Soup Du Jour

Helmut and I are kinda obsessed with Whole Foods Market.....okay, maybe not so much Helmut as me. I LOVE that place. I LOVE the food they make, and I'm especially in love with they're hot soup selections. After sampling most of them I fell head over heals in love with their Butternut Squash Crab Bisque. It's delightfully creamy and surprisingly sweet. I quickly became an addict and went from getting it once a month to getting it bi-weekly. That's about 16$ a week on soup.
I'm a big cheapskate so when I saw that figure and realized I was potentially spending 64$ a month on soup I decided to look for an alternative. Why not make it myself? Then I could eat it every day if I wanted and save LOTS of money. That was before I tried to peel a butternut squash.

I wouldn't classify myself as a "beginner" in the kitchen, I can work my way through a recipe, but for some reason this recipe had me chopping off fingers left and right. I'm lucky to have hands left. By the time I was done "peeling" the squash I was almost left with bloody stumps, of course it didn't help that Mariah was crawling around under my feet just daring me to step on her tiny fingers. She also must have sensed my desperation because she kept clinging to my legs and crying until Helmut finally came over and picked her up. I'm pretty sure I snarled and/or made evil eyes at everyone in the house, a few of the stray cats....and maybe even some flies before I finally finished making that soup. Four hours later I ended up with a humongous 25 serving pot full of Butternut squash crab bisque that nobody wanted but me.

Helmut forgot to tell me how much he hates crab, and I was afraid to give the shell fish to Hayden and Mariah for fear of a freaky allergic reaction. I ended up eating a couple of bowls and "saving" the rest in the fridge for a few weeks until I had the heart to dump it.

That brings me to today. I decided to venture another soup creation. This time one of Helmut's known favorites. Pasta e Fagioli from a friends recipe book which incidentally is available online. I'm happy to say that this time was quite a success. Every one loved it, Helmut especially. There were no chopped off fingers to contend with and I did all the chopping during nap time and successfully avoided the clingy leg syndrome.

If there was one lesson I had to take away from this experience it would be: always buy your soup from Whole Foods....JK, always make sure your family can eat what you're going to slave 4 hours in puddles of sweat over. Lesson learned.