a tale of three cooking projects + job update

First, when I got home from the State Fair on Monday night, I was feeling more than a little icky from the junk I had eaten at the fair, so I decided to make something simple and healthy for supper. I had half a can of diced tomatoes in liquid left from a recipe earlier that week, and I had been wanting to make them into soup of some kind! I just sort of started throwing leftovers in the pot, and here's what I came up with:

I did a naughty thing with this soup -- I BOILED it for ten minutes to cook the macaroni! And what happened? The white beans I had added completely fell apart and turned into this lovely, thick, almost-creamy broth. Yum. I love happy accidents.

Next, I made "Fig and Almond Bars" from Cooking Light yesterday. Except that I didn't have any figs. Or almonds. In fact, out of the 11 ingredients in the original recipe, only 4 of them made it into my revised version -- "Apricot Coconut Blondies."

I used commercial egg replacer, which I think was my first mistake. Bah! They are flat and too sticky and kind of oily, because I used margarine, which has a higher fat content than butter, which the recipe originally called for. Changes for next time: less margarine, a bit more flour, use something else for the egg (maybe tofu?), and increase the baking powder by 50%.

Last, I made a loaf of bread from "The Enchanted Broccoli Forest" last night. I followed this recipe/method pretty closely, except I used margarine instead of butter, and used all whole-wheat bread flour. It is definitely the most tender homemade bread I've ever made, but almost to a fault -- it reminds me more of a biscuit than a loaf of bread. I will definitely cut back on the marg next time.The 20 minutes of kneading got very tiring, but I was able to achieve halfway decent gluten development . . . but I should have kneaded for a little longer. (Sunflower seeds were popping out everywhere, though, so I was getting a little frustrated.) I also didn't let it rise enough during the final rise, methinks, but I was just so stinking tired at that point, I chucked it in the oven after 40 minutes.
Regardless, it made pretty good toast this morning. Sunflower Millet Bread:

P.S. My first time working with millet, too!

Still no job (or interviews for that matter,) but I did receive one rejection email yesterday just two lousy hours after I sent in my letter of interest and resume. Well phooey on them! Anyhow, I found the most interesting job opening yesterday, which I immediately applied for . . . my co-op is looking for a baker! It would be a huge paycut, and probably funny hours, but I applied for it anyway, even though I have zero professional baking experience. Here's hopin'!