Goat Cheese Omelet, Make-Do Fruitcake Cookies and Snow Day Spinach Soup

It's been another unprecedented snowed-in day in glorious, icy Marietta, Georgia, where 2 nights ago about 7 inches fell and has since turned to ice, trapping us all in our homes.  "Snowmaggedon" is what the cool kids are calling it.   I like to refer to it as "The Great Cabin Fever Food Binge of 2011."  I'm pretty much cooking and eating and then sleeping it off.  Actually, I've gotten a lot done around the house today as well.  I even ironed if you can believe it.  And tiled 90% of my fireplace.  I'm a few damn tiles short.  And I measured and everything!  Luckily I used some sticky-back adhesive instead of the traditional mix kind, so you can tile at your convenience.  I ran out of that stuff, too, dang it!

Pretty cool, though, right?  Sale tile, too.  Hopefully I'm going to replace the brass-framed doors with something vintage at some point.  As you can see, I've started painting them.  Twice.  Just ignore that whole part.

 So, to kick off my day of cooking, this morning I made a delicious omelet with onions, zucchini, bacon, herbes de provence, and goat cheese.  Regardez:

So good.  I make a damn fine omelet.

A few hours later, my sweet tooth kicked in.  I was going through my pantry and found a big thing of candied fruit for fruitcakes that I bought a last month, and it made me want fruitcake cookies.  After scavenging around online for a recipe, I found Pioneer Woman's awesome blog.  Her fruitcake cookies involve A CUP OF BRANDY plus more added on top after baking.  It's baking for lushes!  I like it.

 (Photo courtesy Pioneer Woman)

I need to just call my Nana, though, because her fruitcake cookie recipe is amazing. I don't have eggs, however, so those cookies ain't gonna happen.  Although I got creative with what I had and made these:

That's fruitcake butter wedged between two Moravian cookies.

Fruitcake butter is softened butter creamed with vanilla extract, a dash of whiskey, brown sugar, maple syrup, chopped nuts (I used walnuts and hazelnuts) and fruitcake mix.  I just made it up.  It doesn't look all that pretty, but it tastes amazing (As you can see from my tastes and my photos I still have not let go of Christmas yet, apparently.)  I used a very fancy $2.99 fruitcake fruit mix from Walmart that comes in a plastic container and contains high fructose corn syrup.  Like I said, it's pretty fancy.

So, after all that sugar, I kinda crashed and had a crazy-dream nap in my way too hot room, for which I am thankful.  Some Atlanta folks ain't got power right now, I hear. 

And then I woke up, hungry again, and decided to tinker with Pioneer Woman's Spinach Soup recipe.

This is how it turned out:

It tastes amazing, kinda of like a loaded baked potato soup, with spinach instead of potatoes.  My recipe is pretty close to Pioneer Woman's, but I changed it up a bit.  I don't measure exactly, so all of my amounts are assumed. 

A few big handfuls of (organic) spinach
2 tbs olive oil (The darker the better, in my opinion)
About 1 1/2 cups water or so
1 tbs Better Than Bouillon Vegetable Base
1-2 tbs butter
2 tsp minced garlic
Half an onion, chopped
2 slices cooked bacon, crumbled
1/2 tsp Roland Black Truffle Cream (optional)
1/2 tsp Herbamare Seasoning
1 can cream of chicken soup
a few kicks (technical term) of hot cayenne pepper sauce
Sour cream
Shaved Gruyere cheese
Fresh ground black pepper

Saute the spinach in olive oil in a soup pot.  I used a great vintage enamelware pot that I scored at an antique store.  Once spinach is wilted nicely (not too much, not too little...I dunno, it's just one of those things.  You don't want it raw, you don't want it browned) place in blender with a little bit of water and puree.  Okay, before you put the spinach back into the pot, saute the onion and garlic with some butter and Herbamare and saute until browned a bit, then add the truffle cream.  Now add pureed spinach, the rest of the water and the vegetable soup base, stir and heat.  Then add the can of soup, the bacon, a few dashes of hot pepper sauce, and heat until, well, hot!

Serve with dollop of sour cream, shaved Gruyere, and fresh ground black pepper.  So. Good.

This soup could be done with peas, leeks, mushrooms, potatoes, tomatoes, corn, broccoli...cornucopia of possibilities, really.  I'd love to do a chestnut soup, too, mmmmmmm...

Maybe I'll actually be able to use a vehicle and drive tomorrow.  And go to WORK! The horror.

Night night, y'all!