Once again, unrelated produce and recipe contents.

The goods:
-Popcorn!! Currently curing on the wall. Apparently you can put an ear in a paper bag in the microwave and it will all. pop. off. This is unspeakably exciting to me.)
-2 white, 1 purple turnip
-Assorted peppers
-1 small bunch kale
-1 sad, sad little japanese eggplant
-4 white potatoes
-3 carrots

I can’t even remember, now, why I had a sudden need for soup, but I remembered Deb’s post about Beef, leek and barley soup at Smitten Kitchen on a day when I had to work from home anyway, so I wandered over to Whole Foods, grabbed what I needed, followed the instructions to a T, and had soup simmering within about 20 minutes of getting started.

It makes me happy to take pictures with natural light. I really do need to solve the lighting problem for night-time photography…

I can hear my mom now. Looking at those photos, she is saying “KATE! You didn’t brown your meat first!” To which I say “I know, I know, but the recipe said to just chuck everything in the pot, and let it cook a while. I should have followed my instincts.”

While the soup is perfectly tasty as written, I do think that next time I will brown the meat before starting. I blame my store-bought stock, in part, but this was just a bit bland. Very comforting and all, but not quick savory enough for my taste.

Still, I’d never thought of using short ribs (they only had boneless at whole foods, sigh) as the meat for soup, and MAN, does that texture and fattiness play well here! The self-shredding talents of short ribs are perfect for adding back into soup.

Ben didn’t mind the bland soup–he was just excited to have soup with bread and butter for dinner, just like at his grandmother’s house when he was a kid.

By the way, after typing “soup” about 50 times in this entry it’s starting to look very strange. Soup. soup soup soup soup. I am reminded of my favorite Calvin & Hobbes strip ever.