Awaiting the Guest..

Today my friend Jonah comes, and I always like to have special things in the fridge for special occasions, and this is certainly a special occasion! Because I know that my guest has an appreciation for good food, and I want to be able to enjoy nice meals in the apartment not only out on the town, I thought what better way to get a leg up on the next few meals then make a large pot of Soup! Yesterday Elsa bought something that we have needed TERRIBLY and it has already changed our lives :) A Hand Mixer!!! It's amazing, we've already made three different soups since yesterday.

We bought a copious amount of Avocados in the last few days (that's what happens when you don't discuss the grocery list before you both go shopping individually...) So we decided that we were sick of Guacamole, so what else does one do with Avocado? How about Smooth, creamy cold avocado soup?

Avocado Soup:

Avocados - as many as you like

Zest of 1/2 a Lime

Juice of 1 Lime

2 Peeled cucumbers - amount of cucumbers obviously depends on the quantity of avocados you use.

Now, I didn't lime i just had lemon...I should have used less of the lemon juice because it was SO-UR! But it has this amazing GREEN colour, and wonderful creamy texture and took 5 minutes with our magic blender:)

Anyhow, Elsa then proceeded to make her father's carrot soup, sans recipe I might add, and it came out Amazing!! Thick because of the carrots, had a bite from the tomato paste, and a bright orange also from the carrots. It was really good, and she inspired me! This morning, I woke up and decided I also wanted to attempt a soup, Pea Soup that is! (My favourite I think :) ) I also didn't use a recipe and the blender was a Treat to use! The soup was a wonderful green, creamy and so smooooooooth! I felt like a real chef! Or at least I felt like my dad when he makes a pea soup...

Pea Soup Recipe(not really recipe...just ingredients and process that I made up):

4 Cups of Chicken Stock

2 Large peeled, grated carrots - gr

ating them really speeds up the cooking time.

1 Medium White Onion

6 Large cloves of garlic

1 Small Yellow Bell Pepper

A LOT of Frozen Peas - I really did not measure at all, I poured in the peas and stopped when I thought I had put enough :D

First, cut all the veggies. Once the pot is hot put a little touch of Olive Oil and saute the Onions and Garlic until they are soft.

Add the carrots, peppers and peas; Saute these just for a little while, approx. 5 mintues.

Add the chicken stock - I say

4 cups, but I also just eye-balled this, so feel free to do the same; adding more will give you a thinner soup, and less a thicker one.

Allow the veggies to come to a nice simmer in the pot; add salt, pepper, lots of Dried Basil and a little Curry Powder.

Once all the veggies are super soft, and the broth is to your taste, Blend away!!

* Make sure to keep the spinning blade of the mixer submerged in the liquid the entire time or...well...you'll have a HUGE clean up:)

And that was it!! Beautiful Pea soup!

After the Soup success I decided why not make some lovely cookies? I already had a huge amount of frozen homemade sugar cookie dough,

so all I had to do was spice them up with a little Chocolate Ganache

To Make the chocolate, I did it a little unorthodox but it turned out glossy and smooth:

Milk Chocolate chips

White Chocolate chips

2 Tbsps of Butter (Unsalted)

1 Tbsp of 3% Milk (preferably Heavy cream)

Melt over a double boiler until really shinny, without Any lumps.

Dip the baked and cooled sugar cookies in the hot melted chocolate

Once cookies are dipped, sprinkle with chopped Honey glazed pecans and raw almonds! :)