Living in a Cereal World

This is another soup I have to make every winter (and with the third snow in a week, it's definitely soup season) and it happens to serve up nicely in our Christmas bowls: Tortellini, Greens, and Bean Soup. For the greens I always use spinach; I still haven't gotten up the nerve to try Swiss chard. It'll happen at some point. And we finally have a pepper grinder--it really makes a difference, especially if, like me, you like to season a little heavy on the pepper. My mother commented that she would even eat the broth without the pasta--the combination of pepper, fresh garlic, and tomato paste is really that flavorful. We served this last night with breadsticks since, like the recipe says, it's more of a brothy pasta dish. And that's all we needed to complete the meal. Now I guess I'll go watch the snow fall for a few more hours. Then maybe a bowl game (no bowl pun intended). Next entry: something cereal related.

I've heard in recent years of many families having a Christmas morning breakfast that includes cinnamon rolls. Well, in my family it's always been waffles. The good kind. The rest of the year, if we want waffles, we use Bisquick. But for Christmas, we make them from scratch, using the recipe that came with my mom's original waffle iron--put out to pasture eight years ago, but the waffles live on. Favorite Waffles 2 eggs, separated 1 1/2 c. milk 1/2 c. vegetable oil 1 3/4 cups flour 1 T baking powder 1 T sugar 1 tsp salt In small bowl, beat egg whites until stiff but not dry. Set aside. In large bowl, beat egg yolks until thick and lemon colored; continue beating adding milk and vegetable oil. Add dry ingredients and beat until smooth. Fold in beaten egg whites. (Note: then, obviously, add batter to your waffle iron.) (We doubled this for five people, some of whom can really eat. They're--the waffles, I mean--so much lighter and fluffier than a mix; you'

Hey, as you can imagine it's the busiest time of the year. I haven't even been on the computer for two days. Just in case anyone thought I'd dropped off the face of the earth--and neither did the earth, thankfully. There hasn't been any news in the breakfast department in the last week. There will be entries next week, though. Or at least topics. We'll see how many entries. Happy various holidays!

I could've sworn I'd mentioned this before...but I guess not. When I started making soups a few years back, Vegetable Bean Soup was the first one I tried. It's hard to screw up a soup, for the most part. Just stay away from the blender-ing if you're just starting out. The not-so-secret ingredient that pulls everything together is the bacon. I don't think I even had enough this time around but it still turned out fine. Even with the extra zucchini and slightly less than the required amount of carrots. Like I said, it's hard to screw up a soup. But easy to throw one together. Really. Try it. You have all winter...

This was the final back-of-the-box suggestion I wanted to try (not doing the fresh fruit--can't deal with the conflicting textures) but with a twist. The box only mentions the molasses but I thought, hey, maybe I can add some ginger and it'll taste like gingerbread. Well...not quite. It mostly tasted like molasses, which is not that sweet, so I added some cinnamon along with the ginger. I'm going to try this again until I get the right spice combination. But just molasses? Not very interesting.

Yesterday I finally had the opportunity to make the new Cinnamon Toast Crunch muffins.  I was surprised at how much the mix itself smelled like Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I was really just expecting a CTC streusel, you know? But the finished product basically tasted like any other boxed cinnamon muffin. And not as much batter as those other ones. I'll sum it up as a fun treat for kids (who probably aren't going to be picky about cereal-based muffins) but not that impressive. I wouldn't pay full price for this (mine was on sale for $2.99 last week), either.

Were you aware that Rachael Ray sells her own brand of instant oatmeal? I wasn't, until a chance trip down the cereal aisle at Walmart a few weeks ago. I said to myself, hey, next time I'm in Walmart I should buy some of this. Which I did. And then I tried it yesterday. First off, when I opened and poured the packet I was surprised to find flaxseeds in there. Lucky for me I like flaxseeds, but still, I should check the ingredients before purchasing next time. Second, it didn't get as creamy as I would've liked but I think that's due to the combination of grains: oats, wheat, barley and rye. Third, "maple drizzle" is a very appropriate name, because that's about the amount of maple flavor you get in every bite. Maybe that sounds kind of critical but I did like it, really. And for the rest of the morning I felt great, not sluggish at all. So I will probably try at least one other flavor this winter. Look for that.

This is my last of the no-longer-existing flavors and it's pretty obvious why they'd stop making this one: there's no need with the Cinnabon flavor (which I first tried last year). And honestly, this cinnamon spice didn't taste much different. Maybe slightly less cinnamon flavor...but only slightly. I suppose you could slap "Cinnabon" on anything and it would be a big seller. Cinnabon hot chocolate? I would buy that. Cinnabon maple syrup? Yeah, that too. Speaking of hot drinks, I finally found that new Harvest Pumpkin tea. I think I'll have some tomorrow.

Not to leave anyone in suspense... We had plenty of dark meat left on our turkey, so the next day I made the appropriately named Next Day Turkey Soup. I would've had enough string beans, too, if I hadn't needed to toss the discolored ones (I had a bag of the frozen kind as a backup). And I happened to have an extra sweet potato on hand. This soup is delicious and full of vegetables. Maybe it helped that the turkey was also tender and not dried out (shameless plug for my mom's Kenmore roaster). I think orzo might be my new obsession. Alongside, the rest of the cranberry sauce and...stuffin' muffins! It's just fun to say, and super easy: preheat your oven to 350 degrees; spray your muffin tin with cooking spray--we use Pam--or butter it if you're so inclined; mound your stuffing into as many cups as you need and then bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until crispy on top. I will admit mine fell apart a little but some of the cubes just didn't get moist enough i