When Life Gives You Snowstorms, Make Soup

How's your weather? I don't need to tell you how it is around here. You've seen our county on the national news as This Week's Disaster Area. We were blessedly relatively unaffected, but even one town over, they were out of school for the week.

We were off too, just not for the week, but we were absolutely living on the ice/thaw line, and just barely on the right side of it.

So, snuggled/stuck in the house with my boys, it was time to get cooking.

Monday, I had a cook off. This snow was heavy and wet and not as much fun for play. (We are getting positively Inuit in our connoisseur-ship of snow.) So it was a good day to stay inside and make things to eat.

Boiled Water soup: check. While the garlic was boiling, the boys were asking, "What is cooking? That smells great!" Weren't they surprised. (Like Jennifer, this required almost nothing I didn't have, though I will cop to buying sage leaves. $1.69 seemed like not much to invest in an experiment.) To my immense shock, I loved it. Based on the "we serve this to recovering people" comments, I thought of it as a vegan sick day soup (without the cheese obviously) so I just poured a bit for myself in a bowl. It looks like egg whites in a clear dish, so I popped it in a mug instead and just savored it as I did the rest of my cooking and prep.

Cookie bars that I'm obsessed with: check.

Cocoa for the boys who built the snowmen that looked like PigPen: check.

Crazy Jane's chicken in bulk: check.

Clover Lane's crockpot chicken noodle soup: check. I made my own gluten free mini shells to add. Worst part for me, as ever: the chopping of the raw chicken breast. Ew ew ew.

Greek style shrimp scampi (also known as shrimp with feta from DALS): check. Needed to finish the feta somehow, right?

I'm also having a total truffle moment. My sister in law was lovely enough to give us some truffle oil for Christmas, so I gussied up some of my bland potato soup with it; perfect. Also, part of my wheat overload last week was definitely from the Evol truffled mac and cheese that was on sale at Target. And the truffled mushroom flatbread started the whole thing here. So I am figuring out what we can truffle up around here.

Next up on the soups: the Smooth Vegetable Soup, also from Tipsy Baker. First I need to find leeks, which are inexplicably sold out around here.

One other indoor activity: inspired by the 71 Toes "Good Heart Attack," I cut out a ton of hearts and had the boys write things they love about their dad on them. I did the same for him and for them, and I have been taping them up one per day until Valentine's Day. It looks adorable, the kids loved doing it, and it has made us all smile every day. In a fit of pique, one child started ripping his down from the doorway, but later we found every single one of them right at the head of his bed where they can be the first and last things he sees every day. These might have become a permanent part of the decor. And I'm ok with that.

Another part of the indoor activity: sure, I thought, I'll do the 30 day planking challenge, though my core muscles are hidden better than the gold in Fort Knox. First day: 20 seconds. Hard, but I did it. Second day: by 6 seconds, my core is screaming, "HEY! We were good sports about this yesterday and all but that was a ONE-TIME DEAL. That will NOT be happening again." To say nothing of my elbows. My 30 day challenge looks more like a 60 day challenge but I do like how it makes my core feel, so we're on the wagon with this, just at a less aggressive pace.

This week: More snow! Oh, I wish I were kidding. I am not.

Sunday: leftovers

Monday: takeout pizza deal. I have a minor medical procedure (routine maintenance) but I know I'll be tired.

Tuesday: tacos

Wednesday: spaghetti

Thursday: leftovers/freezer food (I found a few more gems as I was rooting around)

Friday: Something romantic. Hah! Something the kids will eat is more like it. Leftovers, most likely.

That week couldn't be less inspirational if I tried. But...it's been quite a week, really. We are finally, finally flipping the office and the older boy's room, so the house is in total chaos. It looks like Hoarders up in here but this is the "darkest before the dawn" portion of our house re-do. The new counters are being templated this week which means every spot of the counters has to be cleared. So prepping food is not going to be a real possibility for much of the week. These are awesome, excellent first world problems, so I have no complaints, but that is my feeble excuse for the feeble menu. It may not improve for a while.