This weekend, I am planning to resume the tradition of preparing dinner one night a week. Currently, we are in the middle of the Roman Catholic Lent season, which means my parents observe the practice of not consuming meat on Fridays.

So, my choices were a little slim. At first, I thought to myself, “Well, I can just make a vegetarian dish from one of the blogs.” But then I remembered that I skipped making Ina recipes last weekend. So, I forced myself to find a recipe that would work. But let’s face it, while I love Ina, she doesn’t exactly abide by the vegetarian lifestyle. So, my pickings were slim. It was basically soups or some large portion vegetable dishes like spanakopita.

However, things like spinach in puff pastry doesn’t have all that much nutritional value for a major meal at the end of the day. So, soup it is. And of course, I’ll be omitting all animal products. I’ll be subbing vegetable stock for chicken stock.

I decided to make a soup that features winter vegetables. After all, spring is just around the corner! And soon we will be saying “bye bye” to squashes and potatoes in favor of other vegetables like fresh, garden-grown peppers, tomatoes, and string beans. So, I’m going to take advantage of root vegetables while I still can!

Dinner Friday will be Provencal Vegetable Soup with Pistou. This recipe, if you couldn’t tell by the name, appears in Barefoot in Paris, which is still my favorite Ina cookbook. You can read the review of it here.

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This weekend is also my father’s birthday. So I will be making him a cake. Though the cake will not be an Ina recipe, I will still make a blog post about it. I may cook an additional Ina recipe over the next few days. Maybe I’ll finally attempt one of her appetizers!

Until next time…