DH misses the green pea soup that Campbell's used to make(he doesn't like split-pea). It's been years since I've been able to find any. I wonder if you could use frozen peas in this? I'm not a fan of canned peas, but I like fresh and frozen. Canned peas would make me gag when I was a child and when the school had them in their hot lunch, I would drink my carton of milk quickly so I could hide my peas in the empty carton, as the teacher wouldn't let me take my tray back until I ate my peas.

Gorgeous bagels Shaun! I'll take a poppy please. We like the no-knead dough for pizza, the Cook's Illustrated recipe 3 Cups AP flour 1 2/3 cups water, room temp 1 1/4 tsp salt 1 1/2 tsp instant yeast (I used my bread machine yeast and it was fine) 1 1/4 tsp sugar (I used agave nectar) 5 Tbs EVOO Mix flour, water & Salt in mixer fitted with a dough hook for a few minutes on low, just to combine everything. Let dough rest 20 min. Sprinkle yeast and sugar over dough. Mix on low speed, just to incorporate all the ingredients, scrape the bottom. Increase mixer to high for about 5 - 10 minutes (I only needed 5) until dough is smooth and glossy and pulls away from sides. Coat a large bowl with olive oil, transfer dough to bowl, turn dough over in bowl so it's coated, cover with plastic wrap and let it rise at room temp for 2 - 2.5 hours. You'll see large bubbles and it will have tripled in size. Before rising, I put mine in the refrigerator wrapped, then pulled it out about 4 hours before I needed it to let it come to room temp and rise all the way. Put a pizza stone in oven and preheat to 450. Let the over rest at 450 for a while, so the stone gets good and hot. Rim a baking sheet with oil and turn dough out onto the sheet, stretching it with your fingertips. If it shrinks back a lot, let the dough rest for a few minutes and stretch it again. Let the dough rest in the pan until a little bubbly, maybe 10 minutes. Poke the surface with a fork all over, sprinkle with salt and bake until golden brown, 20 to 30 minutes. Pull it out and top it with whatever makes you happy and put it back in the oven for a few minutes. Often though, I'll make a batch of half whole wheat half bread flour pizza dough in the bread machine. It's so quick and easy, less than 5 minutes to load the machine and then I stick a couple bags in the refrigerator for whenever we're going to have pizza that week. That pizza looks yummy Ann. I also love mushrooms and black olives. Unfortunately, I'm the only one here that feels that way. AM

Our New Years' Eve party is always a game night. The main group of contestants, our anointed Scrabble Masters, battle it out around the dining table, thrusting and parrying with their Official Dictionaries. The local Monopolists exploit each other at the living room game table. Sorry boys, but only one of you will end up as the 1%. The chatterers and gigglers gather around the fireplace and the sideboard-turned-bar. A hard core of our older guy friends loiter in my kitchen, drinking scotch and sampling the production of noshes and nibbles. Our Quality Assurance team, I suppose. People start arriving around 7 pm. At midnight there are poppers and honkers, party hats and industrial-size sparklers. We play "Auld Lang Syne" (Jimi Hendrix, Fillmore East 1970) extra loud. Injuries are tended to (those sparklers looked like welding torches), the hardest-core gamers get back to their tables, coffee is served. The last guest typically leaves around 2 am. We try to keep people supplied with food this whole time, lest they revolt and burn down our house with a sparkler. What to serve for this situation? There are usually a couple trays of SWMBO's holiday almond roca and peanut brittle. As it is in part a neighborhood gathering, several dishes always get walked over, this year some yummy bacon cheese wraps and deviled eggs. I made some BBQ buffalo wings. SWMBO made an artichoke dip and her gorgonzola garlic cheesecake. All fine and well, but after sitting out for three hours, those initial dishes aren't so appetizing. Let's not even mention what ceviche looks like after a couple hours on display. That need for continuing food is where the pizza worked nicely. All the real pizza work was done ahead. The dough, the sauce, the slicing and dicing and mincing and sprinkling. When guests started arriving, the oven was pre-heated. About an hour into the evening, I finished off my second Caipirinha and started making mini-pizzas. It was a leisurely process. Stretch out a small rectangular crust, top, slide into oven. Wander around, kibitz at the game tables, refresh my drink, cut and serve the pizza, make another pizza, repeat. My first-effort pizzas were nothing to write home about. But they were eaten all the same. We had pepperoni and mushroom pizza, olives and onion pizza, clams and olives pizza, crabmeat and scallops pizza, and for Miss Vegetarian, who wasn't wearing a turban tonight, roast brussels sprouts and egg white pizza. I ended up not making a bunch of other stuff. About halfway through the afternoon prep, the weight of three weeks' non-stop house guests, too many holiday dinner parties, too much in-law time, and work that never let up until the last couple days of the year - it all came down. I suddenly got really tired, slumping tired, aching feet tired. So all the fun and frivolous dishes got thrown overboard. I have a refrigerator full of those fixins' that I've got to repurpose over the next few days. (What to do with a dozen oysters, a dozen frozen egg yolks, chicken strips marinated in sugar, etc?) I did have fun during the party, but it was also a little bit about survival. I drank a quart of water for every cocktail. Ate mostly microwaved egg whites. Snuck upstairs for a couple of 5 minute lay downs. And now it is the New Year. I don't have a crystal ball, but I know one thing about the coming year. There's not going to be any damned dinner parties or house guests for at least a month!

Thank you Katkin, I'm always doing research for my own health and I like to share what I find. Silvia, maybe if I spent more time in the garden and less time doing research I'd have more to eat LOL. Thanx Carmen