Recipe: Spicy Tortellini Soup

It is so cold in my house I can hardly stand going to the kitchen to make food. Phil did some amazing kitchen tricks this week with some elk steaks, including a pomegranate reduction and a sweet, caramelized sauce with onions. Yum yum! This afternoon I needed a quick warm meal so I whipped this soup up. It was so good I had to pass it along...

Spicy Tortellini Soup
1 russet potato, diced
1/2 cup diced sweet onion
4 garlic cloves, chipped
3 cups vegetable or chicken stock
1 tbs nutritional yeast flakes
3 tbs Braggs Liquid Aminos (or soy sauce)
2-3 tbs hot curry powder (3 tbs was almost too hot for me to eat)
2 cups (3 hand fulls?) dry tortellinis with cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

• Heat broth up on medium high burner and add potatoes, onion, garlic, yeast flakes, Braggs, and hot curry powder. Bring to a boil.
  
• Reduce heat to simmer and stir often for 20 minutes.
  
• Add tortellinis and simmer for 10-15 more minutes.
  
• Dish up and add salt and pepper to taste! Top with sour cream to cool off the curry powder if you accidentally add too much like I did.
  

This is a great winter soup that can have many other things added to it and is quick to make during finals week. Yippy!

Food Testing

So, Grandma challenged me to making dinner rolls for Thanksgiving. This is something I have never done. I've spent the past few days looking at recipes. Then, I spent a whole night reading the bread section of Harold Magee's On Food and Cooking, trying to understand the best method to getting the crusty outside and chewy inside. Trying to decide if I should go white or wheat, herbed or plain, twisted or round, oh my god there are so many choices! Here's what I tested today.... I think they're a hit! Whole wheat with oats on top. They're perfect.

Sewing

Well, after having Grandma's old sewing maching for.... maybe five years? I finally learned how to use it this weekend! While I was spending a lot of time at home the past month, I started a quilting project. Cutting the pieces out is hard enough, but then came the sewing part... Now I'm all set up and Alexander has made himself at home as my helper. He definitely knows how to be in the way when I'm concentrating on knitting, crocheting, cooking or sewing! I wouldn't have it any other way.

Birthday Weekend

What an awesome b.day weekend! Here's a summary:

• Thursday: Picked Phil up from Seattle and had dinner. Drove back to Portland and spent the night at Barry and Carol's new house in Laurelhurst. It's beautiful!
• Friday: Had lunch with mom and grandma at Milo's City Cafe on Broadway. I had crab cakes and eggs with Bearnaise sauce. Phil ordered eggs benedict with smoked salmon (yum!) and mom and grandma shared a cobb salad about the size of the table. We then had an impromptu birthday celebration next to mom's car on the sidewalk, where I opened my presents :)
• Friday night: Had beers with Desiree and Ian at Bridgeport pub and shared a plate of warm olives. When the folks next to us left for the evening with over half of their plate of warm olives left, we ate that too. Afterwards, Phil and I just made our reservation at 23Hoyt. We started with a plate of gnocchi and chanterelles, then had lamb kabobs with plum sauce, and halibut with grilled peppers for the main entrees. We enjoyed all of this with a yummy bottle of wine, which was hard to choose with about 100 on the list! Although I don't like cake, we went to Papa Haydens after dinner and Phil had an incredible piece of chocolate cake while I sipped on a raspberry desert wine.

• Saturday: Phil and I transferred wine at Nuthatch with John Bacon then went hiking around Mary's Peak, hoping to find some chanterelles.

• Sunday: We awoke at 6 a.m. since I was unaware of the time change and set the alarm (oops) and drove over to Pacific City. We had a beautiful morning at the coast with family and said goodbye to Granddad. It was a gorgeous day, warm and sunny and very calm at the tidepools. Afterwards, Phil and I again tried to find mushrooms, but were not successful until we pulled over on the side of the highway after I squealed about some giant looking fungus that was too crazy looking to not stop. Phil quickly noted that the ones I saw were pretty but not edible, and we went about 10 yards off the road before finding chantarelles! Yeaaaahhh! Carol cooked an awesome dinner and we sauteed the mushrooms to go with it. After dinner we went to see American Gangster, which will obviously be movie of the year. Wow.

What a busy weekend! It was great to see so many people and eat such amazing food. The perfect birthday after getting over pneumonia.