Cauliflower soup with crispy bacon and chives

At this point, you know soup is a fallback dinner for me. All you really need is one vegetable you can make the star. If you happen to have some leeks on hand, and homemade chicken stock, both of which I did yesterday, so much the better. And if you have an immersion blender, as Jamie Oliver would say, you're laughing.

The base of this soup was some cauliflower from our CSA box. I'd recently seen this post at Serious Eats for cauliflower cheddar soup and it had gotten stuck in my head; unfortunately, I didn't have the right kind of cheese. Cauliflower leek soup would have to do.

I still wanted to do something special, though. So I crisped up some bacon, removed it from the pan, and sauteed the leeks, potato (another non-necessity but great addition to any pureed soup), and cauliflower in the leftover fat. Plus a little butter. Oh, come on now. You know I don't keep a kosher kitchen.

When the soup was pureed, splashed with cream, and well-seasoned, I ladled it into these fabulous new soup and sammie sets my sister recently sent me as a cheer-up gift. One of the upsides of being mopey is that people make very kind efforts to lift your spirits.

It worked! I love these sets. Thanks, Jen!

"Hey Hungry Dog," you're saying, "that ain't no freakin' sandwich."

True. I did have some bread in the house but it was a few days old--not sandwich material. So I made some crunchy croutons to serve alongside the soup. This is actually one of my favorite ways to eat soup, and now I have the perfect soup-and-crouton vessel. This way you can add the croutons as you like and they don't get soggy. And making croutons is a wonderful way to use up slightly stale bread.

Now let's talk about the soup.

Creamy and smooth, with a double onion hit from the leeks and chives, undernotes of smoky bacon, with bacony bits adding texture and saltiness to each mouthful. Perfection. I'm sorry to sound braggy, but this soup rocked.

It's hard to garner as much enthusiasm from the husband about soups; he likes them fine and will eat every last drop, but ultimately I don't think he values a good soup the way I do. To me, a homemade soup can be delicious, satisfying, healthy (um, maybe not this one), and thrifty all at once. What more could you want?

Cupcake friday

I had the day off today and spent part of it at the Ferry Building. The weather was sunny and bright and for awhile I sat on the pier, drinking a latte, watching the boats, and looking at Treasure Island. Isn't that civilized for a Friday?

Here's a mediocre photo I took with my iPhone.

When I'd had enough of that, I browsed the fabulous shops, then met my friend Kami for lunch at Market Bar.

I've known Kami for 19 years. We met in college, and lived together first in Los Angeles, then in San Francisco. We've seen each other through school, graduate school, countless jobs, family problems, deaths, boyfriends, apartments, husbands, dogs, and one baby. Among the things I've learned as I've gotten older is that there's no substitution for old friends. I treasure them, deeply.

We talked about all kinds of things, some serious and many not. When we were done with lunch, we found ourselves in front of Miette.

We like to support local businesses, especially during this turbulent economy, and thought it only right to purchase a few sweets. Kami bought some caramels, and I purchased two chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting. The nice lady packed them in a tiny little box and off I went.

When I got home, I was worried about the cupcakes and thought it a good idea to check on them.

I admired them for a long time.

Aren't they irresistible?And they're so...small. One person could easily eat two.

The husband doesn't know I bought them.

What he doesn't know can't hurt him.

Ssshh! Happy weekend!

Vanilla bean bundt cake

I know looks aren't everything, but I think we can all agree they count for something.

With potential mates, sure. But mostly I'm talking about with food.

On Sunday I decided to make a Vanilla Bean Bundt Cake from Bon Appetit. From the moment I saw the recipe, I knew I had to make it. First of all, the phrase "vanilla bean" makes me drool a little. Second, I'll make anything that requires my bundt pan; it's adorable but highly underused. Perhaps I should start cooking savory things in it. (Meat loaf in a bundt pan? Would that be a meat bundt?)

Anyhow, the cake was simple and ready in no time. But it didn't look exactly as I expected.

Here's the photo from Bon Appetit:

And here's mine:

Ok, different bundt pans (mine's better). But the main question is...why does the Bon Appetit cake look perfectly striped and worthy of a midwestern bake sale while mine looks like a giant, suntanned donut?

I glared at the husband, although goodness knows he was an innocent bystander.

"Does this look like a donut?" I demanded.

"A little..." he admitted, assessing my anger level. "Sort of like a big cruller." Then he hoofed it to the living room to escape my wrath.

The fact that I cannot stand donuts made this even more upsetting.

I blame it on the glaze, although it contains only three ingredients --milk, powdered sugar, and vanilla--pretty impossible to mess up. But mine turned out clear instead of white and although it seemed thick enough in the bowl, it must have been too runny. I can only conclude that the magazine used a different glaze or doctored the photo. Or that I was supposed to add more sugar. But the recipe only suggested that you add more milk to thin it, not more sugar to thicken it.

I was a little mad. Why not tell readers how to get the glaze in the picture? That's what we want to make, after all. No one would look at the magazine photo and think, "I'm gonna make that cake, but hopefully it'll turn out with a crummy, thin glaze instead of a nice thick white one."

After I huffed and puffed a little, I got over it. A piece of cake helps with tantrums. Mothers have known about this phenomenon for decades. Crying baby? Stuff something sweet in its mouth. Works for grown adults too. I'm going to try it at work, start carrying around rolls of Girl Scout cookies. Lots of crybabies around the office these days but I bet I can silence them with a steady stream of Thin Mints.

Anyway, the cake was quite delicious, homely glaze and all. Let's look inside.

Nice crumb, right? Fluffy and light...that's the buttermilk talking. And did I mention there's bourbon in this cake? Next time I might add more, to take the cake all the way to boozy.

This cake would also be dynamite with vanilla bean frosting. Or chocolate frosting. Or lemon frosting.

But for now, this will do.