Thursday, February 19, 2009

The Olive Garden

is not my favorite restaurant. Not even close. I don't even like it that much. But every once in a while, I get a hankering for soup, salad and breadsticks. I love those big olives.

And my husband? Oh, he's 1/8 Sicilian, which means he's an EXPERT on all things ITALIAN and will NOT DARKEN THEIR DOOR UPON PAIN OF DEATH.

So when we're going out for a quick lunch or supper, I can never, ever get him to agree to go there. Even though his 1/2 Sicilian grandmother loves their tiramisu. IT DOESN'T MATTER. He won't.

Sigh.

We had no leftovers yesterday. I had to eat a Weight Watchers frozen dinner for lunch. It was NOT good. Really. It had some weird bitter green things in it. I don't know what they were. I don't want to know. I ate 1 1/2 pieces of bread with some butter and a stick of CoJack cheese because I'm sorry 6 points is baloney. I need more food.

So!

I was hungry. And I wanted Olive Garden's soup. So I made it.

I used her recipe. It was mind-blowingly good. Really. REALLY REALLY.

And I had all the stuff in the house. And it cooks in the crock pot. I love my crock pot.

Rowan? She said, "Zoop! Zoop! Deee-wisha!"

Lucy drooled on the floor.

And when Dr. B got home, he ate 3 bowls.

Then I told him what kind of soup it was.

He ran into the other room yelling, "No! NO! NOOOO!!! It's Ronica soup! Ronica soup! RonicaRonicaRonica!!! Not freakin' Olive Garden! NOOOOOO!!! It's RONICA GARDEN!"

(Yes, he really said Ronica Garden.)

Though I admit it, it was better than Olive Garden. More chunks, less broth, more hearty. That whole unlimited thing sucks when it's 40% broth they give you--this one isn't like that. And it makes a LOT. It's actually less like Pasta E Fagioli and more like what would happen if Chili and Vegetable Beef soup had a baby. It would be this.

We had leftovers for lunch today. Rowan's face got all orange. I ate a huge bowl. YUM.

6 comments:

Mama Bear said...

Can't wait to try it, especially since it's a slow cooker meal. Those fit so much better in our schedule these days. Thanks for sharing.

Wendy said...

I traced back to the original version since I didn't have time to do the slow cooker thing and Marty LOVED it! Although, I made a half batch of the original and ended up with close to 5 quarts of soup. Hello freezer & foodsaver...

Mama Bear said...

Bought the ingredients to try out a vegetarian version on Ash Wednesday. Hopefully it will be just as good as the one you made!

Ronica said...

It should be, but add a few shakes of Worcestershire to make sure, maybe a splash of red wine. It'll help add depth. Wor. is made with anchovies, but that's OK during Lent. ;) And we all know that wine is fine!

Amy said...

Totally making this.

Anonymous said...

This was a hit last night with the picky husband. I loved it, too. I served it with warm garlic bread.

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