Soup and Bread, Part 2

I worked from home on Tuesday, and threw my week out of whack. I generally work from home on Wednesday, you see, and it's funny how these little things become ingrained into your thoughts, so that I spent the next day vaguely out of sorts because my body thought it was a different day of the week than it actually was. Having a cold didn't help.

But on Tuesday we were supposed to get "our every five or six day storm," as the radio meteorologist resignedly (and accurately) called it, and all of my normal meetings had been canceled in favor of a big project review, which is the kind of thing I am regularly grateful I don't have to go to. So I switched my days around.

Working from home not only saves energy and my sanity, it allows me to make things that take time but not effort--like bread, and bean soup using (gasp) dried beans. There's this meme out there right now that dried beans are totally the way to go (Mark Bittman and Rancho Gordo being the prime movers, apparently). I'm not really vested in the argument, since I've always opted for the convenience of canned, but I figured I should give the dried ones a try if the time and inclination ever came together, and Tuesday turned out to be it.

I can't say that I was totally blown away, but I could see a positive difference in the texture between the dried ones I cooked up and the canned ones I normally use, even though I think I overcooked them. The recipe that I used was more or less this one, since I had most of the stuff it wanted. I used a canned roasted chile in place the jalapeno (should I just start buying one every week, just in case?), and added a bit of cayenne to offset what seemed to my virally-impaired palate a lack of resulting heat. The soup was fine and sturdy, the bacon particularly yummy.

To go with it, I made this walnut bread. I went back and forth on whether to add the walnuts or not, went ahead and added them, and berated myself when L noted their presence and refused to eat any of it. JJ, on the other hand, ripped his little piece into tinier bits and ate them thoughtfully.

Today, the gas station sign said 10 degrees when I left Worcester. Itis not supposed to get much warmer than that all day. Along with everyone else I know, I am seriously sick of this weather. February is always the toughest month, I remind myself. I am nevertheless going to venture out of the office today and have lunch with a friend I haven't seen in ages.