brrrr

It's been quite chilly here this past week (freezing-rain-bouncing-off-my-windshield chilly) which inspired me to whip up some chicken soup with rice. I didn't really use a recipe but I did put to use the chicken stock we froze a while ago when we made a super big batch. Mmmm it was so good. The stock added such good flavor. I precooked the rice for a bit since brown rice takes FOREVER to cook it seems. Probably could have cooked it a bit longer, but I was too cold and hungry :)

I was laughing to myself as I was taking these pictures (especially the first one) because it's kind of weird to stop in the middle of cooking to snap some pics. But I'm always a fan of a good mise en place. Have I mentioned my addiction to thingsorganizedneatly? Full of OCD images that just make my heart happy :) 

Shawn decided to snap a picture of this pizza from the other night:

I had carefully rearranged the pepperonis and he just thought that was the most ridiculous thing. I told him that in the grand scheme of strange organize-y things I do, this one's not so weird. Who wants to eat a mouthful of pepperonis in one bite and then only cheese in the next? Not this girl. He had a lovely time eating miscellaneous slices off to ruin my symmetry while we waited for the oven to preheat.

In other food news, we finally managed to eat all the Easter ham. I had frozen it in batches since I knew we'd never eat it all in time and after the ham and bean soup, countless ham sandwiches, ham and egg scrambles, and some ham just dipped in honey mustard and dijon for good measure... it's finally gone! The ham situation was a little out of control there for a minute.

Now I'm trying to come up with creative ways to use up this giant bag of potatoes we bought before they start growing their own potato farm in the pantry. I made some super crispy spiced oven fries earlier and I think my potato and lentil soup is juuuust about done.