A New Year, 20 degrees and the sniffles...

The page has been turned and here we are...well hello 2012 and thanks for bringing this wonderful,  nagging sinus cold with you (can't you just sense my sincere sarcasm here)!  I think like many people I was so ready to leave 2011 behind and welcome 2012 with all the newness and promise that it held.  At the second annual New Year's Day "Waffle and Bacon Brunch", we had a meal heavy in the pork department because as we learned, it will signify a year ahead rich in happiness and hey if that's one more easy excuse to eat bacon then we were more then all for it.  Since I was all for any additional element that would bring us luck this year I also read somewhere about the Spanish tradition of eating 12 grapes on New Years where each grape signifies 1 month of the year and as silly as it sounds "if the grape is sweet then you'll have a good month".  So here we were on Sunday morning, eating our 12 grapes each off of the skewers and going through each grape and trying to predict how every month might turn out.  It was fun to recap the different events that we experienced in 2011 and what is ahead of us for the new year and this is going to sound so cheesy but it felt really nice to have this new tradition that I had created with my friends last year.  In the most perfect world, I probably would have wanted us all to go around the table and talk about our goals for the New Year but another bottle of champagne got opened and consumed and the goal talk will have to wait until another day or maybe when the birthdays are celebrated in a few weeks. 

So yes a very nice kickoff to the New Year and then reality set in.  Maybe we've become overly spoiled with good weather so far this winter but it just felt extra cold on Tuesday with the extreme drop in temperature.  Throw in the fact that everyone in my house has been battling the infamous winter cold and it hasn't made for a good week.  I was going to make chili for dinner that night but then with a little urging from my mother, I knew what we really needed to have...a big bowl of pasta ceci soup.    There is something oddly comforting about making soup, where not a whole lot of time and effort goes into the prep work and then letting the pot simmer away on the stove where every so often you get a whiff of this faint classic smell of what you have to look forward to that night.   The soup might not have kicked out our colds, and for that matter the cold pills aren't exactly working fast enough either but I think I convinced myself that it might just be the winter of the soup because it really was a perfect weeknight dinner.  And there is always next week to kick off the new year in the energy it calls for.

Pasta Ceci Soup (adapted from Chef Silvio)

In a large pot over medium heat, saute until tender (about 8-10 minutes):
-2 ribs of chopped up celery
-1 cup of halved grape tomatoes
-4 cloves of chopped garlic
-1/4 cup of chopped fresh parsley

Add about about a tablespoon of tomato paste (I'm a huge fan of tomato paste in a tube so I just usually give it a generous squirt) and season with salt and pepper.  Add in 1 can of drained and rinsed chickpeas and stir to combine. 

Add 1.5 - 2 quarts of chicken stock (I used some of my supply of frozen homemade stock from the fall but a good quality store bought stock will do the job as well) and stir to combine.  Check seasonings and once soup comes to a steady boil, turn it down and let simmer away for about an hour until the chickpeas are tender.   

Finish the soup off with 2 cups of cooked ditalini pasta (the small tube shapes) and a generous handful of grated cheese.