Leave me alone, SLP!!

I'm taking a much needed break from my endless AR study session that's lasted over two days now. My brain is fried from SLP/AUD terms in preparation for my midterm tonight, so it's time for foodie talk. It's a little early for a midterm, but I embrace getting one of them out of the way now and having more time down the road for other midterm prep.

Last night I was excited, though a tad underwhelmed at the thought of making homemade chicken noodle soup (sans chicken in my portion). Only because there's nothing terribly unique or adventurous about chicken noodle soup, but I think that's the point. I don't want to read about nor taste a classic soup that's been reinvented. I used veggie stock, which wasn't as salty as chicken stock, but with enough salt, you couldn't even tell. I used orzo for the pasta and the crock pot took over for most of the cooking process. Unfortunately with my schoolwork, I didn't have time to hover over the stove like I normally prefer. I do, however, really enjoy slow-cooked meals. A bit of the cooking fun is taken out, but I really love the flavor of an eight-hour cooked dinner. Mmm mm mm.

Along with the soup, I had made a sweet potato bread the night before. In the process of making it, I was really worried and kinda grossed out. I substituted 1/2 the amount of sugar with Splenda and also used whole wheat flour instead of all purpose. If you haven't worked with whole wheat flour, the consistency can look kind of grainy and brown whereas all purpose is smooth and creamy off-white. Add to that mashed sweet potatoes, and you have an orange-brown dough. Eeks. I was skeptical putting it into the oven and figured it would come out really tough and dense. Alas, this bread was AWESOME! It was late by the time it came out of the oven so I let it cool then wrapped it slightly warm in tin foil. I figured it would be cool to have it with our soup. I was right because the bread ended up being super moist. I only point this out because I really hate when bread like this turns out dense and dry. I took out some butter, whipped it, and added pepper and a touch of honey. SO...we had homemade chicken noodle soup (veggies only for me!) and sweet potato bread with honey pepper butter. I know I sound like Caroline Ingalls with all of this, but damn, it was all reallllllyyyy good. It's pretty cool how you can switch up the taste of plain old butter with what you have in your pantry, and it made me feel very fancy :)

I think this is blurry, but you get the drift. Of course after taking this, I had to have another piece.