Listblogging 2007, #1 (Updated with soup!) April 29, 2007
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Cooking, Life, Tales of Online Dating.trackback
I haven’t written a listblog in many many months – perhaps not since 2005, though I haven’t the time to re-read my blog to confirm this. Since I can’t organize my thoughts into a post, I’ll just list ‘em out.
Question of the day:
- I happened upon the MySpace profile of a guy I’d e-mailed with back a few months ago Match.com, but we lost touch when my membership expired. He’s friends with a woman I see at the Cigar Bar a lot, who recently added me as one of her friends. To message or not to message? That is the question.
Cheesy Song I’ve Been Dancing Around My Apartment To Whilst Wearing Fuzzy Slippers
- “I Don’t Like Your Girlfriend” by Avril Lavigne – Because I am damn precious. Also, I can do it better, natch.
Other Songs:
- “Beautiful Disaster” by Jon McLaughlin
- “Never Again” by Kelly Clarkson
- “Tell Me Bout It” by Joss Stone
Goals for the week:
- To the gym thrice
- Find a cute hairstyle, as long mane needs a trim
- Cook chicken tortilla soup
Update: By popular demand, a soup discussion.
I was thinking of trying this Rachael Ray recipe for Chicken Tortilla Soup, despite its terrible cheesy name: Why-the-Chicken-Crossed-the-Road Santa Fe-Tastic Tortilla Soup. (And the terrible picture online. I saw Rach make it – yes, I call her Rach, we’re tight – on her show and it looked really good.)
I was thinking of doing some substituting and changing because Rach is all about “learning the method.” And I think the “method” here is cooking your veggie base, pouring things into a pot and garnishing – and yes, I know how to do all of those things already.
For starters, I’m not going to roast my own red peppers or corn since I don’t have a grill handy. However, I think that my neighborhood Fancy Organic Mega Mart probably sells roasted corn or roasted corn salsa that I could substitute. (And I know that they sell roasted red peppers, both in the jar and on the olive bar.) I’m also going to up the garlic. Three cloves in an entire pot of soup? I need at least five or six.
I’d probably sub veggie stock/broth for chicken because I’m used to cooking with veggie stock. (I was veggie for years.) Also, I will nix the poultry seasoning and go with just freshly ground pepper, a cajun seasoning called Tony Chachere’s and smoked paprika to season the chicken.
I’m also not a huge fan of the zucchini here. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE zucchini, I just don’t always like it in my Mexican-style food. I want it to be crisp and I feel like this would make it too soft.
Also, since it is soup, I’m tempted to start with “the Trinity” (for the uninitiated, that’s finely diced celery, onion and bell pepper) because I can honestly tell you that I’ve never made a non-cream based soup that doesn’t start with a fine chop of celery, onion and bell pepper. I figure, why start now?
And, oh yeah, I was thinking that at the end, I’d add a can of black beans, drained and rinsed, because if there is one thing I know for sure, it is that anything plus black beans equals something better. And I’d serve with fresh lime slices as a nice garnish and cilantro only, because cilantro is superior to flat leaf parsley for anything Tex-Mex.
And I wouldn’t mix the tortilla chips in with the soup because they’d get soggy and I live alone and so I have to eat a lot of leftovers and the thought of soggy chips in leftover soup makes me want to throw up. Also, avocado? I’d probably put one on top of each bowl because I love them so.
See why I don’t have a cooking blog? Is there anything left to her recipe except for the canned tomatoes and cheese?
It sounds like a charmed life indeed. My goals for the week:
1.) Heal the sick, w/o blowing anything (more) up. And without catching anything myself.
2.) Write a memo relating the overly complicated legal advice I was trained on during the weekend.
3.) Start the Revolution. It needs more volunteers.
4.) Write an assessment for publication.
5.) Help decorate the new offices. We’ve got most of the art, it just needs to be hung.
6.) Forage for dinners for the week. This means BBQ for Monday.
That’s just the highlights too. Cheers & Good Luck! ‘VJ’
Jon McLaughlin is a very beautiful and very talented man. Nice choice. Go see him live if you haven’t
Oh if you have a good recipe for Chicken tortilla soup could you email it or share it? I’m always looking for good recipes.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who automatically assumes things like that. All the chocolate gone? OHMYGOD! Someone broke into my house and ate all the chocolate! What heinous crime this is! Oh… oh yeah, that was me.
i’ve got a GREAT recipe for chicken tortilla soup – i can post if you’d like. it’s easy and tastes like it’s been cooking all day.
I’d send the guy a quick message – why not? What’s to lose? Have a great week!
Please bring on all of the chicken tortilla soup recipes you have!! That sounds delicious.
(I love that it’s a food question that finally got me to delurk and leave a comment. But seriously, love the blog and it’s like I’m reading about my own life.)
(On the soup update) … Nothing wrong with making a recipe your own… besides it sounds delicious. I think I’ll take a crack at your Charming Torilla recipe myself. I’ll let you know how it turns out..
Tony Chachere’s = love, also five billion times better than poultry seasoning any day. Sigh. I still remember my first can purchased in a dusty small-town Louisiana hardware store (it was next to their cookout supplies which, this being Louisiana, included large propane rings and special pots for boiling crawfish).
Speaking of which, are you or your family from that area? Cuz The Trinity in most of the cooking world means carrots, onions & celergy – it’s only in Creole cooking that the carrots get ditched for bell pepper.
If you have a gas stove, you can roast peppers on the top. Do it like you’d do to make a nice burnt marshmallow. Put it in a paper bag to cool, then peel off the skin. Voilá! Also, you can roast the corn under the broiler–12 to 15 minutes, or until it’s bright yellow and starting to brown. Let that cool and slide a knife down the cob to de-cob it. I do this when I make a roasted corn and black bean salad with a jalapeño-lime vinaigrette and don’t have time/access to a grill. Fun times.
i found a great recipe for chicken tortilla soup at http://www.allrecipes.com
and they have alot of great recipes!
I’ve got that cheesy song in my head for some reason too! But I like your perspective… I can do it better – heck yea!
That damn girlfriend song. I can’t stop singing it. It’s embarassing. But then again, I am damn precious. I should sing it loudly. I can’t wait for the night I get drunk and sing it in front of people I ACTUALLY KNOW!
I think it’s strange that when you totally don’t care about finding a mate whatsoever…and you meet someone with whom you are completely yourself because you’re really not looking and don’t really care what they think about you….and they end up loving you just the way you actually are…and then… you end up falling for them …this is where I am in the story of love….
very strange.
Can’t stand that “Girlfriend” song, it’s irritating!
I’ve tried that Rachael Ray recipe (with a few adjustments), it’s not bad. I too completely ignored her step of putting the tortilla chips all in the soup, that’s just bizarre!