Saturday Night Soup-Tacular!

So, here it is the weekend and I have an extra kid in my family again. Not that I mind, of course; the more the merrier. (I particularly like this friend of my sons, as he's easy going, eats anything, and helps with the chores. In fact he's more polite than my son!) So, I decided to be generous and took the kids to town for swimming and a quick trip to the mall.

Since it was lunch time while we were there, we made a pitstop at Harvey's for veggie burger combos. Here's Dan and his buddy chowing down....

Harvey's is one of the two places in town that have veggie burgers. The other one is A&W, but I don't like their burgers. I think they taste like vomit in patty form. Chunky vomit, at that.
So Harvey's gets a fair bit of our business. Bob, who regularly works weekends, gets takeout from there so regularly that I started calling his car the Burgermobile. The backseat was full of burger wrappers and drink cups at one point, and when it heated up inside, the air smelled like french fries.
In fact, after we finished up our lunch, we picked up dinner for Bob and his buddy and delivered them to the jobsite, where Bob was busy getting dirty. Oh, and likely doing some mechanic work as well of course.

By the time we got home it was after 2 PM, so there wasn't much time to really get into cooking anything complicated for supper. (Such as the Croissant recipe from the Vegan Lunchbox I've been wanting to try!)

So I decided to go with a Soupapalooza! See, I rarely ever make just one kind of soup. I figure since I have to be hovering around stirring soup, and since I'm hauling out all the veggies and spices and making a big 'ol mess anyway, I might as well give 'er and make a bunch. So tonight, I made three different pots of soup, all recipes I'm testing for my cookbook.

First, I made Creamy Carrot and Spinach Soup.....very spicy, but a tasty spicy, not just "hot", if you know what I mean.

Then, I made some Chili-Mac Soup, using Adzuki beans, tomato juice, whole wheat macaroni, etc. This was very flavourful, but I guess I was panting and horny to get this made and I undercooked the beans. Crunchy beans in soup are not appealing. Other than that, the flavour was perfecto. I garnished it with some shredded Pepper-Jack Soy cheese.

And finally, the soup that turned out to be the *star* of the meal- Summer Vegetable and Pasta Soup.

My, my, my, this soup was so good it was worth selling your children for. (Sorry kids, but I call 'em as I see 'em.) I think it's a combination of the flavour of the veggies (such as onion, mushrooms, spinach, red bell pepper, etc.) plus the spice I used that made this taste so fresh. With spring finally here, and warmer weather right around the corner, I find my tastebuds craving lighter things. This is definitely a soup with a lighter, springy flavour. (Note to the Mominator: When you come to visit next, you're gettin' fed this soup!!)

And of course, we had some biscuits with the soup....

I made plain old everyday biscuits. I didn't dare fuck with the recipe this time by adding anything quote-unquote "weird." Bob likes his biscuits pure and simple.

So here goes- Hubby Bob's Perfect Biscuits

(BTW, please don't point out to me that these are unhealthy; I already know that. :0) )

Preheat Oven to 425 degrees farenheit

Mix in a large bowl:

2 cups white flour

1/4 cup white sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

2 Tbsp Nutritional Yeast

1 Tbsp Ground Flax Seed

1/2 cup shortening (Earth Balance, preferably)

1 cup sour soy milk (Ten minutes before you start making these, mix 2 tsp white vinegar with almost 1 full cup soymilk, preferably full-fat. Do not use rice milk. )

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Mix dry ingredients. Use a fork, and then your hands, to mix in shortening until mixture is mealy. Stir in soured soymilk until mixture is just moistened (don't worry if you don't use all the soymilk, and don't overmix. That makes for tough biscuits.) Pat into a circle and use round cutter to cut out biscuits, Place on baking sheet. I really, really recommend getting a baking stone if you don' t have one already. Biscuits tend to burn on the bottom if you don't have a good insulated sheet.)

Bake at 425 for 10 minutes. Lat the biscuits sit on the sheet for a minute outside the oven, than let sit for two minutes on cooling rack before eating. (They need to finish cooking on the inside.)

Then, enjoy, and think of Bob, the biscuit connoisseur.

That's it for today. I leave you with this politically incorrect thought: I've been listening to "An Inconvenient Truth" on the TV as I've been writing this. There has been soooo much good press about this movie, that I had highighHIGH hopes for this film. And truly, I agree that this is an important cause, and people need to hear this message. But man oh man, is it just me, or is this movie unbelievably dry? I'm bored listening to Al Gore. I want to change the channel, for God's sake! I can't believe that so many people found this guy compelling. For me, too many segments of him just talking. And he's as interesting as wallpaper paste. And heck, I'm saying that as a person who would have voted for him if I had been American. Maybe It's just me. Anyone got a thought about this? Share, please.

Happy Saturday Peeps!