The Yum Yum Factor

Some days I feel lazy. I don't want to haul out my spice bins, measure out a whack of them to make my own curry but I am starving and I just want to eat ASAP. I might be out of homemade chicken stock too so I will often just grab a box of my emergency stash of chicken broth (low sodium Campbell's for the most part) from the pantry and bag of curry powder. In the days of yore, this soup would have taken far too long for a last minute meal, requiring over an hour to simmer, but with a pressure cooker, suddenly it's doable for lunch. From the very start of chopping to the minute you lift the lid and ladle the soup into your bowl, you will squeak in just under the 30 minute mark, tops, under 25 minutes if you rush it with a ten minute NPR. My regular Indian Split Pea Soup takes an hour and a half to cook  Today, I was lucky to find a leek, a half of a giant head of cauliflower to use in place of potato so that my soup can have that thick heartiness that potato gives...

Lately I have begun to go through my old posts at my other blog, No ReEats. I will start craving something and comb through this blog, sure that I not only made this tasty thing but I know I blogged it. I remember photographing it and writing about it but I can't seem to find it. For some reason the last place I look is No ReEats, sort of like the fact that Shack always finds his keys in the pants he wore yesterday but that is always the place he ignores because he is sure he didn't leave them in there. Anyway, I am going to start reposting my favourites from over there to here every Thursday so I can have them all in one place, at last. I have moved The Week in Yum to Saturday so, from now on, there will be two regularly scheduled postings each week. Let's get in the way way back machine.... From Thursday, January 26, 2012: It was a rare night where both of my men were going to be home for dinner so I kindly asked them if they would like to put in any requests. I ...

I am such a lucky girl lately. I was asked to take a programable  Crock-Pot© for test drive and give it a review. I was giddy at the offer because I am still using the crock pot that my mother gave me over 25 years ago. To be very honest, after she gave it to me, I never used it. I packed it away and it followed me from house to house, city to city, unused and mostly forgotten, much like her gift of a dreaded red, orlon sweater with a giant asian dragon embroidered across the front. I would wear that hideous sweater once a year when I went to pick her up from the train station at Christmas. She would see that red dragon peaking out under my coat and squeal with delight "oh, that's the sweater I bought you!" and I would say, offhandedly, "did you buy me this? Oh that's right, you did" like I wore the thing so much I couldn't remember when it came from. The things we do for love. Yikes!

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...