Menu planning again
I wonder if it should tell me something that I do this so much.
I’m up in Tarrytown for work (meetings don’t actually start until tomorrow, but they’re being nice and not making me take a 6 a.m. flight), and while the Internet connection is flawless, I’m not really very surprised to discover my cell service is spotty at best. I can get a decent signal outside, but it’s too cold (and dark) to sit out there now, so I’m taking advantage of the uber-comfortable accomodations to channel surf, catch up on email, and of course, plan future menus.
Last night we decided spontaneously to eat in after a long day at Piedmont Park and the Macy’s One Day Sale. Aamir wanted soup, so I immediately thought of Nigella Lawson’s Easy Pea Soup, as featured on Running With Tweezers. It was the only one that sprang to mind where I could remember the entire ingredient list, plus it seemed really simple, and I didn’t think it would take too long. It didn’t, but it mostly tasted like pureed peas. Possibly I didn’t use enough balsamic vinegar.
Anyway, the point is, I know advance menu planning is kind of pointless when you’re having to figure out your grocery list on the fly in the Lenox Square parking lot, but last night’s pea soup debacle has me motivated to do it anyway. Since it’s fall, I really want to incorporate the butternut squash and caramelized onion galette somehow, but every time I look at that recipe I’m compelled to start color-blocking (leafy green salad, something red, something blue), and that inevitably trips me up.
Really must get past that.
Maybe the galette with a leafy green salad, some spinach soup with shrimp and avocado, and possibly some chicken? Of course, if it’s Sara Foster’s greek chicken, I’d get some red, and rice pilaf is white, and then a nice blueberry or blackberry dessert makes blue…
It’s a disease. I can’t help it.
LOL… thanks for the chuckle
Good luck with your menu planning. Though if it makes you feel better… I’ve eaten your food “debacles” (as you termed them) and they were nothing of the sort in objective reality 
Aisha
22 Oct 07 at 10:57 pm
I’m sure your brothers don’t mind the color blocking! I was just looking at the use real butter blog, and yummmmm!!!! If you decide to try those petit fours, have some pity on a hungry pregnant gal and send a few my way, eh?
Sadia
24 Oct 07 at 12:08 am
Did you make the pea soup, and if so, how was it? I am intrigued by its tagline: “Looks like crap, tastes like delicious!”
But I don’t want to make it unless it has been independently verified as actually being delicious. Please confirm.
BTW, today is a pea soup day if I’ve ever seen one. Blech, gray! Blech, rainy! (yeah, yeah, I know we NEED the rain, but still.) Blech, it’s still only Wednesday! Blech, I want to curl up on a couch with a blanket, a cat, and some bad tv. Maybe something on Bravo, or possibly The View.
kate
24 Oct 07 at 10:32 am
I did make the pea soup. It tasted like… peas.
Seriously. It tasted like pureed peas. If you like peas, you’ll like the soup. I might try it again, this time with more balsamic vinegar and a few mint leaves, just to see if that helps any.
(The parmesan is a must, too!)
huda
29 Oct 07 at 9:27 pm