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Saturday, January 15, 2011

How about second dinner ...

Hey Awesome Readers!

The second dinner turned out just as great as the first!  Once again, this past Thursday night Giggles and I prepared a delicious soup and bread.  This time of year is just great for that warm and tasty comfort food.  Giggles picked the recipes this time and went with Minestrone Soup and Yeast-Free Oatmeal Whole Wheat Bread.  Both are off of VegWeb.com.  I was in charge of soup and selected sparkling white grape juice (It's looks like wine so we can pretend we're adults, hehe).


Minestrone Soup: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=27354.0
Oatmeal Bread: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=15422.0

Birdman's Reflections
Often times I suffer from this condition of just being an idiot.  I suppose the end result turned out great, but getting there took a good deal of work to fix my mistakes.  These recipes were once again fairly simple and quick.  I started making dinner around 7:00, but I didn't finish eating until 10:00.

Most of the hold up was in the bread.  I made that first.  The only change I made to the recipe was adding honey.  Oh, and doubling it ... that may have been a mistake.  It sure baked fast.  Only 20 minutes, wow!  I've never known a bread to ever bake that fast (possible foreshadowing ...).  I let the bread cool while I made the soup.  The soup turned out delicious.  I ended up adding an entire cup of macaroni elbows instead of 1/3 cup, just because I love macaroni.  And I used petite size diced tomatoes because I don't like having big tomato chunks.  In the end, the soup turned out fantastic with just one problem with the peppercorns as I talk about below.  An hour after the bread had been sitting and I was ready to eat, I cut into it only to discover that the inside was still gooey.  I could have sworn that toothpick came out clean, haha.  So I through it back in the oven at a lower temperature (400) for another 15 minutes.  Then another 15 minutes.  And another 15 minutes.  That bread baked for over an hour!  But the wait was worth it.  Once it did come out done, it tasted great.  I tried it with bagel dip and earth balance - both fantastic.  Once it cooled completely it became a pretty hard, dense bread.  Still a great taste though and even better for bagel dip then.

When making the soup I discovered a new term: bouquet garni.  The bouquet garni I learned is something like bay leaves, parsley, peppercorns, etc. that you put in while you cook it and then take it out at the end.  So you might tie all the things together.  Or somehow keep track of all the peppercorns.  But I just threw the peppercorns in, thinking they'd just dissolve as I cooked the soup.  Nope.  I'm an idiot.  And I don't think it would be considered ignorance because I looked up what a bouquet garni was on Wikipedia ahead of time.  So I suppose it would just be considered being stupid.  Or stubborn?  I don't know.  I'm pretty stupid when it comes to knowing the difference between words.  Or would I be ignorant?  Whatever ... So the peppercorns didn't dissolve like I had hoped.  As I was eating the soup I'd get a blast of pepper every now and then, which tainted the good taste.  So I went on a search and destroy mission.  I swear I only put in like 10 peppercorns.  But no!  They must have multiplied!  I ended up mining out 35 of the little black balls!  Oh, I should have gotten a picture of the humongous pile on my napkin, hehe.

Giggles' Reflections
Here are some pictures from Giggles' meal!



Yes! The second dinner was fantastic! I just wanted to keep eating and eating....yummy:) So I'd say the soup and the bread both receive a 4 out of 4. The ingredients of the minestrone soup just combined together into the perfect winter dinner. The only problems I had were carrot rolling all over the floor when I was chopping! hee hee.
The oatmeal bread was unbelievably MOIST! yes I said it! (usually this word makes me have to pee....lol that's a secret). Oh and don't worry Birdman... I was an idiot too! Lol for some reason while I was getting the groceries I thought the recipe said I needed a cup of dry-milk. HAHAHAH.... even after thinking that I ended up buying condensed milk.. Then later while I was cooking I finally noticed that it called for NON-DAIRY milk. wow what was wrong with me? I should have realized that this was a vegan recipe but I didn't. GOOFY GOOBER! Yes so I'm a big fan of this bread that takes only 20 minutes. I can eat half a loaf in one sitting so it didn't make very much but its perfect for someone living with her kitty.

Until next week... Peace and Love!!

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