Tomato Soup!

The Tomato soup we make at home is SOOO GOOOD. Campbell's doesn't know what they're doing since they're not doing this. Eff a canned tomato soup with your grilled cheese. This one's all grown up!

I say "we", but I've never actually made this soup. Mike makes it always and it's SOOO GOOD.

Ingredients

• 1 (14-ounce) can chopped tomatoes
• 3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 stalk celery, diced
• 1 small carrot, diced
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
• 1/2 cup heavy cream, optional

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Strain the chopped canned tomatoes, reserving the juices, and spread onto a baking sheet, season with salt and pepper, to taste, drizzle with 1/4 cup of the olive oil and roast until caramelized, about 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a saucepan, heat remaining olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the celery, carrot, onion and garlic, cook until softened, about 10 minutes. Add the roasted chopped canned tomatoes, reserved tomato juices, chicken broth, bay leaf and butter. Simmer until vegetables are very tender, about 15 to 20 minutes. Add basil and cream, if using. Puree with a hand held immersion blender until smooth.

Here's the link to the Food Network recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/michael-chiarello/homemade-tomato-soup-recipe/index.html


We do Tuna Melts for us, and side of Mac and Cheese... Hann gets grilled cheese. It's SO worth the effort of making the soup! (I say, as I'm sitting in midtown, no where near the stove or kitchen :) )

Black & Red Bean Soup!

I was looking for something for the cold winter day,  but something new that we haven't had lately! I'm going for this Black Bean Soup. 

We'll make our Mexican Rice to serve it over. Dinner tonight should be delish!

Might get some chicken to grill with it for the hubs. He's having serious meat-protein withdrawls.

Black & Red Bean Soup

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 tablespoons chili powder, or to taste (optional)
• 2 teaspoons maple syrup (optional)
• 1 teaspoon curry powder
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 2 (15 ounce) cans black beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 (15.5 ounce) cans canned red beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 (15 ounce) can whole kernel corn, with liquid
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can crushed tomatoes, with liquid

Directions

1. Heat oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion, celery, carrots and garlic; cook and stir for a few minutes to release the flavors. Season with maple syrup, cumin, chili powder, black pepper, and curry. Pour in the vegetable broth, black beans, 1 can of red beans, and corn. Bring to a boil. 
2. Meanwhile, combine the remaining can of red beans and crushed tomatoes in the container of a large food processor or blender. Process until smooth. Pour into the soup pot, and stir to blend. Reduce heat to medium, and simmer for 15 minutes.

Breakfast for Dinner, Mexi-style!

Mexican breakfast is one of our favorite things to eat at home. It's been said at our house that we could very much eat Mexican food everyday and that would be okay with us. We love it! And since I figured out hash browns, we skip the mexi rice and all is goooood.

Mexican Breakfast Burritos with Hash Browns:

Hash Brows:
Did you know they're EASY? The might be a little time consuming, and kinda a pain in the ass, but it's WORTH IT! Instructions:

Peel 4-5 small potatoes. Using a grater or your food processor, shred the potatoes. Transfer shreds to a wire colander until the water runs clear. Press the shreds until no more water squeezes out. Line a large mixing bowl with several layers of paper towels, and put the shreds into the bowl. Cover with more layers of paper towels, and press press press until you feel like you're not squeezing any more water out.

Those two steps (rinsing and removing all water) are important to make sure your browns turn out crispy! You want to remove as much water as humanly possible. The paper towels are the best way I've found, but I'm going to invest in a bigger wire colander like this:
http://www.crateandbarrel.com/kitchen-and-food/colanders/set-of-2-mesh-colanders/s364595
and that will probably eliminate the paper towels/bowl step.

Heat about 1/4" - 1/2" of oil of your choice in a large skillet over medium heat.

In your mixing bowl, add 1/4 cup flour, an egg and a diced onion, and mix well. you want the batter to cover everything evenly. When your oil is hot, drop dollops of the potato mixure into the oil. I divide the pan into quarters and do 4 at at time, as you want to be able to flip them over with a slotted spatula. You want 8-10 minutes on each side.

I put the finished browns on a cookie sheet topped with wire cooling rack and keep them in the oven on 250 or so.

Chorizo!

We do a pan with veggie chorizo, and one with real meat chorizo for myself and the man. It works the same either way.

For the veggie chorizo, heat about a teaspoon or so of oil so it fries a little bit. For the regular chorizo, put the links into a pan and heat on medium. You want to make sure both chorizos are fully cooked, but especially the meat one, as to avoid brain worms.

When they're cooked through, add the number of eggs of your choice, and mix until you have a fully cooked egg/chorizo (or soyrizo) mixture. If you want to, with the meat chorizo, you can drain some of the grease before you add your eggs, but I've always been a fan of keeping the grease to cook the eggs, as I'm disgusting.

Serve on warm tortillas. I like to put the hash browns inside the burrito too. It's delicious.

Now I have to try to find something to make for dinner tonight. I have no idea what but since it's so cold out, something hearty would be delicious...

FOOODS!

I'm horrible at this blogging stuff, and it's been almost a whole year since I've posted anything!

Maybe I can use this to display the tasty foods we make. Cuz we make some.

I just sent Scout a recipe we made last night so I thought I could post it here to share. And maybe be more proficient about posting.

Here ya go:


It's an amended recipe i found online:

Feta Spaghetti Squash Deliciousness

Ingredients:
1 Spaghetti Squash
2 tbsp. Olive Oil
1 Diced Onion
1 Clove Minced Garlic (or 1 tablespoon of the minced jarred stuff. That's what we used.)
1 1/2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes OR 1 pack of sun-dried tomatoes (I used sun dried cuz Hann hates Fresh tomatoes. She likes the sun-drieds though)
3/4 c. crumbled Feta (I just used the whole little plastic tub i bought. Cheesier = better)
3 tablespoons sliced black olives (Mine don't like olives so i substituted a can of artichoke hearts, sliced)
2 tablespoons fresh basil

Preheat oven to 350.
Wash the outside of the squash, dry, and cut in half, longways (This part is a pain in the assssss.)
Once in half, use a spoon to scoop out the fleshy seed part (like you do with a pumpkin before you carve it).
Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray, and put the squash, inside down, on the cookie sheet, and bake 45-60 minutes, until you can easily put a knife through the outside skin.

When it's done, remove from oven, and leave it sitting out to cool a bit so you can handle it.

While it's cooling, heat olive oil over medium heat. Saute the onions and garlic until the onions start to turn translucent, about 7-10 minutes (I tend to be scared to burn stuff, so I have the temperature a little lower than "medium". that means it takes longer. I'm no pro).
Then stir in tomatoes, olives/artichokes, and cook until the mixture is heated through (temp - medium/low).
Once you can handle the squash, use a spoon to scrape out the insides, and add it to your pan with the other ingredients and mix through. Then add in the feta and Fresh Basil and serve warm.

Blagh Blagh Blagh

OMG it's been a month today since I've posted anything. And much stuff has happened since then. December kinda flew by. But in that month, I managed to go dress shopping, find a dress, and order it! I've also determined the bridesmaids dresses, and I'm just waiting for the shop to get it in so I can take the girls to try it on. It's super cute and they're all happy with the selection, so that's awesome. Going with a black dress. I thought about doing red, but black's so classy. and we'll bring the red in with the flowers and shoes! I think I've found the shoes I want for everyone to wear too. They're kinda vintagey, but I'm scared they'll actually look too "Costumey" in person. I'm thinking about ordering a pair for me and then deciding from there.

Christmas break was nuts. We did the usual with the family here in Marietta, and then on the 26th we rushed up to Nashville, because Mike's mom was in the hospital. She was having horrible stomach pains and wasn't able to keep anything down for 2 days, and her belly swelled up like she was 8 months pregnant. Fortunately, after a stay in the hospital, she began to do better and was released home. However, since we've been home, she's been getting worse again, so we're not really sure what's up there. They were never really able to identify what was wrong other than an infection in  her abdomen, but they had told her that if they treatment they were prescribing didn't end up working, they'd have to do exploratory surgery to figure out what was going on. We're nervous that might be the next step, but are waiting to hear back from her about what the doctor said.

Work's been work, as usual, but I started back at the gym this week, and that has definitely made the week go by faster. I rode the recumbent bike for 35 minutes on Monday, and did yoga yesterday and today. Yoga's okay, for exercise. It's not as boring as the dumb machines, that's for sure, so that's a bonus to me. I'm still so SORE though. Yesterday evening my legs were killing me, and tonight's it's my upper body. I have been sleeping like a log though, and going to bed early, and still having a hard time waking up! It's been SO cold here, that I don't feel like getting out of my cozy bed.

Something weird I feel like I need to note: I always spell the word exercise wrong. I think I will until the day I die. Is it that I never learned how to spell it right? Why do I always put 2 c's, and both end up in the wrong places? Do I pronounce it wrong too? WTF? EXERCISE. It's not as if it's an uncommon word that's never spelled out. Gawd. I should make myself type it 100 times correctly and then I'll never get it wrong again. And the British spell it differently, I believe. That probably just adds to my confusion. Give me something to over-think, and I'll over-think it, that's for sure.

Okay enough of this for tonight, unless I think of something else of note. I want to do this more. Cuz 6 years from now we should be able to look back and "remember when...."

Nightmares

I had dreams last night that I had forgotten to do important things for the wedding, like go bridesmaid dress shopping, and left the wedding dress at home and had to wear a  bridesmaids dress instead. As if.

We're poor... for now. Trying to cut spending, and we've been doing a good  job. I shouldn't have bought new boots last weekend. Damn me. But other than that, rent's paid, bills are paid, and Hann has Xmess presents. So worse comes to worse, we'll be fine. And we can always get food from my rent's if need be. We're not quite there yet.

I want to put my bangs back and grow my hair out I think. I've been growing out my bangs for over a year, but I'm not digging my hair as much as I thought I would, and I really feel much cuter with bangs. What if I cut them  back and regret it though? The way I'm regretting cutting my hair off in September. Oh well. I called Mom to see if she'd ask Stacy to do it. I don't want to risk Great Clips again, and I'd rather not pay for a haircut considering the state of financial affairs. I'm sure she gets requests like that all the time though. I'd do it myself but I think I'm avoiding cutting my own hair (or letting Great Clips do it - as I'd argue who could do a better job) until after the nupts. after that - screw it.

Another week of work awaits. Only 13 days left til a WHOLE week off of work though. I'm going to try to sleep til noon as many times as possible :)

Gobble Gobble

Thanksgiving is done! And it was delicious! Mom did a stand up job, as always, and Mike and I were both fully food coma'd. He's on the phone now with LeAnne, who had a crazy experience at the cemetery today visiting Michael. I'm thankful it turned out okay.

I'm starting to think about registering and I'm getting bugged out over plates. I though for sure Crate and Barrel would have cute stuff, but I just looked online and honestly, nothing was really thrilling. I found these rad insulated glasses, but I don't think they'd last very long in our care. Then I found these cool Jason Miller plates that you can only find online, and are  $430 for 4 place settings. Ummmm, no.

I do think Mom makes a good point about people wanting the registry before Xmas so I might end up dragging Mike out before New Years. Also a plus, they'll be up for post Xmas clearance.... so that might be a good thing too.

I'm thinking of having a bbq/fire thing tomorrow in the back yard to see our friends we've not seen in a long time. I was hoping to go out tonight and go dancing but we're really trying to save money and the drive is SO far. Both of us were too full to think about 40 minutes in the car and drinking beers. Ahhhh the suburbs and their ability to suck out one's social life. Oh well. Unsocial life is very bueno too. I luv hanging out with my snuggle bunnies.

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