wct- savory monkey bread and pumpkin soup

food today was a hit and a miss. kind of like my week. but at least the week is almost over. been living out of my car and crashing at my friend's place (thank you thank you thank you!) i think i would have gone crazy with the commuting. so feeling tired and burnt out which usually means i want something toasty and greasy. after my friend mentioned garlic parmesan monkey bread and we watched a marathon of "chopped" (i love that show!) i was definitely set to make it. and just like the usual sweet monkey bread, the savory version does not disappoint.

 toasty, flakey, garlicky, cheesey goodness. and super quick and easy. recipe at the bottom!

i figured i should balance it out with something healthier and more nutritious (since that is my future work, hopefully) so it's with a baby arugula salad and pumpkin soup...now this pumpkin soup, i don't know if it's because i tried to combine two recipes or if it's because i used an uber healthy mayo-clinic recipe as the basis of the soup so i got something very brothy with absolutely no butter...then again, it might just be that b/c i've never had pumpkin soup i have no idea what it should taste like.

it's so darn good it needed an up close and personal. look at all that parsley! drool...

Garlic Parmesean Monkey Bread (serves 5)
adapted from all-recipes
1 Tblsp and 1.5 tsp dried parsley
2 cloves garlic, minced
dash of salt
1 Tblsp, 1/4 tsp butter melted (the 1/4 is to coat the pan...not that it seemed to help)
1 egg
1 can Jumbo Safeway buttermilk biscuits
1/4 cup Parmesean Cheese

Grease a large loaf pan (I greased a bundt pan and when putting the pieces in realized the pan was too large and didn't get a good layering action, so use something smaller). Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a bowl, mix parsley, garlic, salt, melted 1 Tblsp butter and egg until blended. Cut each biscuit into 4 and dip into the mixture. Make a layer in your dish, sprinkle with cheese. Repeat layer and cheese sprinkling. Cover loosely and bake about 30 minutes or until golden brown.

* I think I want to try the pillsbury biscuits next time, these had bits of butter in the dough already to begin with and I think it made my bread a little too buttery (although really can that crispy buttery taste go wrong?). Also, everything stuck completely to my pan, it may to do with the fact that I couldn't get a full layer of biscuit before sprinkling with cheese. 

Pumpkin soup
I combined Mayo Clinic with Simply Recipes
I don't even want to write the recipe that I ended up with b/c I wasn't pleased with the end result, but I ended up with the soup from Mayo and the spice from Simply Recipes. It definitely needed/wanted the cream and/or butter that the spicy soup had.

brrrr...time for lentil soup and other fixings

it's chilly enough here that i'm wearing all my winter clothes inside the house. and that just means it's time for warm and toasty fill-up-my-tummy goodness. i recently signed up for newsletters from active.com and this recipe is compliments of their site. it's a quick and easy recipe, really good source of protein and makes your tummy all warm and cozy. i did have to put an extra dash of salt and pepper into my bowl though. speaking of quick and easy. i'm trying to eat an actual meal after class instead of just running into the kitchen and haphazardly looking for food that can get into my mouth as soon as possible. b/c that leads to the peanut butter jar and then i just feel a bit sick afterward. this takes a bit to cook. toss in whatever chopped veggies strike your fancy (i have potato, zucchini, and broccoli) and then toss in pesto (i have a frozen jar of bj's pesto) and wrap in foil and stick in the oven for about 40 minutes (until all your veggies are baked, the potatoes do take a while, fyi). and now onto a bit of a food dump. never got a chance to upload pictures from our labor day cooking b/c my laptop is a bit unhappy. but it was delicious! eggs italiano and stuffed french toast. the bread was stuffed with a strawberry and cream cheese mix. the eggs italiano was a saute of tomatoes, zucchini and onion on top of a whole wheat english muffin and topped off with a poached egg (which is really fun to do!). smittenkitchen has a great picture how-to on poaching eggs. oh, and i just noticed how huge the cheese looks on top of the egg. this is what happens when you don't have a cheese grater...but it still tastes good:)