Three Beautiful Things 01/07/17: Blankets and Beer and Groceries, Drinking S-L-O-W Beers, Soup Kitchen

1. To more comfortably accommodate Adrienne and Jack and Alex's overnight visit with us on Saturday night, the Deke and I decided we needed a couple new pillows and a couple of blankets for the twin beds in our guest room and so I vaulted into the Sube and whizzed through the light snow flurries up to Laurel and went to Kohl's to buy these items. Total Wine is just a short distance from Kohl's, so I dropped in and picked up a variety of beers for me and the Deke to try out before I went to Old Line's liquor store and bought another sixer of Sleigher and a couple of fun looking bombers. In the short time I was in the liquor store, the light snow flurries turned into heavy snowfall with lousy visibility, but I made to the Co-op and picked up the groceries I needed to make the two soups I wanted to have ready when Adrienne, Jack, and Alex were going to arrive around 9 o'clock.

2. I settled into a long, luxurious afternoon and early evening of slow soup making and slow beer sampling, splitting bottles of various beers with the Deke and making 12 oz. of beer last for nearly an hour. I enjoyed letting some of the beer I was drinking warm up a bit, especially the Give Me Stout or Give Me Death raspberry and blackberry infused Imperial Stout, but also the Stone 14th Anniversary Emperial IPA. Drinking creative beers slowly helps offset their higher alcohol content and makes drinking beer something I never knew in my younger days: a leisurely pursuit of the countless different flavors available in contemporary beers.

3. Jack really likes Chicken and Rice Soup. I returned to a recipe from Food52 I enjoy, here, subbing rice for noodles. I boiled a whole chicken, knowing I would use the carcass of the chicken for the soup's broth. But, instead of pouring water over the carcass and the other broth ingredients, I poured broth I made today from a carcass I had saved in the freezer.  I wanted to see how it would affect the soup if I used broth to make another broth. I will taste the soup more closely on Sunday, but I was happy that Alex, Jack, and the Deke all enjoyed the soup.

I also made a Sweet Potato Cauliflower soup and Adrienne enjoyed it a lot. The recipe is here. I made two improvements. I added a can of coconut milk to make the soup richer. I also spiced it up with a discreet amount of nutmeg which goes well with the soup's cauliflower, sweet potato, and carrots.

If the garbage disposal hadn't quit working and the kitchen sink weren't backed up with water, it would have been a perfect afternoon and evening in the kitchen.  Ah, well. So it goes. I probably overtaxed the disposal.