Redemption!

For over eight years of marriage Melissa has endured various facial expressions, from puckers, to plugged noses, from eyes-shut-tight in horror to over-active gag reflexes, from subtle comments to not so subtle group-chucking-on-the-table at some of her experiments and efforts to follow recipes in the kitchen. (Those of you who have followed the blog know of the infamous comments “Wow, this tastes good! Dad, did you make it” and other similar slams about those rare exceptions.)

The scoffers can now eat their words!

On Friday, our neighborhood had a “Chili, Soup, and Bread Cook-off”. Melissa submitted a chili, a rye bread, and a soup.

We won’t mention that her chili took last place and the judges referred to it as “Gerber Chili” and “An atrocity at the table”...

Her bread would have been in the top two, but was disqualified from competition because David was one of the three bread judges.

And her soup...

looked like yellow-liquid poo. Only those forced to be judges tried it...

until it took first place in the soup competition.

Then it disappeared within two minutes.

This was the fourth attempt at making a sweet potato-type soup. When David saw that Melissa brought another attempt, he groaned and made some side comment about wasting perfectly good sweet potatoes.

He got to eat those words. Literally. One of the tasters referred to the soup saying, “It tastes like a sweet pumpkin pie right out of the oven, sitting by a warm fire between autumn and winter at home with no responsibilities or cares in the world.”

Necessity is the mother of invention, and the fact that a few ingredients were missing from the cupboards lent to the winning of the following recipe. Let’s see if you can guess what ingredients were replacements for what item. Feel free to put your guesses in the comments section. Enjoy!

2 Tbsp flour
2 Tbsp butter
1 1/2 Cups chicken broth
1 1/2 Cups water
1 Celestial Seasonings Gingerbread Herbal packet (steep in the 1 1/2 Cup water listed above for 5 minutes)
2 Tbsp brown sugar
3 Cups cooked sweet potatoes
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
2 Cup milk
salt to taste

Perhaps we should add "food coloring to disguise" next to "salt to taste".