The Yum Yum Factor

The Kid loves to dip grilled cheese sandwiches into tomato soup and then, last year, Dianne made tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches cut up like croutons and served right in the soup. I made it one night and he had three bowls of soup with the equivalent of two big sandwiches and I knew a star was born. These little yellow cherry tomatoes were on sale at the supermarket this morning and they would also give me an opportunity to use the canned yellow tomatoes from PC's Black Label line that I have been eyeing forever. It was a nice change from our usual tomato soup and I love the colour. It's all warm and sunny and cheerful and the harvati grilled cheese provides a really mellow flavour. I almost used a sharp cheddar but the taste of the yellow tomatoes seemed to be a bit more delicate than a red tomato. Of course, that could be all in my mind because the yellow tomatoes certainly look milder and softer. Regardless, I decided on harvati with a dense german bread ...

It's such a beautiful day out there - 14C, sunny and balmy and way too spring like to feel like a heavy soup. Corn chowder is one of our favourite soups and it always feels summery so that was the only kind of soup I could even consider making. To make it a bit new and different, I added parsnips in addition to the potatoes and evaporated milk instead of cream again with great results. The parsnips add quite a bit of sweetness to the soup so when you mix that with corn, you are going to end up with a bit of a sweeter soup. The bacon fat helps to counteract that and I also used lots of fresh black pepper to give it some bite. We took this soup and some brown butter soda bread to a friend's house for lunch and it was gobbled up with great enthusiasm. Parsnip Corn Chowder 4 slices bacon, chopped roughly 1 medium onion, chopped 1 clove garlic, chopped 2 cups red potatoes, small dice 2 1/2 cups parnsips, peeled and small dice corn cut off of four cobs, rese...

My son has his first week of March break this week so we are hanging out and doing all sorts of fun stuff. He certainly deserves some cookies to enjoy on his week of nothing but video games til 1am, sleeping in till mid morning and munching bon bons on the couch while I fan him with a palm frond and rub scented oils into his tender feet. Originally we were thinking chocolate chip but that just seemed so boring. We all know there are amazing chocolate chip cookies to be had out there and The Neighbour makes them for him all the time. As I was nosing around the internet I kept coming upon versions of these compost cookies from Momofuku Milk Bar. The only problem was that they all made too many cookies and as I have said many times, I have no self control around certain foods and a cookie that was full of salty AND sweet? Forget about it.

I am beginning to think I am having a soup identity crisis lately. I am usually ALL about the soup and have no trouble finding soups that speak to me but lately, nothing looks that good. Maybe it's because we haven't really had much in the way of winter weather. It's been mild, we haven't really had any snow that has stuck around for more than a day and if you didn't know what month it was, you would have sworn that we have spent the last 4 months enjoying the very first moments of spring. I find it difficult to get all fired up about making comforting, cold weather foods without the cold weather part and find my mind wandering to Toronto summery thoughts of wood fires, bbqs, wine on the front porch and garbage strikes. The only things that have been interesting me seem to be Thai coconutty soups or Indian flavoured soups  so I thought it was time to bust out the yellow split peas for some daal. It's not a ground breaking soup by any means but it is simp...