessert because of the richness. Alas, I did my one good deed for the bf and he enjoyed it. 

Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season and their reading. I'm lurking as much as I can and trying to keep up with posts, even if my gabbing on posts aren't as frequent. 

Hope some people can join me on Menu Mondays or can share some recipes. Because fooooooooood, y'all!

Sunday, errr, Monday, We Soup! And Dessert!

The holiday weekend in the states threw me off, I know waiting one extra day to see what I ate probably killed you all ;)

Thai Spicy Noodle Soup 

An auspicious beginning, but stick with me!

See, good thing you stuck with me. Photographing appetizing only the way soup can, lol.

As you can tell, this soup was super easy to make and only took around 20mins. If you remember my shrimp soup from last year, this broth was similar to it. For my money though, I'd make the shrimp one, this was good but, eh. I also have never wanted a spork more in life, the noodles were an adventure to eat with a spoon. I know, I know, I should have had chop sticks on hand but a two year old has more finesse with them than I do.

Crock Pot Rice Pudding 

All great adventures begin with a single step, and butter. 

During one of the wild stimulating conversations I had with the bf, I learned he never has tried rice pudding. Mind blown. This guy loves rice and lives in the midwest! Sacrilegious, I say. 

MOAR BUTTER. You're also looking at my $3 crock pot garage sale grab. I'm very proud of it and how worth it was to make the bf carry it around for an hour before we could make it back to the car. 

Sweet dessert rice and made the house smell good. The three hour wait was lame-o and I couldn't eat much because of the use of 2% milk but it was worth it for the bf to turn to me and sweetly say, "Can you make this with chocolate milk?". 

You win some, you lose some.

Is it finally soup weather in your neck of the woods? Show me your food!

Tasty Tuesday

Book Cupidity's Art of the Pie post may have just inspired me to try and make crust again. My first ever experience was trying to make homemade poptarts. 

Homemade Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon Poptarts

You can tell by the picture they turned out..a bit rough, lol. I just used the crust recipe they provided and I don't think I gave the respect needed for freezing your equipment and ingredients. I'm not a crier, but frustrated tears were hella threatening when I was trying to work with the dough. I've not attempted since then. However, these tasted awesome and making the dough myself definitely made these flake wonderfully. The icing impressed me with how much it turned out looking like the box, taste was the same but fresher. 

It's been pretty cold here the last couple days so I made a warm fish stew. 

Brazilian Fish Stew

Since I was posting the poptart recipe, I thought I'd throw this in. I used Halibut for the white fish meat, added an avocado I had laying around, and substituted the olive oil with coconut oil. It's super easy to make, maybe a little time consuming as you have to wait 20mins for fish to soak in lime juice and then another 20mins for the broth to simmer, but nothing outrageous. Even with the rice, this only made two servings but again, the bf and I disrespect serving sizes because we're both tall and think that means we get double. It was amazingly delicious and I highly recommend if you're seeing snow flakes in your April/May air :)

Sunday, We Soup!

So, the last couple Sunday soups have been kind of quick and easy, today I decided to make myself work for it :)
You're going to need a decently stocked pantry and some time on your hands for this one. However, there's BEER in this and the final product was delicious.

Killer Vegan Chili 

I really suggest finding and using Smoked Paprika over normal Paprika, it makes quite a difference. I also love Smoked Paprika (great spice to mix with others for shrimp tacos). Make sure you have enough, this calls for 2Tbs of cumin. 

Spike is my favorite go to for salt free seasoning, if you make vegetarian/vegan recipes you'll use it a lot. 

It was kind of...odd adding the spices to an empty pot and then pouring a beer in there (bf looked over with raised eyebrows). 

Remember that well stocked pantry I mentioned? Yeah, unless you're a doomsday prepper, you'll probably have to plan this one out. How many times do you really get to mix beer, maple syrup, and liquid smoke though in your life? YOLO.

Since we're adding the kitchen sink into this chili, don't forget your walnuts!

Secret:  I'm not a vegan but I like eating meatless meals at least twice a week. However, you'll pry my cheese out of my cold dead hands. The bf can't eat chili without sour cream, I don't know, I think it's a DNA thing.

Definitely don't forget your avocado for this, adding this topping Makes this chili. 

All in all, this probably took 2hrs for me to make, but unless you're the Von Trapps, you'll have plenty of leftovers and we all know chili is better the next day :)

*With warmer temps hitting my neck of the woods, I think I'm going to change Sunday Soup to Sunday Salad. I'm kind of a seasonal eater and one of those freaks who love salads. If you're a freak like me, I'd love for you to join along and show me your salads next first Sunday of the month! 

Sunday, We Soup!

I feel like I'm finally back to 100% after my bout with the flu but I still wanted something that was quick and easy to make. With that desire in mind and my love of shrimp, I decided on this recipe:

Brazilian Shrimp Soup

Since I live in a landlocked state, I must unthaw my shrimp. So envious of you fresh seafooders.

There really isn't a lot to this soup and I don't add the onion but you'll see my extra lemon because, garnish!

Doesn't look the most appetizing but hang in there, folks.

Start licking your chops, pescetarians!

I don't usually add parsley when it calls for it, because meh, but I would suggest it for this soup, did add a little something to it. 

The recipe calls for a "pinch" of red pepper flakes, I added a teaspoon because I'm a wild child. With the extra squeezed lemon juice, this had a very pleasing flavor. I liked my other shrimp soup better but for how easy this was to make, you can't beat it :)

Show me your soups!