after making red (ie normal) gazpacho a few weeks ago, i was excited when i found a recipe for white gazpacho – a real twist on the normal kind – in the september issue of vegetarian times.
for my birthday, i received some amazing new cookbooks from my friends and family – they obviously know me very well. since i was gifted the cookbooks, i’ve been perusing through the influx of recipes, trying to decide which dish to make first. since it’s the height of the summer season, i quickly landed on gazpacho as a first recipe to sample from fields of greens, by annie somerville.
unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past several months, i’m sure you’re all quite aware of the economic crisis facing our country. while mike and i are lucky enough to remain in our excellent places of employment, and the majority of our friends are still working and not impacted by the tough times, it has brought up a new awareness for me about finances. now, mike and i are no financial gurus, but we’ve been using the website mint.com to set budgets and watch where we’re spending our hard earned money. it’s been eye opening to see how much of our money goes directly to food. and while this amount spent on food isn’t exorbitant, there are definitely a lot of take out sushi expenditures, and we often throw uneaten produce into the worm compost bin.
recently, a good friend sent me an article from cnn.com with ideas for $10 meals and challenged me to “better and more vegetarian friendly version.” so i am responding to the challenge with my own twist on saving money in the food realm, because i got frustrated quantifying how much money i spent on a specific meal, mostly since i pull lots of ingredients from my stocked cupboard (spices, flours, bouillon cubes, canned beans, etc). let’s just say this post was inspired by the article above, but does not direct speak to it…and i promise to hone my pricing skills and get back to you.
after my first foray with making a soup from scratch at home, i began avidly looking for more soup recipes to create in my own kitchen. i landed on a lentil soup from the amazing cookbook eat, drink, and be vegan, by dreena burton, and immediately whipped up a large pot of the thick and homey soup.
yep, it’s officially fall, dear readers. and with the seasonal change, i decided to attempt to cook my first soup from scratch to keep us warm on the crisp fall nights. soup is a dish that i have had made for me from scratch by my parents, but something i’ve never attempted to make from scratch on my own because the stuff from the can usually fulfills any soup desire i might have