Dinner & The Rest of the Day

For dinner I made cream of onion soup and rosemary cheese bread, with a side of steamed carrots. The cream of onion soup was adapted from The Three and Four Ingredient Cookbook. Here's what I did:

Cream of Onion Soup

2.5 lb onions, chopped
Butter for frying onions
2 potatoes, based
1 tablespoon thyme
3/4 cup cream
1 tablespoon salt
5 cups water

Saute onions in a generous amount of butter until golden. Add the thyme and the salt, then the water. Bring to a boil, then simmer about 30 minutes until onions are tender. Reduce heat and add cream. Blend in pulp of potatoes; salt and pepper to taste.

The recipe didn't call for potatoes or thyme, but it seemed a little thin and naked to me without them. In my experience, cream-based soups either need a ridiculous, artery-clogging quantity of cream or a couple of baked/boiled/mashed potatoes to achieve the right texture. In the interest of preserving our health, I tend to choose the latter.

The rosemary cheese bread was pretty good, but I thought it was also a little dry. The batter was incredibly sticky, almost more like cookie dough than a quick bread batter. Next time I think I might add another egg or a little more milk. And the "marbling" effect was somewhat underwhelming. Nonetheless, it was good, and any kind of side that helps stretch dinner far enough to make lunch for the next day meets my goal.And I have my no-knead bread resting on top of the refrigerator awaiting its next steps.

You may have hoped that my pictures of tonight's dinner would be with the new camera. Well, so did I, but because I neglected to realize that it didn't come with a memory card--and because I refuse to pay $74.99 at Best Buy for what I can have next-day-shipped from Amazon for a total of $41--I won't be able to oblige until tomorrow, probably tomorrow night, because I work from 1-7 but am on call from 7am-1. So I could go in anytime between 7 and 1, and I doubt it will be here before then.

All in all, it was a satisfying day. I've needed a haircut for awhile but put it off as long as possible because I'm always so dissatisfied with the job that's done, and for what I have to pay for it. Last night we went to a tiny local barbershop, which cut Matt's hair for $13. Disillusioned with the idea that only men can have it so easy when it comes to haircuts, today I went in and asked them to do mine. They were initially a little hesitant, but did an awesome job! They've got themselves a couple of regulars.

And my hardest-won battle of the day was with Barnes & Noble. I was taking back a cookbook we'd bought back in December and never read. I had my receipt, but they told me that the policy had changed from what was on the back of my receipt (only store credit after 30 days with a receipt) to not doing any kind of return/exchange after 14 days. After a lot of badgering and talking to 3 different people, I finally got them to honor the written terms on the receipt. You'd think with Amazon taking over the world and all, they'd be eager to generate a little goodwill, but apparently not.