Soup is one of the most perfect foods. A complete one-pot meal, it warms you up when you're cold and it makes you feel better when you're sick. Keep warm and stay healthy with these fresh soup recipes to try in January, which is National Soup Month.
First of all, Happy New Year! Dave and I spent the long weekend in New York City. And the first thing you're probably thinking in response to that might be, You're insane. What about the crowds?
Well, we weren't feeling brave enough to head into Times Square and battle the crowd of nearly one million people who came out to see the ball drop. And we definitely weren't interested in standing out in the bitter cold for hours, either.
We had a great weekend, though, filled with wonderful food and drinks to celebrate not just New Year's Eve, but our 1 year anniversary and my (early) birthday. Surprisingly, it wasn't too hard to get in or out of the city. For a holiday weekend, travel on all accounts went surprisingly smooth.
Sadly, I find myself now feeling ill with what I think might be a cold that was developing all last week in spite of all of my wishing that it wasn't. The rest of this week isn't getting any warmer, either. For my birthday on Saturday, it's going to be a blustery zero degrees and probably colder than that with the windchill, well into the negative single (and maybe double?) digits. Joy.
Days like these call for something hot and comforting to take off the chill. Cannellini beans (white beans), frozen spinach, and a mirepoix of fresh vegetables (onions, carrots, and celery) are always well-stocked in my pantry to make soups and other meals that are always favorites to eat and quickly assembled.
This recipe uses leftover red wine for added depth of flavor. If you don't have any or would prefer not to use it, it's fine to just add extra vegetable or chicken broth. Likewise, a Parmesan cheese rind is nice to add in here, but don't sweat it if you don't have one to spare.
P.S. I'm transitioning all of the recipes over to a new plug-in tool as of today, so this one and others may look different as I'm getting them moved over. Let me know what you think of the new look and functionality.
No posts for the next couple of days, but just a quick note to send you my best wishes a very Merry Christmas! Thank you for stopping by or checking out @fromannakitchen on Twitter this year. I hope you’ve enjoyed my recipes and tips. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t thank the local and extended From Anna’s Kitchen “support crews”, Dave and Squeaker (pictured along with me in our silly digital Christmas card above) as well as my parents and other family members, for all of their love and support over the past year. I know taste testing is…
It was a snowy week here in the Northeast and I'm not a cold weather-loving person. Looking at the snowfall is all well and good, but I prefer to stay inside and do that. It's not that I'm necessarily scared about driving in bad weather—been there, done that—but everything that goes with said weather adds up to be a royal pain.
Cleaning off the car and walking on ice both suck...
Letting the car windows defrost for what feels like an eternity before it is possible to see clearly to drive anywhere is annoying...
And don't get me started on what it feels like to be in wet clothes after getting caught in the snow or trudging through feet of it after it's drifted across the driveway.
Ugh, ugh, and ugh.
As far as I'm concerned, on an icky day nothing beats staying toasty in the house, crafting or playing board games with plenty of time for cooking or baking in between breaks. When nobody has to venture out to get anything for dinner, thanks to leftovers or a well-stocked pantry and freezer, it's even better.
This is a vegetarian main dish that includes pantry-staples like salsa, tomatoes, and beans, and takes advantage of the oven—which helps to warm up the house on a cold day, too. Feel free to add chicken or cooked ground meat to the vegetable mixture, if you want added protein, and season to a heat level of your liking. As a happy compromise when I'm cooking for most of my friends and family, I sautee jalapeños (seeds and ribs included) with the rest of the vegetables and serve more fresh ones served alongside as an option, since there are different heat preferences ranging from no heat at all to spicy as possible (with myself preferring something towards the upper end of the heat spectrum.)
A year or two ago I got on a big kick with German food. I'm not quite sure what started it, but it could've been as simple as drinking a lot of Weihenstephaner at the time and wondering, Hmm, I haven't made a lot of German food. I wonder what kind of delicacies I'm missing out on...
At any rate, the proverbial Pandora's box opened and I ended up creating a German-inspired feast for Christmas that year. Many of the recipes have since become staples for me—especially right before or after big holiday gatherings when people are tired of turkey, ham, and other traditional holiday meats.
Try a combination of the these recipes to create a delicious, globally-inspired menu for your next gathering.
To all of my friends, family, and visitors from the U.S.: Have a wonderful, safe, and food-filled Thanksgiving holiday!
I'm taking a little break from work, definitely looking forward to the long weekend ahead and what will be our first Thanksgiving at the new house! I'll make it a point to share a few photos on Twitter of my holiday table and things I'm making, so if you haven't already followed @fromannakitchen on Twitter, do it (and note the lack of an "s" in "Anna's" there because of the Twitter username character count...) New posts will start up again until next week.
If you need some last-minute inspiration for your holiday menu, check out my round-up of some of my favorite recipes below.
If you're like me then you've probably taken a trip to the grocery store at least once, maybe twice by now to prepare for the "big day" coming up. Maybe it was to get your turkey, or stock up on staples like paper towels or other pantry items that always seem to take up a lot of room in a shopping trip. I generally like to get these things out of the way in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving or any big holiday so I can focus on the details of the meal itself, like buying fresh ingredients, as the days count down.
My Thanksgiving brainstorming admittedly started months ago when I started browsing for new recipes that could be candidates to have on my table this year. A few select recipes even got trial runs and taste tests to make sure that they were up to par to put on the final holiday menu, with Dave as my Chief Taste Tester and my parents as members of the testing panel (or peanut gallery, depending on the day.)
I don't usually go too crazy with new recipes, since most in my family like to eat tried-and-true favorites or subtle variations on them on Thanksgiving, but I do try to sneak in one or two "new" things where I can. For me, this usually comes in a variety of booze. Nobody in my family is a die-hard wine drinker or is otherwise bound to a specific spirit or libation, so trying new cocktail recipes is one way I like to be creative with adding something for holiday meals.
If you're looking for ideas for a quick holiday drink to make for Thanksgiving, consider this when you take your next trip to the store this week (or maybe it's your 100th trip to the store because if you're anything like me then list or no list, something, somehow, is always missed in the other 99 trips): a festive berry-colored drink that starts off with Sangria wine and adds a few other simple ingredients. Lime-flavored seltzer tops the drink off with a little fizz and helps to lighten it up some, too.
