A week of soups

I ended up making soup three times in the last week and used a new recipe on the weekend that had HEAT (and flavor and deliciousness and health, etc.).  I tend to shy away from spicy meals so my little ones aren't excluded.  But I've been wanting to try this recipe for weeks and to have a thermos of spicy soup ready for apres-skiing, well, it couldn't be helped. I had Heidi Swanson's new cookbook, Super Natural Everyday, out of the library for a couple of weeks.  KCRW's Good Food had a best of 2011 cookbook list, as did TheKitchn and so about half of them went on my library's request list.  Truly, I am digging this book.  I made the millet muffins and added chunks of pear.  Those are gone, with only one dissenter in the family who wasn't into the millet's crunch.  (To each his own.) Cook This Now - I think there was one recipe in there that I earmarked.  The rest were using ingredients I don't have around and a style of cooking that I don't use.  Plus I didn't like the book construction, it didn't stay open very well and it's tall and narrow.  Definitely a no-no where I'm concerned. Super Natural Everyday - GORGEOUS photos and arrangement, square-ish size and not so massive that it closes shut.  Sure, I have to prop it open with something heavy, but I'm willing to overlook that since the first 2 recipes I've made out of it have been total winners that will have now been inducted into my recipe hall-of-fame. Home Made by Yvette van Boven - I am judging this book by its cover.  The homemade font scratched onto the tomatoes is so warm. Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi - I haven't received this yet from the library, but I am a sucker for eggplant and the cover photo looks delicious.  Again with the cover! There's another layer of best of cookbooks in 2011, but I need to eat my way through these ones first.  Delicious