Now you're cooking with Torgo

Somewhere along the line, it became clear that I'd need to expand the culinary repertoire beyond mac and cheese and ramen noodles, so I got into cooking. Then M-N helped me evolve beyond spaghetti and tortellini (notice the continued dependence on pasta).

Yesterday, I ventured into two new territories: breads and soups. Oh, will the excitement ever end? I first made an herb focaccia bread, then a chicken and wild rice soup. Both ended up pretty good, actually. The bread was much easier than I envisioned it would be. The only ingredient I'd never used before was yeast. That's not so hard. The soup was made with stuff I knew: chicken, bacon, broth, scallions, flour, half and half, etc.

The only trick was wild rice. The recipe said you could substitute regular long grain white rice, which we had, but I wanted it to be wild rice, so I went to three grocery stores before finally finding some at Trader Joe's. The Stop & Shops had Uncle Ben's and Zatarain's wild rice, but those were funkified versions. I wanted the real thing.

So, big success. Breads and soups, I no longer fear thee.