Soup for the Sickies

WORKOUT -

(Friday)

Ran outside in the Oregon rain one last time -

7.5 miles/64 mins

(Saturday)

Rest, sick, implanted into couch all day

(Today)

Ran outside very easy -

7.25 miles/65 mins

We got home from Oregon the other night and I was all sorts of fiesty, modeling my new silk pajamas.

I received 2 pairs at Christmas from my mom and my SIL N and I LOVE THEM – they’re so soft and comfortable and grandma-ish.  My brother said all I need is a smoking jacket and Hugh Hefner to complete the look.

Anyways, fantastic modeling aside, I woke up yesterday feeling like crap.  I mentioned it on Facebook, but I caught the cold/flu that my husband has.  sickface to the maximum.

I think it’s a cold with a 12 hour flu because I had body aches, freezing/dying of heat thing, no appetite, general misery yesterday, but I woke up feeling a lot better today.

I still have a cough, but otherwise I feel relatively decent.  I went on an very easy run, went to church and then did the unthinkable: I cooked.  Bravery has a name and it’s SR.

My husband’s favorite soup is Olive Garden’s Pasta e Fagioli which explains why after I was gone for 10 days, I returned to find an enormous collection of Olive Garden salad dressing and crouton packets in the fridge.

I found a copycat recipe online from Top Secret Recipes that is supposedly the best and closest to Olive Garden.  (If you Google, you can find a ton of similar recipes.)

{All the ingredients but half that much burger}

Just kidding, there aren’t pickles in the recipe.  I just put those in the picture because I wanted to eat some.

The recipe calls for oregano, basil and some other spices that I already forgot about.  You can buy them ground (more $$), but I bought leaves (less $$).  Then, if you grind them up in your little mortar and pestle, you will feel super fancy and gourmet and then you’ll end up calling Williams & Sonoma to brag.  I know I sure did.

{Looks disgusting but I’m gonna go ahead and say that’s the photographer’s fault.}

You’re supposed to use ditali pasta, but once again, I didn’t know what the heck that was so I did a Google image search and it looks similar to salad macaroni.  good enough for me. 

By the way, did anyone have a fruit/cool whip/macaroni pasta salad as a child or did I just make that up?  I sorta remember some weird pasta salad that was sweet?!

It took an hour to simmer, but it wasn’t hard to make at all. 

As I was eating it, I was trying to think if it tasted exactly like Olive Garden and I realized – I’ve never had their Fagioli soup!  I always order the minestrone.  err duh.

The sick hus is still in bed and hasn’t eaten today so I hope when he tries it, he’ll love it so much he’ll think he’s at the restaurant.

Tagged as: down with the sickness, recipes