Soup of the week x 2

As penance for not posting in over a month, I offer 2 new soup recipes.

This week's soup was Sunday Supper Soup.

Skill Level: Easy-Medium (depending on if you make your own meatballs)
Serves: 6
Cooking time: 2+ hours (including simmer time)

3/4 lb turkey or beef mince
1 egg, slightly beaten
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp chopped parsley
2 cups water
1 (10.5 oz) can condensed beef broth
1 large can tomatoes, undrained
1 envelope onion soup mix
2 cups sliced carrots
1 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup frozen peas, zucchini or string beans
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp basil
1 bay leaf

Prepare meatballs by combining meat through parsley. Shape into balls. In large saucepan, saute meatballs until browned. Drain off fat. Set aside. In same saucepan combine rest of ingredients. Bring to boiling and simmer on low, covered for at least 30 minutes. Add meatballs and simmer for a further 20+ minutes.

Adjustments: I used store bought beef meatballs because I did not have time to order groceries to get the turkey meat delivered. Yes, I have my groceries delivered. That's what happens when your local grocery store is smaller than your house and you have no car. But back to the subject, the meatballs turned out fine but I definitely want to try turkey meatballs next time. Also, I used onion gravy mix not soup, because again, that's what I could get. It was good, not onion-y enough though. And my meatballs never brown properly without breaking up into non-meatball shaped blobs so I lightly browned them then gave up and put in all the liquid (I substituted veggie broth for the water) and let the meatballs boil for 20-30 minutes, THEN I added the rest of the ingredients and let it all simmer on low for like an hour. I didn't put any peas/zukes/etc in because I forgot but we're not really pea people anyway so I'll put zucchini in next time. But not til 20 minutes before serving because I don't like them mushy.

Results: Very yummy. It was a nice tomato-y twist on pot roast. It went really well with the homemade wheat rolls. Nice warm, hearty soup for these cold, gray winter days.

For Christmas Eve dinner we had soup. Mostly because it's my family's tradition but also because I was feeding 11 people (8 of them being guys so I needed lots of easy food) and I just love soup. Obviously. We had Italian Wedding Soup and Roasted Winter Squash Soup. Both are far from the traditional Clam Chowder I always had as a kid on Christmas Eve but I have a feeling that of the 11 people eating, 3 of us would have liked that one. So without further ado...

Roasted Winter Squash Soup

Skill level: Medium
1½ hours | 1 hour prep
SERVES 4 -6

2 lbs butternut squash (acorn, or other winter squashes, etc)
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, mashed to a paste
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/2 tablespoon black peppercorns
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon fresh parsley
4 cups chicken stock
salt & fresh ground pepper

Heat oven to 400. Cut the squash in half, seed it, and quarter it. Brush well with olive oil and season liberally with salt and pepper. Place cut side up in a baking dish and roast until squash is soft and browned at the edges, 45 minutes-1 hour. When squash is tender throughout, scoop flesh from skin and set aside. These steps can be done ahead of time and frozen for later use. Cook onion in butter over medium low heat until soft. Onion should be sweated, not cooked till brown or caramelized. Add the garlic and cook for one minute. Add the wine and cook, stirring frequently, until reduced to nearly dry (about ten minutes). Combine the herbs and spices (thyme through fresh parsley) in a cheesecloth bundle/bouquet garni, add it to the pot. Add the squash pulp to the pot. Gradually add the chicken stock to desired thickness (you may not need all 4 cups), and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer, season with salt and pepper to taste. Simmer soup for 20 minutes. Remove cheesecloth bundle/bouquet garni, and puree soup with hand blender or food processor until it is the desired consistency.

Adjustments: I doubled the recipe but since I hadn't bought enough squash I filled the rest of the requirement with pumpkin. We were a little short on time so we cooked the squash in the microwave rather than in the oven. It looked dry but it was just fine. I didn't buy white wine because I'm cheap and not that gourmet. I used chicken broth instead which doesn't reduce as much as wine but works just as well. For those of you who do not know, when cooking a savory dish, chicken broth is the generally accepted substitution for white wine. There you go, you learned something today. I did not "mash" the garlic into a "paste" so much as use a garlic press which worked just fine. And lastly, I let it all simmer for an hour and a half before removing the herb bouquet to puree.

Result: A-ma-zing! Seriously. I always say I don't like squash but this was heavenly. The herb bouquet left the most delicious flavor and it was smooth and thick without being creamy. Everyone loved it. I think the reason I loved it so much more than the squash soup I tried last year is because it was more savory than sweet and although it didn't have enough pumpkin to taste pumpkin-y, it cut down the squash flavor. Yum. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it...

The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly in the Plain

**There is a link at the END of the post for an online album in case you don't feel like clicking on each individual picture to see it larger.**

Last week we went on a 6 day holiday to Madrid and Portugal. This post is just about our 2 days in Spain. Portugal will be the next post.

We planned this holiday around the idea of meeting up with the Pires' (from Paris) in Madrid and going to the temple there, then using their native Portuguese speaking skills to accompany us to Portugal. Unfortunately, due to several different circumstances they were not able to come but we carried on with plans as scheduled.

On Friday night we flew to Madrid and took the metro to an apartment near the temple where we would be staying (with members of the church). Our plane was really late so we didn't get to the apartment until almost 2am.

Sat morning we went to the temple and spent a few hours doing work there. It is so beautiful. Having now been to temples in several US states and 2 in other countries, I am amazed at how the decor and furnishings really represent the location. This temple was very obviously Spanish. The fabrics they used were probably the most beautiful fabrics I have ever seen and there was engraved marble as a sort of chair rail in every room and hallways and don't even get me started on the chandeliers! It was just beautiful. I took lots of pictures with my brain.

After the temple, we walked back to the apartment (about 10 minutes away) got changed and headed into the city for some sightseeing.

Our first stop was the teleferico, a cable car that goes from one park at the bottom of a big hill (Madrid is very hilly, much like San Francisco, which we did not know until we got there) to an even larger park at the top of the hill. It took 11 minutes and we got an incredible view of the city and the gorgeous autumn colors.

At the top of the hill at Casa de Campo, we walked around for a few minutes, snapped some pictures of the view (and the amusement park within Casa de Campo) and headed back down the cable car.

After getting back down to the Parque del Oeste, we walked to the Plaza de Espana to check out the statue/monument to Cervantes and Don Quixote. Don Quixote is one of our favorite stories and the movie adaptation starring Peter O'Toole is pretty great too.

Next we walked to the Palacio Real, where the royals lived until they were banished in 1920-something. It is a massive palace at the top of a hill, right in the city. As far as European palaces go it measured up size wise but we were both impressed at the lack of ornamentation and gold gilding that we've seen elsewhere. It was refreshing. At taking a closer look at the statuary on the building though, we noticed an awesomely hilarious pattern in the statues of revolutionary heroes. Can you spot the out of place item with the man in the third picture?

How about now? That's right! It's a head! A decapitated head!

And he's not the only guy with one, after looking more closely at him, we checked the next guy who totally wins the "most triumphant" pose. Seriously, hilarious. At this point I knew I would like Spain.

After the Palace and surrounding grounds and some delicious gelato, we headed to Puerta del Sol, in the heart of Madrid. The plaza is massive and packed with tons of people and lots of street performers. Some of them were very strange like this headless guy, and after seeing him, we noticed lots of variations of this same thing pretty much everywhere we went in the city.

There were a few musical performers that we enjoyed. Our favorites were these guys banging old pianos with xylophone mallets. It was pretty cool. The traditional band was fun too and we saw an even better one later in the evening but didn't video it.

This statue (which you can't really see because it's night and I didn't want to use my flash) and the billboard behind it are pretty well-known symbols of Madrid, or so we hear.

Here's a picture of the statue with the flash. Weird. A bear eating a tree? Madrid sure is "quirky".

We found a great souvenir shop in the Puerta del Sol. I picked this hand painted wooden fan and Brent picked a resin statue of Don Quixote. I think he is fabulous and comical and he will be a very well-loved, permanent fixture on our bookshelf. Now we just need a copy of the book for him to stand next to.

Then we made our way to the Plaza Mayor, another major hot spot in the city. It is a plaza lined by gorgeous building with hand painted frescoes. They were in the middle of setting up a Christmas market so it was more of a construction site but we got some nice pics of the buildings and this "art" display someone had made out of toilet paper.

It was pretty big and you could walk through it like a tunnel. We didn't, but we did stop to watch the toilet paper arch blowing in the street-vent breeze.

Right off of the Plaza is a street with loads of restaurants including, Botin, the oldest restaurant in the world (according to the Guinness people). We got there right as it opened and luckily managed to get a table even though we didn't have a reservation. They stuck us in this tiny back room (we had to walk through the kitchen to get there) with all the other "low life's" that didn't bother to make a reservation. I was just glad we got a seat! And we were seated next to some Brasilians so we had someone to talk to while we waited for our food. We both had chicken rather than the roast suckling pig they are famous for. It was yummy and the dessert was "flantastic"! (Bonus points if you know what that's from.)

Dinner was followed by a Flamenco show. It was in this tiny bar where most of the floor space was taken up by a big stage. It was Tablao Flamenco which is the modern twist on traditional. They didn't wear the traditional lacy, flowing dresses but rather tighter spandex flared skirts. The dancing was amazing and the show itself was pretty fun. They did a set of 30 minutes (there were 5 girls and 2 guys) taking turns every few minutes with a few group numbers added in. Then there was a break and the next set started with a traditional solo number as seen in the video below. The girl who did that one was our favorite. She was really expressive and fun and she is the Spanish doppelganger of my cousin, Heather. After that set they did some comedy and singing (in Spanish so we don't really know what it was about) then took another break. By this time it was 12:30 and as much as we would have liked to stay and see what was next, we went back to the apartment to rest up for Sunday (Brent's birthday!!!).

Sunday morning we went to Sacrament meeting at the chapel on the temple grounds. Again, it was all Spanish so I was pretty lost but Brent could get a lot of it, especially when the American missionaries were speaking.

Then we headed back to the city, where our first stop was lunch in the Plaza de Espana, consisting of some fresh fruit and bread we had bought the night before.

Then we went to check out a private museum but it was closed for refurbishment. Bummer! It sounded really intersting. That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the afternoon. Everything we tried to find was either a really long walk that we ditched out on or was closed or was more money than we had been planning. We tried not to get frustrated though because that would make for a crappy birthday. We did see some cool things whilst we were walking around though. Madrid is a very interesting city and has some pretty great architecture.

We went to the Museo Nacional del Prado, which is supposed to be one of the world's great art museums. It pretty much delivered. Brent and I both saw lots of paintings that we had studied in art history and humanities classes. We saw lots of Goya works (seeing as how he was from Madrid), some Velazquez, Rubens, and some really strange El Bosco works. Our favorites were the Spanish realists and Las Meninas, which as I learned in art history back in college and is said in our travel guide, "is the the finest technical painting in existence". It did not disappoint. And it was Spanish so it was kind of strange. We're not the biggest "art museum people" so we kind of took the whole place at a quick stride unless we saw something interesting. It was worth the stop though.

The rest of the day we spent walking from one monument/statue to another. First was the monument to Alfonso XII (who has become a joke for us due to the massive amount of portraits we saw of him in the museum). It was pretty cool and a great way to watch the sunset.

Next we accidentally found the Jardines del Descubrimiento. Well, we had been looking for it. It was described in our guide book as a garden with a statue of Columbus and 3 other statues of ships sailing towards the new land. Ok, so that's what we were looking for and as we got close we saw these really tall curvy stone sculptures (near the Natural History museum so we assumed they had something to do with that) and after walking all around taking pictures and being awed by the giant-ness of it all for about 5 minutes, realized that *was* what we were looking for. The book said nothing about modern art. We were looking for ships! Either way, it was quite cool and I really wished I had a tripod with me to take some better pics. These will have to do though. Oh, and the "garden" was more of a cement plaza which after dark turns into a skate park for questionable looking teens.

We ate dinner at this little glass cafe we came across whilst walking to the next monument. It was really interesting and cute. We had cheese, tapas and hot chocolate (which was eerily similar to our chocolate experience from our first day in London, but this time we were prepared!).

The tapas were delicious and apparently I'll eat anything if you stick it on top of yummy bread. The tapas included a tuna steak with some sort of chivey garlicy sour cream, pork sausage, a Spanish omelet with more sour cream (yum!), a slice of ham, a slice of lamb with some sort of vinegar-mustard seed relish (super yum!), and black pudding (actually quite good) served with a side of fries.

Oh, and both restaurants we'd been to in Madrid had these just sitting on tables. At least this place was nice enough to cover it with a napkin.

The last 2 stops for the night were the Plaza de la Cibeles (a fountain/statue combo of a woman being pulled in a chariot by lions) and the Puerta de Alcala (Madrid's take on the Arc du Triomphe, which we've noticed all major cities seem to have).

We really enjoyed our time in Madrid which was a surprise. Not that we were planning on having a bad time, it's just that we hadn't really planned anything other than the temple until we were on the plane so everything was a nice surprise. And their metro system is easy to navigate and CLEAN. It made London's tube look like the Paris metro and the Paris metro look like the sewer. Even the trains and stations that were obviously older were still clean and well-lit.

Here is the link to the online album with more pictures if you're interested.