Day 208: Red Pepper & Black Bean Soup, Pesto Torta and whole wheat baguette
Check this stroke of genius out. I’m sure many a flight attendant/pilot/travelling salesman/wannabe rockstar has figured this one out already.
Mike spent the day at Indy and we have about an hour overlap before I head off to Sip!, and neither of us felt like seeking out a restaurant in, I’m sorry, the chain restaurant capital of the world, where everything within a reasonable distance will be packed with Indy goers (our hotel is right beside it; I am watching it now out the window while F-18s blast overhead). Plus it’s 30 degrees outside. Wonder how Mike is doing out on the tarmac.
I went down to the farmers’ market this morning (the downtown Edmonton one, not the Strathcona market) and had it in my head to go to Soul Soup, a place I have only heard about but have not yet managed to visit. How though, would I reheat the soup at dinnertime? Ah, the coffee maker, which I often use to reheat my Tim Horton’s in my room. All you do is pour your coffee (or soup) into the carafe and turn it on. (It doesn’t need to filter through to turn on the base heat element.) Stir lots with a coffee stirrer and serve in mugs provided.
(So Soul Soup, which is also downtown, was closed. But since I had the idea in my head and needed to go buy transport (crackers or bread) for the torta anyway, I picked up a tetra pack of Gardonnay, which isn’t really too bad, ingredients-wise, and has under a thousand mg of sodium (650), which is downright low in the canned soup world.)
The best thing at the Farmers’ Market is my friend Mary’s cheese and pesto torta – layers of whipped cream cheese, sundried tomato pesto and basil pesto, which she layers (mine is a little squished from being carried around in my bag in 30 degree heat while carrying W on my hip) and then adds a baggie of toasted pine nuts to sprinkle on top. This thing is so good – and I keep on meaning to look up a recipe and make it myself, but never get around to it. So it’s like a spread, which is perfect to eat in a hotel room with a baguette and Swiss Army knife.
What clever advice for those of us who end up in hotels & not wanting to go out to eat. Thanks.
Aww, c’mon! All you had to do is ask your rabid fans in Edmonton to offer suggestions about a good place near the racetrack, and you would have had more than enough choice.
Like Chandler’s, a nice little tea room, just a few blocks away.
Anyway, sorry about all the chain restaurants here…
I didn’t know Chandlers! Yes there are some great restaurants in Edmonton – absolutely. Hardware Grill, Blue Chair, Urban Diner, Treestone (OK that’s a bakery), Wild Tangerine. Suede? Not sure if the new Murietta’s is like the one in Calgary… I just wish they weren’t so outnumbered by Chili’s and Moxie’s!