So, in many thanks to Delores, I walked into my house yesterday and was BLASTED with the smell of warmth & garlic:) hahahhahahaha...all thanks to the slow cooked simmerings of some "End of Summer Harvest Soup" :)
If this week wasn't the BEST week to make this soup...I don't know what was! Not only was it crisp & cool outside by dinnertime...BUTTTT summer produce was at an all-time LOW at the Farmer's Market this week! I managed to snag almost all of the vegetables for $1! Sweet!!!!
To help get my soup ready in the morning, I laid out all of the non-perishable ingredients AND good ole' Delores the night before...
...plus chopped up all the vegetables, so all I had to do was grab em from the fridge and toss em in the pot...
...Like So...:)
The one reason I REALLY love this recipe, is that the cooking time IS 8-10 hours. Which is IDEAL if you're leaving it on in the morning while going to work (which is sometimes a bit tricky when the cook time is only 5 hours or so). The reason for the length is to cook the dried beans through, which DOES take about 8 or 9 hour to accomplish.
Of course you could use regular beans and just reduce the cooking time....but I just happened to have this bag of dried beans with exactly 1/3 cup of beans missing from when I made this soup LAST year, soooo I figured I'd give em a chance to shine again;)
The last 20 minutes, I also threw in a 1/2 cup of whole wheat orzos. I love when it's time to "throw in the pasta," because you still don't have to do much of ANYTHING except stir the soup and countdown to chow time!
And literally...10 HOURS later, we got a bowl of perfectly cooked "Harvest Soup" :)
...and the zucchini was so soft, my spoon pierced right through it;) Amazing what 10 hours can do;)
We served the soup along with this "Pretzel Demi" I got at Trader Joe's...
Which was awesome for 2 reason:
- Seriously, how ADORABLE is it????????
- It was crispy on the outside, doughy on the inside PERFECTION! The outside really did taste like those big soft pretzels that I adore oh-so-very-much! :) And the nice coat of salt helped out in the flavor department too;)
And speaking of adorable, yesterday was the PERFECT time to break out my fall/pumpkin soup bowl!:) My Mom got a whole 'harvest set' for Scott & I when we moved in together...thanks, Mom! :)
The lids aren't very necessary, but ya know....who cares:) Their cute:)
I'll be using my slow cooker again on Friday...not for dinner, but for a nice, FALL dessert...stay tuned;)
And in BOOK related news: So I plowed through my last four Non-Fiction wonders:
- Eat, Pray, Love (loved it!)
- Hungry (sad...and inspiring)
- Chalked Up (cause I <3 gymnastics and all the drama that follows;)
- Unsweetined (love that Stephanie Tanner;)
So I thought I'd try my hand at Fiction now, and picked this up from the library on Tuesday:
I'm already nearly 100 pages in, and have almost cried about...hmmm....4 or 5 times! The first of which was when I looked up and realized I was on page TEN! Yes, 1-0! This is going to be a doozy, but it is HARD to put down so far!!
Well...we're on the down slope of this week, folks! Hope you're having a good one so far! I'm telling you, if you ever wanted to visit NJ: THIS would be the week to do it! It has been absolutely PERFECT out! Warm days, cool nights...no air conditioning, no heater (aside from taking the chill off the car in the morning;) Just lovely! (Even if I already can't wait for it to drop 5-10 degrees;) Almost 80 during the day is not quite "CRISP" enough for me...hahahahahahahah;)
Happy Thursday!!! :)
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