After Dinner Thoughts

East African Pea Soup - a WINNER!!! We really liked the soup. And, after I used my hand blender it was very much like split pea soup in thickness. There was a slight similarity in taste. With the spices it had a nice "tang" to it. The cinnamon and cloves made it somewhat sweet, without being over sweet. And, the cayenne and other pepper gave it just enough kick. Definitely a keeper. We all liked it. As an aside, I don't know why I haven't used my hand blender before today. I will certainly use it more in the future - what an easy tool! I made the soup up to adding the peas yesterday afternoon because I wanted the flavors to meld together. I am really glad I did that. It not only made today easier, but I do believe it made the soup even better than it would have been. Kind of like chili on day two - always better!

The bread was really good too. I picked up the Companion multigrain rolls at Dierbergs, and I highly recommend it. We warmed the rolls for about 15 minutes in a 350°oven. The result was a nicely warmed roll with a crunchy exterior - not hard - easy to bite, with a soft interior. Yummy.

Mom's chocolate meringue pie was quite good too. It was a bit too rich for me, but that's because I really am not big on dessert. I'm sure Michael will enjoy it tomorrow.

I want to include a word of warning to anyone who uses turmeric. This is the second recipe I have used it in. It really is a great spice! However, be very careful of what you wear when using it. It stains clothes (and plastic utensils) easily. Last time I used it I got some on a white tee shirt. I ended up dieing that shirt to cover the stain. I also used a blue cooking spoon as I was stirring the soup; it is now easy to tell how deep the soup was because it is dark green to halfway up the handle. So, while turmeric is a really good spice it also easily stains stain-able items. Be careful with it.

Soup Weather!

I don't know about you, but I LOVE soup! Mom, Dad, and Michael do too, thankfully. We all also really, really like split pea soup. And, while I would be perfectly happy to make a big batch of split pea soup, I feel like changing it up a bit. So, when I found a recipe for East African Pea Soup (not exactly split pea, but similar), I thought - this is it!

We'll see, though, because it does call for an array of spices that will be new/different/exciting for my folks. The recipe calls for onions, garlic, ginger, coriander, cumin, turmeric, cardamon, cinnamon, cayenne, cloves, tomatoes, sweet potato and frozen green peas. This sounds very much like the taste sensations I experienced at an Ethiopian restaurant in Washington DC (I think it was Dukem). The food at that restaurant was quite different than anything I had had before and it was absolutely yummy!

Michael and I walked the Alzheimer's Memory Walk at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville today. Our team, Team Bob in honor of my Dad, walked a 3-mile course. We had 15 adults, 2 youngsters, and 1 dog on our team. It was a great morning for such a walk! This is the first time we have participated in this event and are already planning for next year. We lucked out too - it didn't start raining until long after we had left. The photo is of our team - aren't we a good looking group?

Anyway - for dinner tomorrow I also picked up some multigrain bread, because I don't have the energy to track down any teff, an ingredient necessary to make injera (Ethiopian flat bread). Mom is making a chocolate pie. Hopefully everyone will enjoy dinner. I'll let you know how it all turns out.

After Dinner Thoughts

So - the cheesy pizza pasta was good. Mom and Dad really did enjoy it, although it seemed more like a lasagna than a pizza pasta. I ended up adding carrots, celery, and garlic to the mix. This makes a huge amount of food - lots of leftovers!

I also decided to make diet soda cupcakes (a regular weight watchers recipe). I used yellow cake mix and diet cream soda. We used fat free cool whip for the topping. These were tasty!