Fall Harvest Soup

Poor Mr.Surly, I haven’t made a full dinner in months. I'm not sure how much longer he can get by on my spartan dinners. I’ve been busy with hospital tests and doctor appointments and when I get home the last thing on my mind is food. All I want to do is to crawl onto the couch with my beloved heating pad and relax. Finally, all my medical appointments are winding down; my last 2 appointments are next week. By Wednesday I should know whether it’s a bad kidney or a bad pancreas that is causing my abdominal pain. Not sure at this point which option would be better. At least by knowing I can stop worrying about it and the doctors can start treating it properly. Then I can get back into cooking and baking. Sorry, about my medical rant; I'm just frustrated about it.

On a happier, seasonal note, I love the flavors of fall: pumpkin, apples, and especially acorn squash; warm, spiced comfort food. Lacking inspiration and feeling lazy, I decided to take some of my favorite fall foods and add them all together in a soup. It turned out creamy, dreamy, and delicious. Most importantly, for me, this was easy to make, yummy to eat, and caused minimal abdominal pain and bloating. Yay.

The soup is sweet from the apples and apple juice and gets a nice kick from the cayenne pepper. It is creamy enough that you don’t need to add the cream. I only added it because I need the extra fat and calories, since I'm still trying to gain weight.

It Does a GI Tract Good

I have been a terrible food blogger lately. I've relied heavily on the help of others for my posts because I haven't been well enough to make anything. I had a renal venogram last week that I'm still recovering from. I never thought putting a small catheter with a camera in my vein would hurt so much. I was unable to be completely sedated because I had to follow commands, such as: "breath in deeply", "hold your breath", and "is that where your pain is"? 'Lucky' me, I was the first patient at the hospital to have this procedure done; I was the first patient they have seen who actually has nutcracker syndrome. Needless to say, the doctors and surgeons were pretty excited to see me and my rare condition.

They snaked the catheter/camera up from my right femoral vein (in my groin) all the way up to my left renal vein. I could feel every where the doctor snaked that catheter. I even asked if it was supposed to be so painful. My nurses were wonderful, they felt bad for me so they were rubbing my head and giving me more pain meds every 5 min. Even though it was painful, I found it fascinating what modern medicine can do. Afterward my insides felt like spaghetti; like someone had taken a knife to my insides, just chopping and slicing away.

After all that, the doctor looked at my images and was unable to make a recommendation on what to do next because he has never seen nutcracker syndrome before. He is going to consult with other doctors before putting me through an invasive surgery involving making a new renal vein to bypass the compressed one.

Anyway, I'm sorry to go into all that, but I just wanted to let you all know I'm not (completely) lazy; I've been dealing with a lot of things. And the next two weeks will be filled with doctor appointments, questions, and decisions about a possible surgery. For this reason my cooking has dwindled down to almost nothing. Poor Mr.Surly has been reduced to eating canned soup and Lucky Charms.

Sorry about my little rant that has nothing to do with this delicious apple brandy, Calvados. I was introduced to it back in August while on vacation. We went out to eat at a wonderful French restaurant and I had forgotten my Creon pills. These are pills that contain 3 pancreatic enzymes to help me digest my food; I have to take them every time I eat anything. Well, I ate the meal anyway, knowing I was going to be in a lot of pain later.

We had after dinner drinks and I chose this apple brandy that sounded good. Little did I know how good it would turn out to be. First of all, it tastes phenomenal; great apple flavor. After my first sip, I felt the warm buring in my throat and all the way down my esophagus; relaxing everything. By the time I finished my brandy (just a few ounces) my entire GI tract was relaxed. I didn't even feel the ill effects I usually feel when eating without taking my enzyme pill. The Calvados had relaxed everything, dulling my pain.

Ever since we returned from vacation we've been looking for this brandy for me. I want to have it around in case I eat a meal that causes my abdominal pain. Mr.Surly finally found it for me. He also bought these brandy snifters/cognac glasses that are supposedly made for french brandy.

Now, I'm not a medical expert, so I don't know if this would help all people with abdominal issues (maybe it would exacerbate it in some). All I'm saying is that it works for me. And for you lucky people with no GI issues, it makes a wonderful after dinner drink.

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Spicy Hot Bloody Mary

While on vacation in August, for some reason, someone in Mr.Surly's family got a craving for a Bloody Mary. No one really knew how to make a bloody mary, so Mr.Surly's sister, an aspiring NYC bartender, took charge of the task. The result was delicious; so good, in fact, that once home Mr.Surly requested a bloody mary one Saturday afternoon. I had to text Surly-SIL (sister-in-law) for the recipe. She gave me the ingredient list but I had to play around with the ratio's to get it to Mr.Surly's liking (it took a couple of attempts).

Warning about these; they are hot and spicy. If that isn't your thing, just use regular V8 and maybe omit the creole seasonings.