The Bitten Word

German Split Pea Soup (Erbsensuppe)

Saveur (December 2008)

After nearly having our soup dreams derailed by Gingery Sweet Potato, we quickly got back on the train with this German Split Pea. 

So lest you be despondent over the disappointment of our last post's recipe, this more than makes up for it -- a delicious, substantial soup that has all the comforting goodness you're looking for this winter.

Gingery Sweet Potato Soup

Food & Wine (December 2008)

Doesn't a gingery sweet potato soup sound lovely?

Doesn't it look nice in that photo -- all orange and warm?

Don't you think that it would be delicious and the perfect meal on a wintery night?

That's where you'd be wrong. 

Braised Hoisin Beer Short Ribs with Rosemary White-Bean Purée

Dave Lieberman (Food Network) | Gourmet (October 2008)

Let's kick off the new year with one of our absolute favorite dishes:  braised short ribs.

Truman Capote wrote of the start of winter, "It's fruitcake weather."

But not in this house. For us, cold weather means short ribs weather. 

And we've resolved to eat more of them in 2009.

Culinary Resolutions for 2009

Our food blogger neighbors over at Cookography asked if we'd be interested in posting some culinary resolutions for '09.  Since this blog was borne out of our resolution a year ago to put our cooking magazines to use, we were excited to put together a list.

Here's what we're aiming for this year:

• Cook a whole fish -- We've never done it and it sounds like something we should know how to do, you know, in case we get stranded by a river or something.

• Buy foods with five or fewer ingredients -- Zach once heard someone say that when grocery shopping, they tried to not buy anything with more than five ingredients.  It's a handy guideline that will hopefully keep us from buying foods with too many chemicals.

• Make Beef Wellington -- We're not even sure we'd love the taste (Zach's not wild about mushrooms, and Clay doesn't care too much for pâté), but this just seems like a classic dish that would be so fulfilling to have made.

• Cook Indian food -- We absolutely love eating Indian food, but we've never prepared it ourselves. But armed with the great curries and spices Zach ordered with his birthday gift card, we're set!

• Don't let food go to waste -- We're too often guilty of buying food that we don't cook.

• Keep our knives sharp --We sharpened our knives just before Thanksgiving for the first time in a loooooong time.  It made such a difference to actually slice & dice with a sharp blade.

• User fewer paper towels -- This fall we tried to eliminate the majority of our paper towel usage. We still use them occasionally but far less than we did before. 

• Learn to make fresh pasta -- This is a perennial resolution for us.  It's going to happen in '09!

• Eat at least one vegetarian meal per week -- We. Love. To. Eat. Meat. But we could eat less, which would be better for us and the planet.  In his excellent New York Times open letter to the president-elect, Michael Pollan suggested that the first family observe one meatless day each week.  We're not yet up to a meatless day each week, but we'll start with at least one meatless meal.

• Eat more short ribs -- and that's what we'll be writing about next!

And for those of you who are curious about the photo, we ordered Chinese the other night and that was Clay's fortune. We're not quite sure what it means, but we're choosing to think it means something positive.