Red Pepper Soup, Office Emails

I am immature, but I resisted replying to this email today:

Have you lost something near the toilet on the 10th floor?

If yes, please contact {name} ext-{number} and made a brief description to retrieve it.

-

Robyn is coming to visit this week! That is pretty exciting. Because I am nice I am making a fancy supper the night she arrives and I thought I would make the soup in advance.

I've had a lucky streak with Google and recipes (see Sub Buns and Pizza Casserole) so when I Googled "red pepper soup" I went with the first result: this recipe.

I followed the recipe exactly, except I roasted the red peppers in my oven and added the tiniest bit of cayenne pepper after blending to give it an extra spice/kick. The above pic is the exact yield with 4 big red peppers, so one batch makes a fair amount!

IT'S SO EASY AND DELICIOUS!! 5 stars all around!

Gas Mine Explosion, Steaks, Balcony View, Potato Bacon Soup

MOST EXCITING BLOG TITLE EVER!!!!!!!!


This is an awesome beer with an even more awesome bottle. Coup de Grisou roughly translates to "gas mine explosion". I had a bottle or two of this on Sunday with Scrabble:

On Monday - Valentine's Day - I made a lonely, yet extremely delicious steak and confirmed that the grocery store in my building does indeed have excellent meat:

Also on Monday I decided to stand on my balcony for the first time and check out the evening view in full:

I think I am the only apartment with safety netting and I can't figure out why.

Last but not least, I made some very tasty potato bacon soup this evening, based on this recipe.

Here's what I did differently from the recipe:

• Used less chicken stock and substituted water. I expected this to be salty and it's even still a bit too salty for my tastes - but still really delicious! 
• Blended it before adding bacon. The recipe omits this step, and there are some funny comments from people complaining they made "potatoes in broth". Well... blend it, then! 

That's it for now.. looking forward to visiting Saskatoon in a week's time!

Onion, Leek, Asparagus & Cauliflower Soup

Tonight I made another soup! I fried an onion in some butter, then added all of the vegetables, then added water until the veggies were just barely covered. Then I added about a cup of chicken stock. Then I cooked it, then I blended it and stirred in some cream! The result is a massive pot of tasty soup!

The recipe is based off one I learned with Robyn at our cooking lesson at Hole in the Wall Restaurant. Except I didn't have nutmeg to grate on top, and their version didn't have asparagus. 

Now I have four Gladware containers full of this stuff to freeze... yumm. It was delicious!

Who forgot to tell me making soup was so easy!?

Mushroom Soup & Guinness Bread

My packages arrived today - hooray!

Everything I own.

After work I went grocery shopping (I LOVE having a grocery store in the same building as me) and got a ton of food to make mushroom soup and beer bread for supper!

Here is some delicious homemade mushroom soup, made with white and portobello mushrooms! I used this recipe as a base but didn't have all of the ingredients, so I winged it.

I also made beer bread! This is a recipe that Robyn found a long time ago and we've made a ton of variations. It's the easiest possible bread to make in the world, but you can change the bread drastically by using different types of beer. We've used white beers for light breads, today I used Guinness for a dark, heavier bread:

I need to experiment a bit more with my oven; I don't think it's has hot as mine in Saskatoon. That calls for... more bread!