Bad Mood = Bad Haiku

Ahem.

My dog is a brat
Cubicle's sucked my soul dry
Yeah...TGIF.

And that about covers it for today.

But, just to avoid making it a total waste of a post, I'm going to give you my recipe for the best soup ever. For real. (It's not quite as photogenic as I may have hoped, but, dang, it was good...am I allowed to swear on here?) So anyway, the bek-cipe. (Since, you know, there's no measurements and stuff.) It's very flexible, but here's what I did. Feel free to throw in whatever veggies you have lying around.

Take 1 can of vegetable broth, 1 chopped onion (can sub leek or green onion or shallot), 1 HEAD of chopped garlic (no substitutes for fresh garlic!), a handful of dried shiitake mushrooms and 4 cups of water. Put into a big pot and bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat. Let simmer while you prepare the other veggies: peel and dice 1 smallish-mediumish butternut squash (can sub 2 sweet potatoes). Add to the pot with 1/2 cup quick-cooking barley (can sub small pasta or instant brown rice) and let simmer 15 minutes or so. Roughly chop 1/2 bunch kale (can sub any green, just keep in mind that spinach will cook very quickly) and add to the soup along with 1 can kidney beans and 1 can chickpeas. Let cook about 5 minutes more, and add salt and pepper to taste. (Not that y'all didn't know that already...) Voila! (NOT viola, people.)

This soup was inspired by 2 soups that were served at Whole World Restaurant: spinach/barley/leek and kale/sweet potato/chickpea. Mine is what happens if you mix them together with a splash of bek...wahaha!