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Yesterday I woke up with a dilemma. I wanted to bake something but I wasn’t sure if I prefer sweet over savory. I got a new recipe for oatmeal cookies but… I kinda crave good fresh bread (all the time). Then I remembered that my oven is terribly dirty from the day before. My potatoes casserole (the only word I can describe that dish with) overflowed and made an awful mess inside the oven.

I turned on the self-cleaning mode which takes 4:30 hours. My dilemma found a natural solution. I couldn’t bake anything… and I knew that afternoon my energy level takes huge dive to the abyss but, it was still morning and I wanted to make something to eat for myself as my headache started to poking me a little. There was nothing special in the pantry or in the fridge that I wanted to eat… With this pregnancy, I am so picky with food it’s just crazy. I want very specific things and if they are not in the house I won’t eat anything else… It wasn’t that way with my first pregnancy.

One thing, though, has called me every single time I opened the fridge (and even when it was closed). Spinach! It was a few days old spinach as I bought it with the plan to make stuffed with spinach and mushroom crepes. Days went by and I actually lost my craving for those crapes and didn’t have any “B plan” for my spinach.

So yesterday, while the oven was getting clean I decided to make spinach soup. I looked for a good recipe on google and I found this one. It was really quick to make.

This recipe calls for fat-free everything…, but I do not have those things in my kitchen. I do not like to spend my money on something that looks like milk but taste like water….

For this soup, I used whole milk and regular vegetable broth. Instead of baby spinach, I used 1 bunch of not so fresh regular spinach, and I substituted the onion for a few green onions. That’s it! Super delicious and creamy spinach soup.

I garnished it with extra green onion and plain whole milk yogurt.

JUST DELICIOUS!

I ate two bowls… dreaming about having freshly baked bread with it…

…and my dream came true. After my oven was clean and ready to use I decided to make super easy french bread so I could enjoy my soup even more. Luckily I had some leftovers for the dinner for my husband to eat because after making that bread I was done for the day!

Just a few minutes and the dough was ready.

For the full recipe go here. It’s a great tutorial (video) how to make it.

For some healthy kick, I enriched the dough with fresh chopped basil and whole ground flaxseed meal (about 1/2 cup).

In the end, I forgot to brush it with egg white and cut the top before baking… It still came out great, though.

Today I used it to make bruschetta with cheddar cheese, tomatoes and green onion for my husband’s lunch. He LOVES IT! I didn’t have the time to take a picture of it… but I assure you it looked and tasted (in my husband’s opinion) great!

Ah… and my daughter loved that bread. Fresh and warm… She ate 3 slices 🙂

Now is my turn to have a bowl of my soup and a few slices of bread. It looks like tomorrow I’ll have to bake another loaf 😉

Have a great weekend!

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