We've only 2 and half more weeks until winter break, and I'm hoping to jump into my other hobby of sewing in that upcoming time off. In the meantime, I've been cooking for comfort because the hubs complained about last night's dinner of lobster bisque and bread and salad ("Soup again?" Umm, dude soup was two nights ago. Last night we ate leftovers which didn't have to be soup). It all started with a mini loaf of sourdough bread that a neighbor gifted us which called for soup. I remembered the roasted Anaheim chili peppers I had in my fridge as well as the couple jars of bone and vegetable broth I made and the odds and ends of celery and onions and leftover heavy whipping cream. I did make a run to the store for leeks and artichoke hearts. I suppose I shouldn't undertake the risk in this pandemic of going to the grocery store so often, but if I didn't, I'd go stir crazy from being so cooped up. Over the winter break, I'll be walking to the supermarket instead of stopping by after work.
Most of my cooking starts with sautéing aromatics in butter or olive oil or both, and I began with the cream of artichoke soup first. Into the pot went the leeks and onions and then eventually the garlic.
Next the artichokes and one jar of bone and veggie broth. I also started my second soup pot with sautéing just onions and garlic.
And then throwing into that second soup pot, the green chilies and another jar of bone and veggie broth while letting my first pot of artichoke soup come to a furious boil before turning it down to a simmer.
And then doing the same to my second soup pot. At Duarte's Tavern in Pescadero, if you can't make up your mind between the cream of artichoke soup or the cream of green chilies soup, they'll pour half of each side-by-side into your soup bowl--and so that's what I did. I liked both though I wasn't expecting the slight bitterness of those green chilies, which just made me recall of Filipino roots of ampalaya or bitter melon in a soup. I riffed on Duarte's recipe however by topping it with lump crab meat. Hubs said he wasn't going to eat his soups that way though it did gratify me that he ate both.
You can kind of tell from the picture above that the artichoke soup is on the left and the green chilies soup is on the right. I like having options, and I like having it all it seems.
Over the weekend I also went to a wreath decorating workshop fundraiser for multiple sclerosis. I thought I was going to bring some cooking utensil tree ornaments and then embellish with cinnamon sticks and citrus slices, but then discovered these two rather large glass pineapple ornaments that I was going to use to give and use as decoration for gift wrapping. I asked my niece and nephew whether they liked piña coladas, and Josh said yeah. And so the wreath below is for him and his family, along with a basket of additional bottles of rum and cans of pineapple juice and coconut milk.
And there was still a good bit of afternoon for getting back to ceramics. I had quite a few glazed pieces to photograph for my Pottery Log. Below are two salt crocks I'm going to gift the niece and nephew along with canisters of pink Himalayan salt.
I'm loving the combination of pink and brown. Below is a speckled buff mug on which I played with low fire glazes and underglaze. I decided to adhere a decal of medieval sailing ships on the runny blue glaze.
Below is another speckled buff mug that looked so plain with just gloss white glaze, and so I adhered a few red poppies.
So much fun! I affixed more decals just this morning.
I've still a bit of bisque ware that also needs glazing, and so yeah more of that brown and pink combination coming. Mama bowl below.
Papa bowl is an even deeper pink.
And a sweet-looking pink for the baby bowl.
And wrapped up some speckled buff mugs to use and show off at work.
And then it was home for more leftovers.
Baked a Thanksgiving Pie with the last of the turkey, gravy and mashed potatoes, eaten with a side of cranberry orange relish.
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