A Glimpse Into Why My Cooking Skills May Go Unappreciated...

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My soup looked JUST LIKE THIS. I even had the pretty white bowl working for me. My food never looks like the picture, so I'm stoked.Tonight I made Hearty Bean & Grain Soup. The soup is full of healthy foods like kale, kidney beans, and buckwheat. All in all, it took close to an hour to prepare. [My fault,  as I forgot to cook the buckwheat ahead of time.] Once I got all the chopping, food processing, sauteing, simmering and mixing in line, I was left with a heavenly pot of too-good-to-be true tasty soup. 

I also threw some thick french bread under the broiler. I'm a pretty staunch anti-white flour girl, but I didn't have time to get by the health food store this week and pick up something better. 

Blair came home from work, went for a run, then headed back to the kitchen to ladle himself a big bowl of soup. He returned to the front room 20 minutes later, where I sat typing on my laptop.

"I learned something about myself today," he said, easing down onto the couch.

"Really? What's that?" I asked.

"I learned I freaking LOVE bread." 

I sighed. "There was soup too. Did you even taste the soup?"

"Oh yeah, the soup was good." He paused. "But the bread spanked it."

Seriously. Some days you just wonder why you try...

New Year's Resolutions for 2010

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Long time readers of this blog know that I LUV ME some New Year resolutions. Really, anything in list-format gets me excited and New Year resolutions are the mother of all lists. So without further adieu, here are my resolutions/goals/hopes/dreams for 2010:

REDUCE TV VIEWING. This is a carryover resolution from last year. It worked beautifully until about October, when we slid off the wagon. But we're back on and more strict than ever. We'll record So You Think You Can Dance, Glee, and Modern Family and watch back with no commercials. We're cutting out Biggest Loser (maybe- I waver on this) and Big-Bang Theory. Otherwise, no TV except to watch the occasional movie or football game (Blair) and absolutely no channel flipping. 

SOUP. Yes, you read that right. Soup. Soup is my goal for the new year. I have a Vita-Mix which is the world's coolest blender/food processor all in one and I want to start using it more. Specifically, I want to make healthy, homemade soups to eat before each meal, ideally filling myself up so I eat smaller portions at lunch and dinner. It's also a great way to get in my servings of vegetables, which I'm bad about eating. So, 2010- year of Soup. 

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Blair and the Cats

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I'm sitting in the front room, which is my office, listening to Blair talk to the cats at the back of the house. He's cleaning the litterbox and apparently both cats are sitting there, watching him. He's talking in a high-pitched voice, speaking for the cats:

"Hey fella, hurry it up. I can't hold it much longer."

"Don't be stingy with that litter--I feel a big stinky coming on." 

He cracks me up. 

SNOW! SNOW! SNOW!

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Harris Manor, in full snow glory. Click to enlarge. As promised, yesterday at 1 PM, big, fat, white flakes started falling from the sky. By 4:30 when Blair got home, we already had several inches. The snow kept up all night and we woke to a 7-inch layer of undisturbed pristine whiteness.

Undisturbed, that is, until I insisted we go out in it. It's been at least 8 years since we've had anything resembling a decent snow around here and my little mid-western heart was going pitter-patter with excitement. Snowmen! Snowball fights! Sledding! I had to be a part of it.

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