About the Soup...

I want to inform you of the soup results from yesterday's post. It turned out okay, enough that Rich ate it and even had leftovers tonight. It just didn't taste or look the way I thought it would. I imagined it would be thicker, but it was very broth-y. Oh well. It was worth a try.

To answer a question concerning sorting the beans... I don't know why there can be stones among the beans. I've never heard of this before. I have no idea how beans are harvested or gathered or whatever it is that they do with beans. If someone is knowledgeable about legumes, please enlighten us. It's such a curious thing.

I'm Totally Domestic

I guess I'm just going to take this blogging thing one day at a time, so on with the post...

I am totally enthralled with my domesticity today. I pulled out my Pillsbury Slow Cooker Recipes: 140 New Ways to Have Dinner Ready and Waiting! cookbook the other day and chose a couple recipes for our meals this week. At this moment I have Vegetable, Bean and Ham Soup slow cooking in my little crock pot. Yes, I do.

I actually did prep work for the recipe last night. LAST NIGHT, PEOPLE! This from the girl who just a few short months ago would buy those completely cooked meals in a bag in the frozen food section, which only required 15 minutes of heat up in a skillet. Need I say more about what this means?

First I had to sort the dried beans. Huh? Sort the beans? Was I sorting them by size? Color? I had to call my mom about that. And is it any wonder that I've never worked with a dried bean in my life? Come to find out, she's never met a dried bean either, but she seemed to know enough to explain about the bean sorting. I came to learn that there are sometimes stones (yes, stones) in the dried beans. Can someone explain this to me?

So back to the prep work. I sorted. I soaked. I sliced my carrots and celery. I set out all my ingredients on the counter to be ready for the crock pot this morning before I left for work. It was so... so... freeing. I'm makin' soup, people!

Of course, what else is going to nicely complement a warm, filling, ham and bean soup? Bread! Oh yeah! So when I got home from work I decided it was time to make another loaf of bread in my new breadmaker. I wanted to try my new wheat flour, so I chose the Honey Wheat bread recipe. So I'm just 1 hour and 15 minutes away from a lovely slice of homemade goodness. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

Yes, let it be known that Liz is totally domestic!

Dinner

Alright...I've finally broken down, and I'm gonna make "real" dinner again. For those who don't know how I have been preparing meals, since I HATE to cook I have been buying those frozen pre-made meals that you just throw in a skillet, put the lid on, and 10 minutes later... VOILA...you have stir-fry. I imagine I am probably spending more money on one meal than I would if I bought all the ingredients and prepared a meal that had leftovers. I also wonder what's in those prepared things.

So I AM going to make real dinner. I'm going to the grocery store this afternoon...with a shopping list and everything.