Fall Bucket List 19. try new soup recipes (ongoing) 21. learn to cook indian food (ongoing)

I notice a pattern for me. Step One- pick a goal Step Two- buy a lot of stuff for it Step Three- try it once or twice Step Four- pick a new goal So, I've been trying to cook indian food. I bought the book Indian Crockpot Cookbook and a fancy spice holder for all my indian spices. But it does have a few cute spoons but I don't know what measurements they are so I still end up getting out my plastic measuring spoons. So far none of the recipes are worth posting- mostly too spicy for me and if I try to tone it down they are too bland. My family is less than thrilled about all the lentils so my neighbors have been helping with leftovers and I still throw away about 50 percent of it. I think I need to switch gears and try some other recipes from the interwebs. Also, much smaller quantities until they are tried and true. As far as soup, at a thrift store I found a copy of Brother Vincent's Year of Monastary Soups. Most the recipes have been hits. However, I absolutely can not follow a recipe. I have good intentions but then I start throwing in extra stuff. Also, my foodie sister in law laughs at me because I substitute like crazy.. like I don't have an egg so I use applesauce. Or I don't have cream so I use milk. Last night. It was Tomato Florentine Soup from Brother Victor's book. I'm not going to post the original recipe because I made so many substitutions, but I thought the result was pretty surprisingly good. One out of Four kids ate it, so not a good family meal but it was low cal and vegan so that's all good. Emily's garden tomato soup I used the tomatoes I scored at the farmers market. First I threw them in a pot of boiling water for a minute and then took the peels off. Put them in a pot with a cut up onion, 2 bullion cubes and 4 cups of water. Added a bay leaf, a few cut up basil leaves,and a shake of thyme. Cook for 30-40 minutes. Remove bay leaf. Add greens (I used a few handfuls of frozen kale) and then I threw in some leftover rice. Cook 10 more minutes. (I'm not sure why all my posts are all one big paragraph.. that isn't how it looks when I type it out. Weird)