Honeymoon

M and I spent the weekend planning our honeymoon. We're going to Canada. Highlights include Montreal, with a visit to the cult hit restaurant Au Pied De Cochon, and Newfoundland, with $5 lobsters.

Also, a recent episode of "America's Test Kitchen" cottoned me on to a tip about getting eggs to room temperature in short order (for my favorite spaghetti carbonara). Chris Kimball says to take eggs right out of the fridge and cover them in hot tap water. They'll come up to room temp in a few minutes. Sounds like this would fit in well as a first step in the recipe.

Previous Recipe - Stock Cube + Marmite

Oh, duh. A friend's comment made me remember that for the broccoli soup, instead of adding a stock cube, I stirred in a teaspoon of Marmite. I know, I know, most people find this stuff awful, but it really does add a lot of umami and not a lot of salt. Like fish sauce or anchovies, which you also might not love, you totally can't taste it, but it lifts the entire dish. I'll take a natural solution to the problem any day.

Veggie Cart + Stock Cube = Cheap Soup

A recent favorite trick, which I guess will only work for NYC residents, is to go by the local fruit & veg cart, where you can get a limited selection of produce for dead cheap. Three cups water. One Knorr stock cube. One clove garlic. A bunch of whatever vegetable is cheap that day.

Boil for 15 minutes and then run the hand blender through it. Yes, the stock cube has a little MSG in it, but the soup is healthy and tasty.

If we have leftover cream cheese, I usually throw a couple of tablespoons in, which results in a soup that's a little creamy without being a cream soup.

(No pictures on this one, as I'm afraid they all look like green or orange goo, but they're delicious.)

In the past week, we've done these:

• asparagus
• broccoli
• red bell pepper & carrot & celery