Feeding the Soul

Well it has been a week since my last blog post so this is not starting out very consistently. Here I am so it's back on the horse we go. The past two days have been all about cooking... I'd like to think feeding the soul rather than stuffing my face. As the Summer ends and Fall rolls in, the days of gardening and picking row after row of string beans is coming to an end...such a bitter sweet thing. Unless you planted a Fall garden, then you are "shit outta' luck", my friend!

With that being said, I am thankful for the Summer gardening to be over, but I will miss fresh produce growing right outside my door. I had a refrigerator full of vegetables that needed to be eaten, so what screams veggies more than a hearty bowl of Vegetable soup. I thawed out a whole chicken while I cleaned up the catastrophe that was my house.

Did I mention that I had 8 people plus Ryan and myself staying at our house Saturday night! My friend Megan got married Saturday and after the ceremony was over, naturally the after-party continued at our place.



So after cleaning up, I started on the vegetable soup. I boiled the chicken in some water and lots of seasoning. After it was done I took the chicken out of the broth and picked all of the meat off. I then added all the vegetables to the chicken broth. The veggies I used were fresh string beans, corn, peas, onion, some canned tomatoes, and sweet potatoes (cubed). I added lots of Italian Seasoning, salt, pepper, garlic powder, bay leaves, seasoning salt, and curry powder. After the vegetables had cooked down some I added all of the chicken back and added some water to create more broth. It was so delicious!!! My side kick - Bamboo, definitely enjoyed sampling some of the chicken!

Monday (today), was another day of cooking... Ryan went dove hunting last week and got quite a few to bring home... CHOOT 'EM LIZABETH, is what I think of when I imagine the guys out hunting! HA

I love to eat dove, especially wrapped in bacon and grilled. So when I got home from work, I started sautéing some string beans in olive oil, garlic, and a few bacon pieces and added walnuts towards the end. I cubed the rest of the sweet potato I had left over from the soup and roasted those in olive oil, brown sugar, sea salt, and cayenne pepper. Ryan grilled the dove on the charcoal grill when he got home and WALLAH, dinner was served.

I'd like the think that this was pretty healthy food so it was more like feeding the soul than stuffing my face, but stuff my face I did! I love cooking comfort food on Sunday. It makes me happy and helps me ease back into the work week. What do you do to feed your soul? Because my remedy is Southern comfort food...