Pittsburgh Girlie

1

Tweet-Up

I know you guys love to get together and hang out; sports and beer are a bonus. I also know these tweet-ups are definitely not in short supply. The great thing about when we all get together is that we are generally celebrating or contributing to a cause.

A ton of people, I’m sure, went to Las Velas last night and helped raise money for Make Room for Kids.

I hope you’ve marked your December 6th off for the next great community event tweet-up. @pgha has helped pull together a food drive party with OTB Bicycle Cafe. I know it’s going to be a fantastic event and I know that you will all be there, can in hand. There will be food, football, beer, and prizes.

So, go read this and plan on helping out like the fantastic Pittsburghers we all are!

If you’re interested in other tweet-up opportunities I suggest you take a look here.

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3

Soup & Crackers

Why do we put crackers in our soup? Why some soups and not others? Where did this idea come from? I’m so full of questions today. I even asked Twitter, because Twitter really does know everything or will at least have a link to satisfice your curiosity. [Yes, it's a real word.]

I learned that the word soup comes to us from the French soupe (“soup”, “broth”), which comes through Latin suppa (“bread soaked in broth”). It also has a Germanic root sop, bread used to soak up soup or stew.

Then @MrsCrappy pointed me at a wonderful page. This person had asked pretty much the same question and he had gotten loads of answers. Here is the one that struck me as the best: (Mostly because it uses my second favorite word – etymological.)

Why the word “soup?”
“The etymological idea underlying the word soup is that of soaking. It goes back to an unrecorded post-classical Latin verb suppare soak’, which was borrowed from the same prehistoric German root (sup-) as produced in English sup and supper. From it was derived the noun suppa, which passed into Old French as soupe. This meant both piece of bread soaked in liquid’ and, by extension, broth poured onto bread.’ It was the latter strand of the meaning that entered English in the seventeenth century. Until the arrival of the term soup, such food had been termed broth or pottage. It was customarily served with the meat or vegetable dishes with which it had been made, and (as the dreivation of soup suggest) was poured over sops of bread or toast (the ancestors of modern croutons). But coincident with the introduction of the world soup, it began to be fashionable to serve the liquid broth on its own, and in the early eighteenth century it was assuming its present-day role as a first course.”
—An A-Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 316)

So that explains the soup/bread connection. Now on to the cracker part of this. Chowders seem to be the starting point for this. Early (nineteenth century) recipes for chowders called for ship’s biscuit for thickening. Ship’s biscuit is also known as hardtack and is a very basic and hard cracker that kept for a long time and even kept well on long ship voyages.

Brief thing on chowders:

Chowders were first created by local fishermen, who would throw samples of the fish they caught into big pots and simmer them with potatoes and vegetables. Americans adopted this type of seafood stew from the French settlers in the northern colonies. The stewpot was called a chaudiere, and this word eventually became “chowder.”

This sort of leads into oyster crackers. These were invented by Adam Exton in Trenton, NJ. See, New Jersey contributes, er contributed. He invented a machine to roll out and cut the dough which cut out the sanitary issues of doing this all by hand. Also, oyster crackers are a lot more appetizing that hardtack seems. Other bakeries “borrowed” his recipe.

There you have it people. Do you put crackers in your soup?

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3

Meal Planning: Week 1 Recap

After a week of planning out meals and cooking things I’ve realized that using the crock-pot more than once or twice a week is INSANE. In my freezer I have this and some of this plus more Wedding Soup (which I have not posted about yet) than I know what to do with.

The good things is that most of it’s frozen and I can slowly work through it without over doing it on eating the same thing over and over.

Last night I made a fancy mac n cheese. I wasn’t impressed, it was yummy, but I’m not a huge fan of mac n cheese. The Boy said I should have used Velveeta. UM NO. That’s not even cheese! He said he adds in a couple slices of American cheese too. ALSO NO. Also not cheese. I used to like mac n cheese and I think Velveeta made me sick and completely turned me off of it.

Next week I want to make lasagna and I know that I’ll add about half of it to the freezer. I’ll also be eating a lot of wedding soup, and that’s okay. I got a lot of suggestions for cooking and I’m slowly working my way through  them.

And lastly but definitely not leastly: Go Donate, please.

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2

Meal Planning Attempt

I have no idea if I’ll be able to keep this up. I’m going to try planning each week of meals, shop for just what we need, and hope to avoid eating out this month.The goal is to see how much money we will save. We have a tendency to get lazy and eat out. The exception to this rule is when The Kid is with us, he eats so much! We usually take him to breakfast somewhere ’cause it’s a treat on his day with dad.

In chatting with other people I’ve realized our diet in this house is probably weird. We don’t have food restrictions really, though I don’t care for pork. He’s allergic to mushrooms and some nut, that isn’t me (thank goodness)! Usually The Boyfriend cooks and it’s very bachelor style cooking, one pot, etc. I am not complaining because most times I don’t have the time or desire. Generally we have a pasta & red sauce with ground beef, pasta & alfredo sauce with chicken, rice or egg noodles & green beans or corn with ground beef, or we’ll eat out. Whatever I do end up choosing I will have to run by him because it’s no use if he won’t eat it. I’m hoping that if I can keep up with this I might branch out and try some new things. In other news he’s told me he doesn’t care about this week because he’s working. *sigh* Fine, then I’m making what I want to eat. So.There.

We’ve got lots of stuff in the freezer; chili from a couple weeks back, pot roast from last week, chicken, meatballs, etc. I’ve gotten lots of suggestions and hints from people, it’s great, and feel free to leave more for me here. I’m not a great cook, hence the “not a foodie” category. But I’m trying, very trying, whomp whomp.

I’ve been in a soup mood the last few weeks. I only just realized this today though. I have been hungry and then I don’t want to eat what’s in front of me. Picky much! Seriously I’d eat grilled cheese and tomato soup all the time if I could. (Okay, maybe not *all* the time…)

Monday:

Leftover pot roast in fridge … some kind of dinner rolls
Prep: wedding soup in crock-pot
Prep: move chili from freezer to fridge to thaw

Tuesday:

Wedding soup … not sure what to serve with this though
Prep: move ground beef from freezer to fridge

Wednesday:

Chili … cornbread muffins

Thursday:

Mac & Cheese Bake (either crock-pot or casserole style) or Tacos

Friday:

Tacos or Mac & Cheese Bake

Saturday:

Leftover Mac & Cheese/Taco Casserole

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