What We Ate: a seasonal reminder of dinner at our house.

Well, actually there were about 7: spaghetti, meatloaf, shake and bake chicken, lasagna, mac and cheese and, the infamous, Baked Potato. As a meal. With steamed broccoli, butter and shredded cheddar. We had this meal so often that my siblings and I still comment on it. And, to the best of my knowledge, none of us make baked potatoes on a regular basis, however,  every once in a while, in the winter, we'll do baked potatoes with all the veg on the side. It's kind of perfect if you'd prefer to spend Sunday afternoon hiking in the state park rather than going to the grocery store and all you have left is a lot of slightly past their prime vegetables (I know this description is showing up in this blog with alarming regularity, please don't judge. I buy a lot of vegetables. More than we can usually eat in a week which means that 'clean out the fridge' means stir fry, roasted veg, veg lasagna... you get the idea. And who am I kidding - judge all you want. I would!) ...

We had dinner with our regular crew on Sunday. We've been eating dinner with them for 5 or 6 years on the 3rd Sunday of the month and they are among our very favorite people in all the world. The theme for Sunday was soup and bread. I brought Spicy Chickpeas  as a "winter salad" and potato leek soup... I know it's not much to look at but it tastes wonderful especially if you chop some chives or parsley for the top and add some hot butter bread on the side. Best of all, it really only has 5 ingredients - including seasoning - (which is the requirement for my mom to make it. And she's one of my three readers - Hi mom!) This recipe is adapted from Simply Vegetarian Pleasures . The original is called Leek and Potato Chowder and includes both milk and sour cream. My dairy free version is as follows: a leek or two depending on size (it really doesn't matter - whatever you have on hand) sauted in olive oil until it looks like this: A ...