Hunger Games: Potato Soup with Soda Bread

I told you this whole week was going to be Hunger Games, so I made a whole meal that I feel like reflects the series relatively well.

I was originally going to make this meal during St. Patrick's Day week, but I decided to wait since I already had enough food to last a whole week. And when I thought about it, this meal is kind of rustic and reminds me of something you'd find in District 12. It seemed fitting to me, I mean, most of the districts are poor, and they made do with what they have. It isn't a fancy meal, or an expensive one, but it produces a lot of food. Also, just think of buying that big loaf of soda bread from the Mellark's bakery. It turns out a little crusty on the outside but really soft on the inside - delicious. And most of the ingredients in the soup are vegetables I would imagine you could get in the Hob if you swapped the rabbits you just killed for them.

First, the soup originally comes from MyRecipes.com. I added 1 can of vegetable stock to replace one of the cans of chicken stock and my soup turned out to be a brown color as opposed to the typical white colored potato soup, but I felt like that made it more rustic looking. And I would imagine in Panem vegetable stock would be easier to come by.

District 12 Potato Soup

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
• 3 leeks, sliced
• 3 large baking potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices
• 2 cans chicken broth
• 1 can vegetable broth
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• Optional Toppings: shredded Cheddar cheese, crumbled cooked bacon, chopped fresh chives
• Preparation
• 1. Melt butter in a large saucepan over low heat; stir in onion and leek. Cover and cook 20 minutes. Stir in potato; cover and cook 15 minutes. Stir in broth, salt, and pepper; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 30 minutes or until potato is tender. Remove from heat, and cool slightly.
  2. Process soup in batches in a blender until smooth, stopping to scrape down sides; return to saucepan, and cook over medium heat until thoroughly heated. Serve with desired toppings.
• 
  
  
  
  
  Now, for the soda bread. It is so delicious I can't even explain to you. It has this kind of sweet taste, and I'm thoroughly planning on dunking it into the soup. I can see Peeta now baking up something like this. The recipe originally came from AllRecipes.com.
  
  
  Mellark's Bakery Soda Bread
  
  
  Ingredients
  
  
  • 4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 4 tablespoons white sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup margarine, softened
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 cup butter, melted
  • 1/4 cup buttermilk
  
  
  Preparation
  
  
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease a large baking sheet.
  2. In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and margarine. Stir in 1 cup of buttermilk and egg. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead slightly. Form dough into a round and place on prepared baking sheet. In a small bowl, combine melted butter with 1/4 cup buttermilk; brush loaf with this mixture. Use a sharp knife to cut an 'X' into the top of the loaf.
  3. Bake in preheated oven for 45 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean, about 30 to 50 minutes. You may continue to brush the loaf with the butter mixture while it bakes.

  
  

  
  

  You could finish the entire meal off with sugar cookies from the Mellark bakery. Of course they say "The Hunger Games," "Team Katniss" and "Team Peeta." If you're from District 12 you have to show support for your tributes. They aren't decorated so that they look rustic, too. The recipe is the same one I used for the St. Paddy's cookies. Except I added a teaspoon of almond extract into these.

  
  

  • 

  • 
    

  • Does this all make me a huge dork? Yes, I believe it does.

Happy Hunger Games Week

I have to be careful on here because I've read all three books, I don't want to start giving things away. I just want to discuss for a minute the immense popularity of this series. It is starting to overcome Twilight (thank God) and it's bordering on Harry Potter proportions. But why has this trilogy gained such a massive following?

Part of it has to do with the enormous hype for the movie that comes out Friday. Seriously though. They have gone ALL OUT for this. China Glaze has a nail polish series representing the different Districts of Panem for one.

That made no sense for people that are unfamiliar with the plot line... OK, I'm going to summarize quickly while trying to not give anything away. Fair warning. Panem is what North America is called in the future. Instead of state, the country is divided into 12 districts that are just referred to by numbers. Each of those districts has their own special part to play for the country. One produces lumber, one grain, another livestock, etc, until we get to District 12 which produces coal. This is the district Katniss Everdeen, the heroine of the story comes from. So the Capitol (technically District 1, they're the ones that run EVERYTHING) has these games called the Hunger Games that has every district contribute a male and female between the ages of 12 and 18 to compete in a fight to the death. Basically. I guess I'll stop there. See, I didn't give anything away.

So, the nail polish colors represent every district of Panem. I personally own three of them (Harvest Moon-9, Stone Cold-2 and Riveting-5.) It's genius marketing. It plays to the die hard fans that have read the books and to those that are just pumped from the insanely intense previews. Observe:



Do you get chills? I get chills. Jennifer Lawrence is Katniss and she was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in Winter's Bone. And although this seems like just another series let's think about the concept for a second. Everyone wants to go to Hogwarts. Even when Voldemort and the Deatheaters are going Nazi on the whole wizarding world, I'd still totally want to go there. I'm sure tons of girls out there want an Edward Cullen to come along and be old-timey and chivalrous (I read the books, I know, I know, and now I see the error of my ways. There's so much wrong with Twilight I could make another post, but I'm not going to give it the satisfaction.) But would you really want to live in Panem knowing that between the ages of 12 and 18 you might be chosen to be killed in front of the entire country? Their technology is incredibly advanced, and they are able to treat so many ailments and injuries. They even have the ability to custom make animals and to mutate them. But all of this is really only available to the Capitol, everyone else is super poor. It seems like the other districts have actually gone back in time almost.

What does this say about this futuristic look at our country? Or even the world in general? It's grim for a young adult book. There's a lot of carnage and bloodshed, political themes and a struggle between what is right and survival. Read the other three, it doesn't get easier throughout them. So, if we don't want to be in that world or that situation, why do we love it so much? It's possibly because we'd want to be strong enough to potentially die for our sister in the same situation. We want to love someone so much we would do anything to keep them alive. Or because it's a cynical look at the world. The heroes are trying to overcome what was thrown at them. They are stuck in a no-win situation, and they have flaws. It makes things more interesting and relatable.

There's a Tumblr completely dedicated to the fashion of the Capitol. Because they control everything they are the only ones that have really nice things and they live in excess. While other districts are suffering and dieing they are having strange beautification procedures done on themselves. And when I say strange, I mean strange. Sometimes they have their skin died a different color. The Capitol Couture, as it's called, is dead serious too. They have contests to get fans excited, they have advice on Capitol couture, what to wear and such based off of the characters. And it really does almost make you want to live there, as disgusting as that is, and when you read or see it, you will know exactly how terrible that is.

But there are Facebook groups representing every district. You can go on Thecapitol.pn and get registered as a citizen of Panem. Have you noticed how the website and Tumblr both have .pn in their web addresses? Get it? PaNem? I think that's neat. See, they made it really realistic.

Do you know why the country is called Panem? It's from the latin phrase "panem et circensis" which means "bread and circuses." The world Panem is all about giving those living in the Captiol everything they want, and then a show (circus.) It's like in ancient Rome. To keep the people from revolting all you needed to give them was food and a good gladiatorial match to the death. In this same way the Capitol is trying to keep the people from revolting. Although, the Hunger Games are really to show the Capitol's dominance over the other districts.

Anyway, may the odds be ever in your favor.

I'll be back with more Hunger Games blogs this week.

2012 thus far

So, it's not that I haven't been wanting to blog, I've just been too lazy to blog. So, I figured I'd take this time to 1) start blogging again and 2) talk about all the things I've been doing in the new year that take up my time other than writing my thoughts.

These are things I recommend you do as well because...well...they're entertaining or good for you. Just consider it, k?

1) Pinterest - That's a surprise, right? I know I get all of my recipes and crafts from Pinterest already. But it's just so addicting and makes me actually want to craft or work out or, you know, decorate my apartment better.

2) Cooking - After my few decorating disasters where I almost set my kitchen on fire, I decided that the things I'm good at making go in the oven. I'm talking casseroles and such things. Anyway, the stuff I've been making has actually been really good recently. Before I'd get bland things, or slightly not cooked all the way rice in one instance. And, thanks to my friend Joe, I've actually started making full meals (entree and side dish.) If you don't know how to cook, try learning sometime, it makes you feel really accomplished and is pretty relaxing.

3) Working out - I had really lazy about working out for a while, but recently I've been trying to get back into it. I try to at least do something four times a week and now I even have an idea for things to do after work during the week. They're circuits, and yes I found them on Pinterest, but when I was training for soccer in high school we'd do similar things, but we called them plyometrics. These include sets of squats, lunges, jumping jacks, push ups, crunches and so on.

Here's an example, I did this one today:

You will be sore, but after a while it should really tone you up.

4) Reading - I'm on the third book of The Hunger Games series and I'm not going to lie to you, I love them. I've been recommending them to everyone recently. One of my friends made a good point, though, that I'm pretty embarrassed about, I also recommend Twilight when I first read them. I was in high school, don't judge me! It was a phase! These are actually really good, I haven't finished them, but I'm expecting good things from the ending.

5) See movies - I saw three this weekend. And I realize how expensive this is, but I wanted to see them, and I get great joy out of seeing movies. It makes me forget about everything I'm worried about. I saw My Week With Marilyn, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and The Iron Lady. I'm going to say My Week With Marilyn was by far the best movie of the three. Meryl Streep was brilliant in The Iron Lady and it was a very impressive film as well, just a little too historical and real-life for me to see multiple times. But Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close was just so hard to watch. It was emotionally draining and frustrating and tragic all in one.

2012 has been going well so far, let's just hope it keeps getting better and better.