Well, not so funny and not to me. My husband has been stuck in London since Friday due to a certain ‘not-to-be-named’ volcano in Iceland. (The not-to-be-named part has nothing to do with it being evil…it has everything to do with me not being able to spell or pronounce it.)This has been quite the adventure – a real European version of ‘Planes, Trains, and Automobiles’ with a ferry trip thrown in for good measure! In the end we have resigned ourselved to the fact that he most likely will not be home anytime sooner than Wednesday, so he should relax a bit and enjoy the country. I am planning to get the scoop on his food adventures – among other things – upon his return. I know he has made sure to enjoy the occassional pint or two for good measure. Poor guy!!

Tonight’s dinner was something I decided to call ‘Surprise Soup’. Part of the ‘surprise’ was finding out whether or not it passed the taste test. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that yes, it did indeed pass the taste test. This soup was made up of anything leftover in my refrigerator that needed to be used up. If I thought the the senses would be delighted by adding any ingredient in question, in it went! My list of ingredients included carrots, celery, onion and garlic as the base flavors. I added two potatoes whose lives were nearing an end, a can of black beans, diced tomatoes, white wine, a splash of balsamic vinegar and chicken stock. For spices I used salt, pepper, thyme, and a dash of red pepper flakes. There was some brown rice and pork chops leftover from last night’s dinner, so I diced the pork and threw it in alongside the rice, added a little water to round it all out, and let it simmer away. When I dished it up I squeezed some fresh lemon juice over each serving and grated a little parmesano-reggiano cheese on top for good measure. Most delicious! The only thing missing was a crusty loaf of bread to dip into the soup juices…And a benefit I had not considered was my fridge gaining a bit of breathing room inside. Nice, very nice!!

So here’s to my husband and everyone else stuck due to a certain Icelandic volcano…Cheers and Godspeed!