Sweet potato bisque

The Kitchen staff, within the community in which I work, is staffed with Chef's. Not just cooks but actual Chef's that know how to prepare and cook wondrous dishes and scrumptious deserts that put most average day to day cooking to shame.

It only costs $2. for team members to buy a meal from the Kitchen and Managers actually eat for free so I eat there on a pretty regular basis.

Most lunches start with salad and the soup of the day.
For whatever reason, I don't care too much to eat most salads (not all) that I haven't prepared myself. (Don't know why really) We can analyze that at another time. So anyway, I pretty much leave most of the salads alone, but I have gotten in the habit of eating all the different soups.

The soups they make are sooooooooooooooooo incredibly good and different and completely delicious that I have been craving soup when I'm at home on a regular basis. Since I only know how to cook Split Pea, 15 bean and chicken dumpling soup I am generally left choosing between Campbell's and Chunky at our local grocery stores- which isn't even close to the satisfied and deeply nourishing feeling I get when I slowly savor those steamy bowls of soup.

SO, I talked to Nicholas about my new passion and we agreed we would begin a Soup Quest!
Hunting for and preparing new and varied soups.
Which is exactly what we are doing and this was my first attempt: Sweet potato bisque

I was inspired to look up the recipe because it was a soup that I had tried while working one day, that I thought sounded completely disgusting but fell in love with because it was lightly sweet, tangy, smooth and well, just plain awesome.

When it was finished I gave everyone a small bowl to sample (because most of them were eating pizza and hot wings) and I added crackers and made it my dinner.
They were each impressed by how surprisingly good it was and I was just excited that our soup quest is well under way!

Here is the recipe that I followed:

(Except I cheated and used canned sweet potato's which I drained and smooshed for the sake of immediate gratification)

Ingredients:
8 sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
5 cups chicken stock
small pinch ground nutmeg
2 sticks cinnamon, crushed
2 cloves
1 tablespoon maple syrup (or more to taste)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup Dry Sack sherry
salt and pepper to taste
whipped cream for garnish

Directions: Bring chicken stock, sweet potatoes, maple syrup and spices to a simmer. Simmer until sweet potatoes can be easily crushed. Puree and return to simmer. Add cream and sherry, return just barely to a simmer. Adjust seasonings with salt, pepper and more maple syrup to taste. Strain and serve, garnished with whipped cream and dash of cinnamon.

It was completely AWESOME!
Give it a try!

My day in pictures

I didn't photograph how peaceful our bed looked as I climbed into it for something like a 3 hour nap early this afternoon before I showered and ventured back out into the world.

I was the third car in line making a left hand turn onto a divided side street over by the Palazzo movie theatre because I was heading to the bank which shares the same parking lot. The sun was at an odd angle I guess because the first two cars completely missed the left where they should have turned and instead turned on the left side of the median- which meant they were driving the wrong way down the road. It was really strange looking to me, even more strange that I saw 4 or 5 of the cars behind me followed them instead of me onto the wrong side of the road?
Psychos.

As I was beginning to make my turn to get where I was going I could see they were all making swift left hand turns into the other bank parking lot and got turned around I guess.
But anyway, I didn't take any pictures of that either.

After I dropped Raechel off for her Youth Group Retreat thing, it was getting pretty dark so I didn't take pictures of dropping Aspen at her friends house to help babysit or stopping at Hen House to buy a magazine so that when it turned out Panera Bread was already closed I would have something to read while I was at Kobe Steak and Sushi over a bowl of combination fried rice or when I picked Aspen back up and came home to talk with Nicholas before he went to bed for the night.

My day wasn't exactly exciting or very eventful or anything like that but examining different moments in my day through the lens of my camera put it all in a little bit different prospective for me. Pausing in the chill air to try and capture a photo of a tree that struck me as beautiful in one of our neighboring yards put a slower spin on my day and I appreciated the slow down.
I have a very good life. Even when I'm missing my husband on a slow day off. Life is very good.

Talkin' Dirty

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Now playing: Jack Johnson - Banana Pancakes
via FoxyTunes
























A few days ago Nicholas and I were talking about the way we love all of the events of our earliest meetings with one another, our earliest conversations and all of the events that brought us step by step by step by step to where we are today.

There were certain things that attracted me to him and kept me completely fixated.

The first thing of course,

(since we met online)

was his writing.

Not the fact that he could write.

It was his style.

His brilliance!

The things he talked about and the words that he picked piqued my curiosity to find out who the man behind the keyboard was.

And then I did.

<--- Oh, that doesn't really belong. lol-

Then it was the way being near him felt sooo familiar as if he were created just for me, right down to the very smell of him.

For me, it still is "that" today.

He is still completely smelly perfect.

Now, he does pick some pretty snazzy cologne but it wasn’t that which I’m talking about and it was that too, mixed with the smell of his warm skin under my nose.

The pure perfection of him.

I have spent many moments through many months and several years resting my nose on the skin of his arm or his chest or his head trying to sniff up every bit of the wonderful smell of HIM.

I know you know what I mean.

I could have made a career of loving him and been a blissfully content woman.

I can look back on things in our relationship I loved then and see how it evolved into how I love feeling now.

59 months later.

Today will be our 59’th monthiversary.

And he is in Florida *#@!

and I am here at home -Nickless- at the end of one of the worst and longest weeks I have had in a really long time and I think that completely sucks. *sniffle*

I'm not grumbling because he is in Florida.

I'm just grumbling because I miss him.

(Also due in large part to some hard core pms.. which is equally unfair)

Who knows?

This week may not even have been as bad as I think it was- it could all have been a hormonal illusion right?

The one bright spot in the middle of these tre-suck days is the few minutes I get to hear him talking to me about what is going on in his life and how he misses and loves me and I'm afraid I'm not hiding my fatigue too well.

59!

Monthiversary’s are what we have celebrated in both big and small ways on the 7’th of every single month since we started dating.

I had (embarrassingly) actually thought it was our 60’th monthiversary this month but quickly came to realize that I must have become fouled up somewhere along the line because 60 months equals 5 years and 5 years for us will officially be on December 7’th, 2008.

Which goes to show how truly lame my Math skills really are.

So anyway- prior to having the great revelation which I just shared, above, I had an idea to Google “60 months” and see what all would come up.

The first thing that came up was :

60 months= 5 years

(Hence my revelation)

Then, I typed in 59 months. Nothin fun.

Then (pipe in music)

I typed in December 7 and came upon i n f o r m a t i o n that for my avid followers will be as interesting and mind boggling as it was for me…. although the significance may not hit you all at once.

Give it a moment.

What Google produced for me was this:

December 7 is the 341st day of the year (342nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 24 days remaining until the end of the year.

December 7 is the 341st day of the year (342nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 24 days remaining until the end of the year.

Hrm………

341………. I thought to myself.

And in my usual style

My next thought was:

3 + 4 + 1 = 8

I was really surprised!

I had made such a big deal about the “8’s” in our wedding date -

http://alix-righthereathome.blogspot.com/2008/08/found-it.html

not even really knowing why 8 would be significant to us anyhow … (?)

and I hadn’t even realized the absolute perfection of the way it all came together until just that very moment on our 59 mothinversary eve and it made me feel good to find it out!

So what does this all mean?????

LOL!

Nothing really I spose, except for meaning that I am crazy about my husband.

And I miss him and can't wait to have him back home.

Tomorrow I'm going to do something pleasing to me.

I don't know what but I intend to spend the day doing things that feel good to me because

1. This week has sucked and even if it hadn't it would still be the right thing to do!

2. In honor of our 59 monthiversary (insert big kissy lips)

((my husband is also incredibly good at finding awesome pictures of luscious kissy lips))

3. So I am more entertaining to talk to.

A very important trait in a woman.