I love beer and I love my Mom's food. Pub Soup is the perfect mix of both.  It's a filling hearty soup I like to eat all winter long. It's lots of veggies simmered in broth and beer. To finish it off you add some shredded cheddar and sprinkle it with crumbled bacon. As much as I love this soup you need to eat it within a week, it doesn't freeze well. I have tried and failed. I have tried leaving out the cheese and adding after thawing it and still had a weird grainy texture. The closest thing I could do to make it palatable after freezing was to thaw it and them run it through the food processor. This is too much work for me so I just eat a pot in a week.


Pub Soup

4 lbs. Potatoes peeled and cubed
2 Large Carrots peeled and chunked
2 Leeks thinly sliced
2 Cans Beef Broth
6 c. Water
1 Beer
2 c. Shredded Cheese
1/2 tsp. Nutmeg

1: Bring veggies and liquid to a boil (but not beer).
2: Reduce to medium, cover and cook 35-40 minutes till very soft.
3: Mash soup, turn off heat.
4: Add beer, cheese, salt and nutmeg

Gobble up!

I love seasonal changes and items that come during special times of the year. Beer usually fits with the seasonal vibe. Polar Seltzer has started debuting seasonal flavors. My favorites are often the summer limited edition flavors but I am willing to try the winter ones. Polar seltzer is tough to find in the Philly area but a couple of Giant and Wegmans seem to stock them. I have only found the limited edition flavors at Wegmans which is a 40 minute drive. I headed out one drizzly day in search of the seasonal flavors. I did my research and knew what I wanted, the new popular strawberries and champagne flavor that Polar just put out. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that Wegmans had ALL the flavors EXCEPT the one I want! WHY ME!!!! Since I drove all the way out there I decided to grab one of the other flavors and give it a try. It's so bizarre to crack open a seltzer and smell the alluring scent of fudge cheesecake. The first sip actually tasted like it too. After that it was all downhill. Take a guzzle of this swill and it leaves a weird taste in your mouth similar to the feeling right after you take a gross shot of alcohol. NEVER AGAIN. 

One of the things I hate about PA is the arduous task of buying beer. It's not in the grocery store or gas stations. You need to go a beer distributor and beer is only sold by the case. What if you don't like the beer when you take it home? You're stuck with a whole bunch of yuck. You can always go to the six pack store where you will pay around $20 for a six pack. ROBBERY! Luckily the beer distributor we went to had a leave one take one policy. We left one of our tasty sour ales and took this Sly Fox Christmas Ale.  The can describes it as an "Ale with ginger, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg & cloves" Nate and I split it for a pre-dinner cocktail. It was tasty and flavorful but I couldn't drink more than one much less and whole case. Good luck to the guy who bought the rest.

WORKHORSE

I’ve got an idea and I’m going to run with it.  There are things in my kitchen that I use constantly and couldn’t live without. Today’s spotlight will shine on my first juicer. I picked up this beauty for 50 cents from Recycle North. It’s bright, lightweight and it’s dishwasher safe. That’s ideal since I hate to wash anything.  I get way more juice out of citrus with this baby compared to hand squeezing. Plus it strains all the pulp out! I was thinking about how much I love this juicer that I’ve had since my college days while I was cooking up some of Eating Well’s Yucatan Soup. The broth is simmered with a lot of flavorful treats and then strained. It’s citrusy and spicy.  The spicy flavor comes mainly from jalapenos. In this recipe you need to seed them. I would recommend using gloves. I learned this the hard way.

Jalapeno side story: Nathan had expressed a craving for jalapeno poppers. Luckily I had a bunch of recipes from various magazines and decided to craft my own. I hit up H-Mart where you can get loads of cheap produce. I picked up  a package of jalapenos (approx. 20) and took them home to stuff them. To prep them I needed to split and seed 20 peppers. I have never cooked with more than 2 peppers at a time and never seeded them. So I took to the challenge and ran my thumb right up the middle. After 10 peppers my right hand started to burn so like a fool I just switched to my left hand. After seeding them all my hands were really starting to burn so I washed them thinking I just had pepper residue on my hands. WRONG! Capsesin is what makes peppers hot. It messes with your neurotransmitters and makes you think you’re on fire when your skin is cool to the touch. Since drinking milk is soothing after eating spicy food I decided to dunk my hands into a bowl of milk. That worked while they were submerge but quickly faded. Somehow I was able to distract myself enough to go out to dinner but came home exhausted and ready for bed. My hands were really starting to burn. I soaked them in milk again and hit the sheets. 5 minutes into sleep mode and my hands were ON FIRE! I thought if I waited long enough the pain would pass. WRONG! It was so bad I was on the verge of tears. But my hands looked fine, was I going crazy? I felt like I was. I dunked my hands in milk for another 10 minutes and hit the hay once I achieved relief. I was up again in 5 minutes with fire paws. I went through this process about 3 more times before I started to get delirious. Nate offered to help but what could he do? Saw my hands off for me? I did what anyone does when they are stuck and looked to Google for help. I read of other horror stories.  Thank goodness I didn’t touch my eyes or give Nate a rub down. Some of the suggestions were a bit crazy but the overall idea is that you need to wash the capsesin off your skin; soap and water will not cut it. I tried Fels Naptha, rubbing alcohol, (I didn’t want to waste good vodka!) Dawn, Eye make-up remover, hydrocortisone cream and more milk. I was on the verge of using straight bleach but tried one last ditch effort and rubbed my flaming phalanges with nail polish remover. MAGIC! Huge relief, I could have cried. I will never touch a pepper again without gloves. Lesson learned. Peppers are hot. Now back to soup…

To finish it off you throw in a bag of shrimp but you could easily add chicken or chunks of tilapia or keep it protein free for a vegetarian vibe.

Yucatan Lemon Soup
From Eating Well
February 2007

4 c. Chicken Broth

1 Medium onion, cut into quarters

2 Jalapenos, seeded and quartered

8 Cloves garlic, crushed and peeled

3 Tbsp. finely grated Meyers lemon zest***

½ tsp. Cumin seeds

1 4-inch stick cinnamon stick

1-pound raw peeled shrimp

3 Tbsp. Meyers lemon juice

Salt and Hot Sauce to taste

½ c. chopped cilantro

1.     Bring broth, onion, jalapeno, garlic, zest, cumin seeds, cinnamon stick to a simmer in a stockpot. Cover, reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Strain the broth and discard solids.

2.     Return the broth to the pan and bring to a low simmer. Add shrimp, lemon juice, salt and hot sauce. Cook until shrimp are pink and firm, about 3 minutes. Stir in cilantro and EAT!

*** If you don’t have access to Meyers lemons you can used a combo of regular lemons and oranges. For this recipe I substituted 2 Tbsp. lemon juice and 1 Tbsp. orange juice in place of the Meyers lemon and it turned out fine. 

Nate and I spent a fun evening at his Dad’s house up in Lancaster. Their water filter was broken so we went out to buy some jugs of water at Turkey Hill. On the way back to his Dad’s house Nate was goofing off in the car and shaking his hand like he had Parkinson’s disease. I said to be technical he was afflicted by pseudo-Parkinson’s. Nate asked me to repeat what I said, I replied he would have PSEUDO Parkinson’s Disease and went into the definition of it only to be cut off. He told me I was mispronouncing “pseudo”. That’s crazy, I’ve used this term a million times and have always pronounced it the same way. Hell bent of finding the right answer we arrived at the Carr household and dug out the dictionary.  I was pronouncing it FA-SUE-DO. Nathan insisted that the correct pronunciation was SUE-DO. We didn’t want to taint our mediator’s minds so we wrote the word PSEUDO on a notepad and asked Nathan’s Dad to pronounce the term to settle our dispute. He looked puzzled like he didn’t know the word and came up with the best response, SUEDE-OH. I said, this isn’t a Spanish word; it’s a real word. Luckily Lisa stepped in and solved the mystery. The p is silent and I have been talking like a fool for my entire life. Good thing I never used the term in front of instructors during nursing school. 

I am frugal to the point of almost being a cheapskate. I get this fine trait from my Dad. I have been extra creative with money while I am on this unemployment vacation. So when I ran out of deodorant I thought “ I can make that!” and I found a recipe on Pinterest. The supplies were chillin in my kitchen, all I had to do was whip up a batch. This took me about a week to muster up the enthusiasm. In the mean time I went au natural or I stole a bit of Nate’s manly Old Spice. MMMmmmmm.

DIY Deodorant

From 
How about Orange

1/4 cup baking soda 
1/4 cup cornstarch
4 tablespoons unrefined coconut oil 
10 drops/shakes grapefruit essential oil (I used some lemongrass essential oil that might have belonged to my roomie Sarah. Hope she doesn't mind...)
A tin or jar with lid - 

In a bowl, stir together dry ingredients, then add oils gradually until you like the consistency, mixing with a fork. Store in a closed container at room temp. (If the mixture seems too soft, try refrigerating it for a bit to firm it up.) 

I slather a tiny tiny bit of this stuff on my pits. I hold it against my skin for a second to let the cocoa butter melt into my flesh. It hasn’t stained my clothes and it keeps me smelling fresh. Little bit of trivia, those yellow armpit stains you get on lightly colored clothes don’t come from your body sweat, they come from your deodorant. I also didn’t know the way antiperspirants work, something in the ingredients clogs up your pores so sweat doesn’t pour out. Crazzzay.

Nate and I celebrated our anniversary by walking up to State Street in the heart of downtown Media and grabbing some snakebites at Sligo. It was our favorite place to hit up when we first moved to Media. We’ve dined there with friends and had some good times. It was a great Irish bar with great bar fare. Now they’re trying to make it fancy smancy.  They’ve changed the menu 3 times in the past year and nothing is all that great. Half way through our drinks we decided to nibble on some wings and find a better place to fill our bellies. After the waitress discovered we were only getting beer and wings she changed her tune pretty quickly. Nate got all fired up with her lack of enthusiasm while delivering the rest of our order. NEVER GOING BACK. We keep on saying that but this time we mean it. Instead we hit up our favorite pizza joint, Pinocchio’s. It's a local pizza joint that has been there for ages, the food is reliable, they have 30 craft brews on draft and they’re always open. After pre-gaming at the apartment, drinking at Sligo and grabbing more drinks at Pinocchio’s before dinner arrived I was starting to feel a little tipsy. This jump-started some camera fun with Nate and I in the booth; we were feeling the vogue vibe. At one point I was feeling a Lady Gaga inspired moment and tried acting out the hit “applause” too bad it came out blurry.

I will also point out the scarf I am wearing I crafted from Pinterest and found the super easy directions here. Only took my a day to make!!!

Literally and figuratively my sister Heather is bringing home the bacon to her house. Since moving down to Carrboro, NC she has relished in buying her produce and eggs from the local farmers market and meat from the butcher in town, Cliff. Heather frequents Cliff’s Meat Market once a week for her protein demands. Since I have been visiting Heather and Anthony so frequently I have been able to enjoy some of Heather’s cooking. She has recently started making these fantastic eggcups for breakfast. I have seen this idea on Interest but never really got around to making them. I make a version of this but with ham and whole eggs cooked in muffin tins. The secret to making these cups taste so good is BACON.  The bacon infuses an incredible flavor into the egg mixture. Heather gets her bacon from Cliff who cuts the skin off for her. We don’t understand why people would buy bacon with the skin on. Maybe Cliff will explain this the Heather one day. It seems that Heather will whip up a batch of these on Sunday while watching her new favorite treat, DVD collection of Julia Child’s The French Chef Cooking series. Ask Heather about the omelet episode. It’s her favorite. She showed me how to construct these yummy breakfast delights and now I am making them in my kitchen with the approval of Nathan’s taste buds.



Eggs Cups

Makes 12

8 Eggs

Red Pepper Flakes

Garlic Powder

Salt & Pepper

Bacon (I like Trader Joes Apple Smoked Bacon)

Chopped veggies/cheese

Preheat oven to 350. Whip up the eggs and add seasoning to fit your taste. Spray your muffin tin with non-stick spray. This is essential. I tried skipping this step and spent a lot of time cleaning cooked egg out of each muffin tin. NIGHTMARE! The idea is to take a piece of bacon and line the edge of the muffin tin with it. It works out easier if you cut the pieces of bacon into thirds and then place them in. I have added the veggies in 2 different ways and don’t see a difference in the result. You can add them to your egg mixture and then pour into the muffin tins OR you can put your veggies into the muffin tins before your fill them with your egg mixture.  Bake for 25-30 minutes until cooked. Remove from pan while still warm.

*** Veggies I have used with success: Mushrooms, scallions, spinach, grape tomatoes, bell peppers.

I have never been a huge fan of ketchup. I’ll dip my fries in it or make up some cocktail sauce when the mood strikes but rarely use it. Nathan on the other hand seems to be a bit more liberal with it.  I try to buy food products that have ingredients that I can pronounce and easily find in the grocery store. It is tough to find ketchup that doesn’t have high fructose corn syrup. I think Hunt’s makes a version but it has to be the one with the label “ ALL NATUAL” not all of their ketchup is free of HFCS. I will eat stuff with high fructose corn syrup but try to limit it when I can. After getting tired of hunting down ketchup/ feeling too cheap to buy Whole Food’s version of organic ketchup I decided to make my own. It has a runnier consistency but its flavor is WAY better.

Homemade Ketchup

Make about 1 quart

1 yellow onion

1 can (28 oz.) of whole peeled tomatoes in juice

2 tbsp. Canola oil

1 Cinnamon Stick

1 Bay Leaf

5 Cloves

5 Cardamom Pods smashed

15 Peppercorns

½ C. Apple Cider Vinegar

1/3 C. Brown Sugar

Heat canola oil over medium high heat in a large pot, this stuff will splatter.  In a Food Processor puree tomatoes and transfer all but ¼ c. of puree to a bowl. Add onion to Food Processor and puree. Put onion/tomato mixture in pot and cook for 10 minutes till onions start to turn a bit brown. Then add vinegar, sugar and tomato puree and lower heat. Simmer for 15 minutes.  Take spices and place in a cheesecloth bundle/ tea ball/ empty tea bag and place in pot, continue to simmer for 10 minutes. Remove spice packet, let cool, add salt to taste.

While working for an Australian family for a year I started to pick up on the quirks in language that they often used. Sweatshirts were referred to as sweaters, Baby Raf needed to be strapped in to the pram every time we went for a walk and closets were referred to as cupboards. Reading Amelia’s grocery lists always required a look over before leaving the house, caster sugar was not a term used in American baking but I soon learned it was just regular sugar just as I learned that pumpkin was really a butternut squash. I wonder what they carve up for Halloween? Pumpkin was incorporated into weekly dishes and one of the meals I would often make for Amelia and Greg with rave reviews was their recipe for Pumpkin and Goat Cheese Lasagna. I don’t really care for goat cheese or lasagna but I will gladly eat this dish.  Another fun fact about Australia, there aren’t any squirrels there.

Pumpkin and Goat Cheese Lasagna

Preheat the oven to 400

1 lb. Butternut Squash, peeled and cut into chunks

4 Tbsp. EVOO

2 Tbsp. Butter

2 Leeks thinly sliced and washed

I bag of spinach

2 Garlic Cloves crushed

400 mL good quality tomato passata or a jar of pasta sauce

3 Sheets of l fresh lasagna

150 g goat cheese crumbled, I used a small log from Trader Joes

½ C. Fresh grated Parmesan

1.     Toss squash with 2 Tbsp. of EVOO, s+p and place on a roasting pan. Pop into oven for 30 minutes or until tender. Transfer to a bowl and mash. Set aside to cool.

2.     Heat remaining butter and EVOO in a skillet. Over medium heat add leeks and cook, stirring for about 5-6 minutes or until softened. Add spinach and garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes or until spinach is wilted. Set aside and cool.

3.     Grease a baking dish and add 4 Tbsp. of pasta sauce to bottom of dish and season with salt and pepper. Place a sheet of lasagna on top and spread mashed squash on top. Add another layer of lasagna, pressing down. Add 4 more Tbsp. of pasta sauce and then a layer of leek and spinach mixture. Finally add last layer of lasagna and spread it with the remaining pasta sauce.

4.     Mix together goat cheese and Parmesan cheese. Sprinkle over top of lasagna. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes, then remove the foil and return to oven for a further 15 minutes or until the top in golden. Remove from the oven and set aside for 5 minutes before cutting.

*** You can use precooked dry lasagna sheets, you may need to increase the cooking time by another 15 minutes.

On my 2 year anniversary to "Nate Dawg" (I don't really call him that) I remember the magic that brought us together. Let me paint you a picture.

Fall 2011 I had just moved to Philadelphia and adjusting to the city life from tiny Vermont. With all of my new city adventures I started to prowl for some man meat.  I started the arduous task of blind dating via Okcupid. After a string of REALLY bad dates I was about to throw in the towel and give into my future life of a cat lady. I had one last date lined up to meet up at Dave and Busters. I didn't want to be rude but this didn't sound like fun. I hate spending money of games and I am significantly handicapped when it comes to any activities involving eye/hand coordination such as arcade games.  Minutes before meeting any blind date potential I have the instinct to bail but am too chicken to do it. I intended to have a drink and bail so that I could enjoy an evening of grocery shopping and cooking. Little did I know that I would meet a guy who actually looked like his profile picture. Plus this guy could hold a conversation and was well mannered. It was almost too good to be true. One beer turned into a couple of hours of shuffleboard (which Nate taught me) some nachos and a Raven's game.  4 hours later Nate walked me to my car, we shared an awkward kiss and I went home happy. 

After that night more dates occurred and I knew I must have hit the jackpot, boyfriend gold. He made me flan in his toaster oven (that's not sexual innuendo, his apartment didn't have an oven), whenever we walked on the street he would insist on walking on the side closest to the street so I was further away from the cars, and the first night I crashed at his place I fell asleep in his bed fully clothed and woke up fully clothed as little spoon. I can't say that happened during all of our other sleepovers... wink wink. I was getting antsy for him to pop the question, the "will you be my girlfriend?" question. Sounds strange but I think that a guy needs to formally ask, you can't just assume that you're an item. You need to clarify between a relationship and a bed buddy. My brother-in-law thinks I'm nuts.  And then the magic happened. Nate invited me to his apartment to meet his buddy who was in town for the weekend. I guess the excitement of the night before wore him out because Greg pretty much slept the whole night on the sofa. Nate wanted to go for a walk to a local park near his place. I'll paint a picture. It's a cold crisp night, there's a full moon and a bridge over a small pond. Nate pulls out his rico suave moves says (there is some debate over the next line) I hear Nate say " I want you to be my girlfriend" I take this as the question I've been waiting for. YES!!!!! Nate on the other hand says he was making a statement, there was no question to answer. I like my version better.  To celebrate the 2 of us played beer pong in the backyard and have been having fun ever since.