Sunday Soup and a Week of Socks

I was going to try and actually do my soup post yesterday, but I was so tired by the time I sat down after dinner, I could barely stay awake.

Yesterday, Geek Boy invited his brother over for dinner. I decided to do a little Greek Fest. Chicken Shawarma sandwiches, courtesy of Rachel Ray. Now, I have to admit, that Rachel Ray is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. She's perky and goofy. And way overexposed. I laugh when Anthony Bourdain goes off on her. BUT...I like her recipes. I find myself going back to them over and over. And several of them are in our top picks. And this chicken is very close to the top. It was delicious. And I made lots, so we'll have leftovers for a few days.

Once I had picked this, I thought a nice Greek-ish soup would be a good complement. Enter Spinach, Feta and Pine Nut Soup. Yummy! I don't know how "Greek" it is, but it has feta cheese, so that's enough for me.

Luckily, I have a sous chef in the house. Geek Boy does all of my chopping for me. I'm not very good at small dice and he is. And he figures it's a small price to pay for homemade soup each week.

My mise en place for the day, courtesy of Geek Boy.


Big lesson learned in this outing. Soups with leaf spinach in them do not play well with the stick blender. The leaves get caught up in all the little vents and just spin around. So, this eventually got dumped in the blender. The end result:


Nice and creamy, with little hunks of feta. And I love these little containers. I think they're Gladlock or something like that. The important part is that they have screw top lids and are a perfect single serving size. Nice and easy for work day lunches.

Today is a lazy day. For the first time in 6 years, I don't have a board meeting tonight. Our monthly meeting always fall on MLK day and my board says, no problem, we can meet anyway. But this year, since a number of them have plans for the long weekend, we're postponed until tomorrow. And I get a full day off. And I finished these finally:

Jaywaylkers in Trekking

This makes four pairs of hand knit socks for me. Which means that I can wear hand knit socks to work every day this week! It's the little things that make me happy.

Now to start my mitten swap mittens!

And as an extra special treat...Geek Boy and I are off to a Meet the Brewers night at Brigid's. Yummy!

Most Amazing Meal...EVER

So, this past weekend, Geek Boy and I headed to the Art Museum with some friends for a scavenger hunt. What a blast. If they are in your area, grab a bunch of friends and go! It was well organized and so much fun.

After the hunt, Geek Boy and I decided to head over to a new-to-us beer bar. We've known about it for a while, but we don't venture downtown very often. That may change. Brigid's is a small little bar in the middle of a Fairmont Park neighborhood. Parking is tight, and we lucked out with a spot right across the street (bonus, it's a neighborhood, so no parking meters). They describe their cuisine as "homestyle." But your mom would have to be Nigella Lawson, Anthony Bourdain and Alton Brown all rolled into one to have this kind of homestyle food. The menu isn't extensive, printed on just one side of an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. And you have to order everything at once; no ordering an appetizer while you decide what you want. We went all out, ordering appetizers, entrees and desserts. When the waitress stopped by to ask how we were doing I pointed at my empty plate and told her that first, I never eat all my vegetables, and second, I would never order this type of entree anywhere else again, because it will never be as good. Apparently this made the chef very happy.

Brigid's is also a great place for beer. They have a great selection of bottled beers from around the world (especially Belgium). On tap they had some local stuff, Victory and Troeg's, as well as some new-to-me stuff. I had a tripel, the name of which I can't remember, and it was very tasty. Then I ordered a Blanche de Bruxelle--somehow, wheat beers have grown on me this summer. Geek Boy also had some great stuff, but I can't remember what they were (reminder: charge the Palm Pilot and actually carry it with you!).

We're already planning to take my folks there for dinner one night, and to get our good beer friends to try Brigid's brunch with us. This has become my hands down favorite restaurant in Philly. If you're inthe Art Museum area, definitely check it out. Hey, it's even made Philadelphia Magazine's list of 50 best meals under $50 (for two). (The Grey Lodge is also on that list...another great beer place in Philly.)

As for knitting...I finished the raspberry tomato.


Obviously, it needs to be blocked. I'm hoping to have it ready to wear when we go to Tria this weekend with some friends. The Mission Falls Cotton went the distance. I didn't have to dig into the "2nd dye lot" skeins. To make it last, I decided to do the neck edging in a different color. I also really liked the look of doing the last two rows of the edging in a different color. Kinda wish I had thought of that before I bound off the bottom. Oh, well. I still really like it.