Today is one of the first cold Monday's of the fall. The kind where you just wanna stay in bed all warm and cozy. At least it was a high school power Monday which means an extra hour of sleep.
Instead of a do-nothing day off, I had on my itinerary yet another visit from the AC company that services mom's 1 yr old unit. Honestly, it's one of those companies that make you want to pull out your hair. There should be nothing wrong with an AC unit that's a year old! Why oh why have they been out several times already? Oh wait, I know.... because they're idiots. Installation errors, call back appointments that accomplished nothing, parts ordered again, and no-shows. So today I was to hang around for a valve to be put in the AC which is now on HEAT. They will eventually put in the supposed fix-it but who knows if it works because it'll be winter! Luckily, mom says the warranty is 2 yrs. Oh goodie - another year of these bozo's getting nothing done in 3 visits or more.
So from 8-12 today I was grounded. I decided to make the most of the time by getting an early start on a crock pot roast for dinner. Then I decided to roast a bunch of veggies - especially the kohlrabi from the CSA farm share that needed to be cooked asap. Those are scary looking little things. I kept giggling thinking of Sputnik and alien life forms while chopping them. I roasted them with peppers & tomatoes because I had to use those up or toss 'em too.
While it was cooking I decided to find a recipe to use them in or I was just going to toss 'em in the roast in the crock pot. I found an interesting Kale & Roasted Vegetable Soup recipe on simplyrecipes.com so I switched gears and started on that. I got very brave and decided to taste the roasted kohlrabi before puree-ing the whole thing. Wow! Now that was tasty. Who knew?! I kinda got excited for the soup then. I couldn't follow it exactly (mostly because my carrots & onion were already in the crock pot) but it was great! Mike came home for lunch as I was taking snickerdoodles out of the oven and had soup ready to ladle into a bowl! Score! It was so good it could have been ordered at a restaurant! Somewhere in between all that, I also cooked a pound of pasta, and hardboiled some eggs - all for use later this week. By the time all that got done and the kitchen cleaned up for the 3rd time today, the AC man missed his window of opportunity.
Too bad the AC guy didn't show up. Or answer his phone. If he had come somewhere in his 4 hr window and wasn't as big of a bozo as the last guy he might have scored a few cookies.
Now I'm going to pick Mariah up from school. She's been on quite the soup kick lately so she should be pleased with me today... IF she doesn't realize she's eating weird vegetables and beans until after the first bite. All is forgiven then.
Kale & Roasted Vegetable Soup
- a hearty winter soup recipe with kale, white beans, and roasted veggies.
Preheat oven to 400 - brush a baking stone with olive oil. Chop into large pieces veggies to be roasted and toss in the oil then sprinkle with salt. I did kohlrabi, peppers, tomatoes. I would have done more if I'd had known before roasting what I was making. heh heh. Roast veggies for 30-40 minutes, tossing occasionally. Puree them in a food processor.
Put in a soup pot with the rest of the ingredients: bring to boil and simmer 30 minutes. Note: I made about a 1/2 size recipe, loosely based on the recipe below which I'm including for you rule-followers. While it was cooking I was making other things and decided to toss in some bow tie pasta. That's when I thought to myself (pasta fagioli?!) and served it with parma cheese. Yum!
The Real Recipe (vs. Chrissie)
3 medium carrots, peeled & quartered lengthwise (didn't use - carrots were cooking in another dish)
2 large tomatoes, quartered (I only did 1 - would have done 2 if I'd known)
1 large onion cut into wedges (didn't roast any so I didn't use)
1/2 small butternut squash, peeled, seeded, cut lengthwise into 1/2" thick wedges (didn't have - wow what a shame)
6 garlic cloves (I used abt 3 tsp store bought minced)
1 TBSP olive oil
6 or more cups of broth (I used 2 cans of chicken broth)
4 cups of finely chopped kale (or less... I think I used about a cup. It had a pungent smell so I went with "sparingly")
3 large fresh thyme sprigs (I used dried basil leaf)
1 bay leaf
1 15oz can Great Northern white beans, drained.
* (I used southern style which is spiced up deliciously and doesn't need to be drained).
* (Add pasta & parmesan cheese - trust me!)
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