A Feast of Food and a Funny Carrot

It's been a whirlwind couple of days of cooking. I've really been enjoying my downtime lately and having the oppourtunity to puruse through other blogs. The food that I'm seeing on other foodies' blogsites makes my mouth water. So I decided that in this round of cooking I would try out some of their recipes.
First up was Donna's French Onion Soup

If you haven't discovered Donna's blog yet, take a look. It's well worth it. She writes with humour, a dose of eye-candy and some really delicious recipes. This soup does take some time to make (a lot of simmering and bringing out the flavours of the onions), but it is really worth it. Start cooking about 4 hours before you want to eat (you don't have to stick in the kitchen for the entire time, so don't worry about that.) The result is absolutely tasty. Because I don't make French Onion Soup often, I don't own soup bowls that can go into the oven. I improvised and did the final cheese and bread stage in a large casserole dish. This recipe does make a lot of soup broth, so I only finished up half of it and froze the other half to enjoy another time. Thank you Donna for this treasure!


While I was simmering Donna's soup, I started on Katy's Flemish Carrot Soup. This is the soup I plan to take for lunches at work this week. I did a little taste test and loved it. The taste of it gave me in interesting idea. It's very chowder-like and I wondered how it would taste if I added some seafood to it. I think it would be a delicious twist. I had a lot of fun looking through Katy's blog and have found another recipe that I'm going to try in the next week or so to use up some more carrots that need to be cooked, so thank you Katy!


While I had both soups simmering, I started in on the cookies. Melissa's Cinnamon Cookies have been calling my name since she first posted them a few weeks back. I'm very impressed with Melissa's blog. If you haven't yet discovered it, she is a high school student who cooks the most marvelous things (and has lovely photography too). I first started cooking in high school too, but nothing like what I'm seeing on her site. These cookies were really sweet and soft, just like a cookie should be. Here's a couple pictures of my cookie monsters devouring them.
Elijah

Jeremy

Back up a day and we come to my husband's birthday cake 2009 edition. He told me that he wanted a black forest cake this year. So I started looking through your sites to find one. I had a feeling I would find a good recipe on the site I did. I wasn't mistaken. I found it at Mennonite Girls Can Cook. When I first discovered this blog, I knew I had found a keeper. I grew up in the western part of Canada where there are a lot of Mennonite families. The food that my friends had in their houses was always delicious. I looked forward to the church bake sales where the Mennonite ladies had their wares out. Mmmm, just lovely, wonderful homestyle food. The blogsite for Mennonite Girls Can Cook is a team effort. Annelise's Black Forest Cake is a family favorite of hers. We served it to 12 last night and they all agreed that it was delicious. She makes hers with strawberries (you should see her pictures), but I opted for the traditional cherry approach. I wish I had had more time to make it prettier, but the taste made up for it!


And finally, the funny carrot. Obviously for Katy's soup recipe I had to use a lot of carrots. When I reached in the bag, this is what I found:

Have you ever seen a carrot like this before? Double roots! Too funny, I had to take a picture. Happy Eating!
*An addendum: Thank you girlichef for introducing me to Kahakai Kitchen and Souper Sundays. I don't how much I'll be able to partake, but I usually do make a soup at least once a month or more in the winter time. Looks like a fun thing to take part in!