Our Evolution of Soup

Stage One - "First Signs of Life", or "What's For Dinner" - 4 billion years ago.
The other night we were trying to figure out what to make for dinner. My wife decided to make soup, which was cool with me because she can make a mean bowl.

She grabbed the stew pot and started making vegetable soup. First up was to saute the onions and garlic. She added some fresh rosemary, and then she got the idea to try some pumpkin. I said it sounded like a good idea.

Stage Two - "The First Vertebrates Appear", or "From Vegetable to Gourd" - 505 million years ago.
After adding the pumpkin it was time to mix in the vegetable broth. Half of the broth came first and it was mixed in smoothly with the pumpkin, then the other half was mixed in.

Next the yams (or sweet potatoes) were mixed in.

Stage Three - "Along Came The Mammals", or "Back to the Drawing Board?" - 220 million years ago.
At this point my wife started to wonder... I want to add curry, but there's rosemary in there, do rosemary and curry work good together? This is also known as the "oh shit" moment. Off to the internet! After looking up some different recipes she was relieved to find that many had this combo. The internet is such a great tool for today's chefs! She asked if I was ok with curry, knowing that sometimes I'm not. Tonight I was fine with it though, onward with the soup!

Stage Four - "The Rise of the Primates", or "Stand and Deliver the Spices" - 75 million years ago.
Next up were all of the little things that make everything taste better: fresh ginger, paprika, chipotle powder, salt and pepper.
Then the rest of the veggies: frozen corn, frozen french cut green beans, and left over oven roasted red skin potatoes. I love it when leftovers can be made into or added to a new dish!

Stage Five - "Welcome Homo Sapiens", or "Come and Get It!" - 500 thousand years ago.
It was dinner time, we had our soup, with corn bread and butter on the side. The corn bread was from Trader Joe's, which has fast become one of our favorite store brands to buy.

After eating the soup I could taste the heat from the chipotle powder, but thought it needed a sweet flavor to compliment it. I asked my wife if maybe cinnamon or some nutmeg could be added to it to accomplish this. Right away my wife said she was going to add these but forgot.

Stage Six - "Current Day", or "May I Have Some More Please?"
Once we finished our first course she went out and added some fresh nutmeg & vietnamese cinnamon to the soup. What she brought back for a second round was exactly what I had imagined. Not to mention more corn bread with a little butter on top of it!

Excellent dinner my love!

My wife has said soup is the only thing she can make (invent) without a recipe, just by throwing things together. But I will try to give you the recipe, these are approximate measures:

1 Small Onion,
2 Cloves of Garlic,
1 Medium to Large Yam or Sweet Potato - pealed and cut into bite size cubes,
2 - 3 Cups of the Leftover Oven Roasted Red Skinned Potatoes,
1 Cup of Frozen Corn,
1 Cup of Frozen French Cut Green Beans,
1 Can of Canned Pumpkin,
6 Cups of Veggie Broth,
1 Teaspoon - 1 Tablespoon of Chopped Fresh Rosemary,
Curry, Chopped Fresh Ginger, Paprika, Vietnamese Cinnamon (regular cinnamon can be used, but this version has an excellent flavor - try to get some!), Chipotle Powder, Salt, Fresh Ground Pepper, Nutmeg - all to Taste.

Blackstone's Pub and Grill

For those of you who haven't been through Flint, Michigan recently, watch out! There are some folks here trying to revive it. The auto industry has left this area for the most part. When they left years ago, a lot of other businesses followed suit. Drive through downtown today and you'll see construction of lofts, old buildings getting a new face, and new restaurants opening their doors. One of those is Blackstone's Pub and Grill. An Irish pub with a loaded menu.
They have an outdoor patio that faces the street, which is where we started our dining on a Saturday afternoon. We were seated right away, and given menu's with waters following shortly after. The menu has lots of options - warning - most items had a name, which meant you had to read the description of each, and that took some time since we were first timers. Checking out the menu on-line before hand might help. Our waiter was quick at first but took some time getting back to us once we put the menus down.
I ordered a turkey vegetable soup for a starter. It was so good our son wanted to have as much of it as he could get.
Both of us ordered sandwiches. I ordered "Ridg's Way" a turkey sandwich, with irish bacon, avocado, swiss. My wife ordered "The Fisher" a beer battered, fish sandwich. Both with fries. Our son (2-years old) picked the mac and cheese.
The fish sandwich was very greasy, and bland. Not too sure about the "beer battered" claim. Even the tarter sauce didn't provide the spark it should have. The turkey sandwich on the other hand was very good! The mac and cheese was creamy and but bland. Bland for a kid's menu isn't always a bad thing. Most kids don't like foods that are heavy on herbs or spices. The main problem on this dish was that the noodles, a bow tie style, were about 2 inches long, by 1 inch wide. This would've been fine for our 10 year old, but for the younger one it means extra cutting and/or cleaning work for us parents. My wife thought the fries were good and perfectly seasoned. I though the fries were ok at best, needing salt and pepper after the first taste.
One of my favorite drinks is a "Poor Man's Black Velvet". It's half Guiness, half hard cider. It's like a Black and Tan, only tastier! As any good Irish pub should have, Guiness was on tap. But I was sad to not see a hard cider on tap also.
Other People's Tips: One friend went there for a midweek lunch. She said she had really bad service, and they were given the wrong plates and had to switch with each other. But still called it nice.
Our Tip: The atmosphere was great, and looks to be an inviting place. Even though some of our meal choices weren't winners, we both agreed that we would be willing to try it again. I'm a sucker for Shepherds Pie. Perhaps a visit for dinner will be our next trip here.