about a soup

it's been a delightful holiday weekend. i love long and lazy weekends that allow for that all-important combination of leisure and industriousness. my friend elli was in town this weekend, and so there was the requisite running around. we did some delicious window shopping at anthro--or "shopping crack," as i like to call it--and williams sonoma, and we actually went to an old-fashioned tea shop for brunch on sunday morning. pictures will follow in another post. i was even able to take myself shopping on saturday. even though i love hanging out with friends, sometimes its nice to have a whole day to yourself; to sample every yankee candle in the store (blue hydrangea is to die for!); to walk through pottery barn and have conniptions because you haven't any house to put things in, nor money to buy it with. it's also nice to finish all of your classwork before the eleventh hour and get a bit ahead for the week.

maybe the nicest part of the weekend has been this evening. all the roommates were out, so i decided to experiment in the kitchen. so, i threw a load of laundry in--mmm, i do love being industrious-- opened my computer and logged onto my nickel creek station on pandora, and proceeded to try my hand at tortellini soup.

i got the idea from the wonderful shannan over at flower patch farmgirl, a blog i've been following for several months. a few weeks ago, she was kind enough to post her dinner menu for the week and give me a few ideas! her measurements are much more precise than mine--i told you i was a bit of rogue in the kitchen--so i recommend visiting her blog for the actual recipe.

i'd explain tortellini soup like this: you throw two cartons of chicken stock and a can of diced tomatoes--don't drain them!--into your soup pot of choice (note: i only used one carton of chicken stock because i was only cooking for myself, and my soup wasn't quite brothy enough. so, you know, use two). the only diced tomatoes i had on hand tonight were the sort that have green chiles mixed in with them, so my soup had a bit of an extra bite to it. shannan has her own particular assembly of vegetables to toss into the mix; i, myself, diced some baby carrots, mushrooms, celery, and green olives and threw them in. (there's a lot of throwing involved in this particular culinary adventure). i also added a bit of V8, just to supplement the juice factor. then, you bring the whole thing to a lovely rolling boil. if you leave to, say, go retrieve some laundry, try not to let it boil over.

once it's boiling and lovely, throw, toss, lob, hurl, what have you a package of tortellini into your already delicious cavalcade of ingredients. let the tortellini cook until done, probably about 10-12 minutes. then, reduce your rolling boil to a simmer and let it be for a bit. once you've had enough of this simmering business, add some basil (i'm poor, so i had to resort to the flaky sort) and fresh baby spinach. i threw in some croutons as well; i was having french onion soup fantasies, i guess, and wanted soggy bread on top of my soup. stir it a bit, let the simmer thing go on for just a tad longer, top with some cheese, and then-- serve.

dinner really provided a fantastic end to an already fantastic weekend.

really. i mean, i can hardly wait for leftovers.

i hope you, my fictitious readers, had a wonderful weekend as well. back to the slog tomorrow!