Tag: soup

Lunch on the lam

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, Life in the cube, quest for the best, restaurants

Sometimes life in the cube can get overwhelming. Have you ever been at work and just wanted to take a break? I mean, really, take a break. Change the scenery for a half an hour? Not make small talk? Not force positivity for just a little while?

This is when an audio book can come in handy; it’s particularly conducive to hands-free eating. Okay, so the price of gas is prohibitive, I know. You wouldn’t want to sit in your car with it running for 20+ minutes every day (especially in the winter when you need to have the heat on, but once in a while it can be very restorative).

If you brought your lunch you will gain extra precious minutes of solitude in  your car (read: oasis of calm); just grab your lunch bag and go. Otherwise, try to choose a place from which to buy that is not known for its lunch time crowds. Standing in line for 10 minutes can make a serious dent in your alone time.

If you have to purchase your meal and you have any control over the timing of your lunch break, that’s even better. Choose a time that is off-peak: perhaps 11:00am or 2:00pm. This ought to get you out of the store and into your car more quickly. Don’t forget extra napkins. Eating in the car can be fraught with peril, what with the gear shift and the steering wheel to navigate and all. Also your choice of meal can make things more tricky (hel-lo, meatball sub?).

On this day I chose soup from Kamasouptra in Portland. The curried Pumpkin Bisque Soup won out over the other five options (so okay, maybe it’s winter-almost-spring, but it feels like fall-almost-winter). The real draw for me (even though the soup is excellent) is the bread, still warm from the oven. What can I say? The value of comfort food cannot be overstated.

Especially during the work day.

🙂

Kennebunk Winterfest with tweens

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, fitness, friends, local fun, restaurants, tweens

The Kennebunk 2011 Winterfest was yesterday in (you guessed it) Kennebunk, Maine. It was great that it wasn’t February 25th, since we got (yet another unwelcome) snowstorm. It was fun, but would have been more so if it had been about 10 degrees warmer (I’m just sayin’).

It kicked off with a pancake breakfast at Duffy’s for $5.99 per person (the money went towards supporting the Winterfest event) which included a drink and 2 enormous pancakes. I didn’t photograph them because they weren’t anything special…they were too big, too thick, too pale, too insubstantial…a disappointment really. When we were leaving I saw some smaller, thinner, better browned pancakes coming out of the kitchen, but it was too late for us. I mentioned to the server that maybe the kid portions should have been one pancake if they were going to make them that ginormous; maybe they listened? It was also a little bit disconcerting that the food arrived so quickly. In one case, I saw people’s pancakes arrive after they had barely sat down and they hadn’t even gotten their drinks. I also felt like they were rushing to get us out, but wasn’t sure why.

Next year, I will go to Perfecto’s Caffe on Main Street in Kennebunk for breakfast instead.

Then next stop was the Kennebunk Town Hall where a craft show was held from 9am-2pm. There was a big crowd here (even Elvis made an appearance!)  Dory’s Dogs was there making Nutella and Banana Crepes to die for. I took a bite and died right there. They were amazing. I couldn’t get a picture because my hands were covered with Nutella…I wasn’t worthy.

The kids had the option of making some glass bead projects, but those were not cheap. The key rings were the least expensive project at $3, then there were earrings, bracelets, and other projects, some costing as much as $15. The two women running the craft were awesome: funny, patient, helpful. The kids loved it.

Next: the scavenger hunt. They were given “clue bags” and had to go around to area businesses to get the different parts of the snowman and then assemble it at the end to get the chance to win a DQ  or a toy store gift certificate (we’re still waiting for the call that we won…). This is where it would have been very helpful if it was a) warmer…it was in the low 20’s) and b) did not span the construction zone at the bridge or c) include the Mail It Unlimited Store that was way out of the way from the general location of all of the other participating stores. There was a shuttle, but there were supposed to be two (if found out later that one broke down). The one that was running was never at a stop when we needed it, and it was so cold that it was better to keep moving.

After some compromising (that involved driving to the last two stops that were past the construction area) we finished the hunt and headed for the Soup Contest. This was awesome. You paid your $3 and then sampled coups from 18 different pots and then voted for your favorite. It was tough; some of them were excellent, but some were decidedly not. After telling them that they should have had separate categories for cream soups and broth soups, I picked the Farmer’s Chicken Soup to win, and Izzy picked the Hot Sour Soup to win. My runner-up was the Roasted Chestnut with Sage and Creme Fraiche. This year, they didn’t disclose which local business made which soups (as they had done last year) so we were voting blind.

Overall, it was a great day: good food (except for the pancakes), good exercise to work it off, good fun with tweens.

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Colds

by Karen, posted in fitness, health

“The first wealth is health,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson.

You can say that again.

After not catching a cold for years and years, I have had two (this is my second) in one month.

How did this happen? True, my friends have had colds, and my husband and daughter are just getting over colds, but I have been surrounded by sick people every winter, not just this one, and have not gotten sick. At the first sign of a cold, whether it be my own or someone else’s, I took my Airborne and never gave it another thought.

Needless to say, this is not working this winter. (Hmmmm, I wonder if they’ve changed the formulation of Airborne…note to self: check on this!).

Okay, to be honest, the other thing that’s different this winter is that I am not religiously exercising at least 3 times a week as I have during winters gone by.Why not? That’s easy: I just don’t feel like it. In fairness to me, though, it’s also because a lot of the “found time” I’ve used for writing used to be carved out for exercising. Oh, and I’m eating small baked goods (read: sugar) way more often than I was last year. There is a school of thought that says sugar (in addition to feeding one’s soul) feeds one’s germs…

If your best efforts (Airborne, extra Vitamin C, good ol’ fashioned careful hand washing, and not touching your face)  fail to ward off that cold, what do you do? Besides suffer, I mean.

  1. Chicken soup.
  2. Tea with honey (oh heck, even just the honey! A nice, big tablespoon of it!).
  3. Rest in bed (or on the couch) under the comfy blanket with your best pillow (and biggest box of Kleenex).
  4. Okay, who are we kidding? You know that you’re going to end up having to go to work. Get up as late as you can and get back in bad as soon as you can.
  5. Try not to annoy the fam with your coughing (read: try not to be annoyed with the unsympathetic fam).
  6. Use cough drops, DayQuil, NyQuil (save money! buy generic!)…whatever makes you feel better.

Remember that “This too shall pass”. Even if it doesn’t feel like it will anytime soon.

National Homemade Soup Day

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, health, Karen's Kitchen, Pantry Project, tweens

This year, it’s this week (yesterday, actually) but hey, soup is forgiving! So….here’s some reasons to dive in:

Top 5 reasons to make some homemade soup:

  1. You’ve got some leftover turkey (or chicken)  bones from your Thanksgiving (or Christmas or New Year’s Day) dinner in your freezer.
  2. You are living in New England, it’s winter, and you are freezing your butt off.
  3. You are dealing with a head/sinus/chest cold (in which case, get someone else to make it for you).
  4. You picked up a rotisserie chicken for dinner, and want to get one another meal from it.
  5. You have a crock pot. Give it something to do.

You will find no shortage of recipes online (and probably in your own collection of seldom used cookbooks) for homemade soup, not to mention on the labels of canned or boxed broth.  Or just go on intuition and taste as you go…it’s hard to mess up soup.

Speaking of leftovers in the fridge, if you have any leftover pasta from another night’s dinner, use that in your soup (I happened to have some linguini). Don’t forget to forage in your crisper drawers for any (perhaps long) forgotten carrots, celery, onions, and other (still recognizable) vegetables to add to your soup.

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Snow day! Top ten (fun) things to do

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, italian, Karen's Kitchen, movies, recipes, writing

I have not had a snow day for quite a while  (the Christmas Blizzard doesn’t count because I was too worried about my husband and son driving home from work in it to enjoy it). I decided to plan ahead for the next one, so I was ready to dive into distraction at a moment’s notice.

Stuff to do:

  1. a.Crack out the crock pot. The big one. Make soup. Here’s a recipe for Minestrone using whatever you have in the pantry and fridge. Whatever is left over can be frozen to bring to work to eat for lunch during the week.  b.Pull out the frozen gravy, meatballs and sausage from the freezer; place in crock pot. Add whatever odds and ends of meat you have leftover. Supper is almost ready!
  2. No crock pot? Here’s a great recipe from Stephen Lanzalotta (author of The Diet Code, and baker extraordinaire at Micucci’s on India Street in Portland) that uses stuff (once again) that you have in the pantry right now. Really. I’ll wait while you go check. It’s for Tomato and Tuna Soup for one. Not alone (or just really hungry)? Just employ a little math to double or triple the recipe. Done.
  3. Got Netflix? Load up your instant queue so now that the flakes are flying, all you’ll have to do is hit the “play” button.
  4. Bake! You can mix up a bucket of bread dough (keeps in fridge for up to two weeks) so it’s ready when you are. Not much gets those endorphins going like the smell of fresh bread baking.
  5. Read! Got a stack of books by (or under) the bed? A stack of magazines you’ve had no time to read? A Kindle? Go for it.
  6. Write! Keep a file that you toss your little scraps of napkins, post its, notebook paper on which you’ve jotted down ideas that came to you while driving, watching TV, listening to a boring lecture at school so you will always have your own prompts and projects ready.
  7. Got kids? Play Wii! (or Uno, or checkers, or whatever!)
  8. Take a nap. You know you want to.
  9. Virtually  visit with friends and relatives via FB or email. In other words…DON”T DRIVE!
  10. Be grateful the fam is all safe and sound.

🙂

The (other) cure for what ails you

by Karen, posted in health, quest for the best
Kamasouptra Chicken Noodle Soup

Apart from the ocean, the other cure for anything is homemade chicken (or turkey) soup.

Who supports using chicken soup as a curative? Well, besides me and most of the mothers and grandmothers in the history of the world, The Mayo Clinic sings its praises.  Chicken soup acts as an anti-inflammatory and it also speeds up the passage of mucous…good if you have a head cold.

Now, don’t get me wrong; you will still see me going to bed clutching my bottle of (generic or otherwise) NyQuil if I have a cough that’s keeping me (or other unsympathetic spouses who shall remain nameless) awake at night.

For today, I’d like to sing the praises of Kamasouptra’s Chicken Noodle Soup, which I had the great good fortune to eat this week. I was sold as soon as the counter person told me that they cook the noodles separately and add them into the soup when they serve it on a bowl by bowl basis so that “they don’t get overcooked”. I told him,  “That’s exactly how I make it at home!” (he didn’t seem impressed when I told him this though).

Got a cold? Get some soup!