Summer Soup

A terrible picture of my scrumptious summer soup, but I had almost finished my second bowl before I remembered to snap a picture with my phone! I stole this idea from my Aunt when I tasted her soup yesterday after watching my cousin's lacrosse team slaughter a team 18-2. (I'm not sure if I could have played girls' lacrosse because I enjoyed hitting the boys way too much. I rather enjoyed wearing a helmet to protect my head while these girls only wear goggle thingies and a mouthguard. Yeah, no thanks. I guess the girls are supposed to play the game with finesse but I enjoy adequate padding for protection.)

  Anyways, I threw some ingredients together tonight for this zucchini soup and am very pleased with the result! However, I didn't measure anything, so you just have to throw it in and do everything to taste. I'm really excited because this is one of the first recipes I've really created basically by myself!

Summer Zucchini Soup

Ingredients:

2 Zucchini

Chicken stock

2 cans Tomato sauce

1/2 can of water (to rinse more of the tomato sauce in)

Onion

Elbow Macaroni

Salt

Pepper

Garlic powder

Chili powder

Basil, dried

Instructions:

Chop onion and zucchini into very small pieces and brown onion in a large stock pan. Add chicken stock slowly to help onion become translucent. Stir and add more chicken stock to float the onions. Add in all of the zucchini and add some more chicken stock (I think I ended up using probably an entire carton of chicken stock). Add in 2 cans of tomato sauce and 1/2 cup of water using tomato sauce can to measure. 

Bring the soup to a boil and add in all of the spices to taste. Turn the soup down to a simmer and cover until the zucchini are soft or to your liking of crunchy vs. soft. 

Cook the macaroni as instructed and once al dente, add to the bottom of a bowl and ladle the soup on top for a light summery meal! I ate it with a salad and it would have been even better had I made some of my bread!

P.S. A better picture for you, Pat.

He gets me every time

I always have to take a picture when I see the dog relaxing on his back. I'm sorry but it just cracks me up. He I snoring right now as I'm sitting at my computer catching up on my blogs. I love it.

Catch Up

  I have no excuse for not blogging, but I've been feeling rather uninspired recently. I have been reading all of my materials for work and that has kept me busy. I'm waiting for this line of storms to hit and am nervous about all of the pine trees in my yard. I really hope they don't fall! EEK!
  On Friday, I went to see my cousin play soccer and got to spend some time with my aunt, uncle, and saw my other cousin for a second. Even though his team lost, I was excited to finally see him play since he is a senior in high school (ah, I can't believe it!). He just decided on the college he will attend in the fall and I really cannot believe he is that old because I always remember him as a little baby! Weird! We had a good time and my aunt made us a killer salad when we got home. I'm hoping to catch one of my other cousin's lacrosse games soon!
  Saturday afternoon, I accompanied Patrick to watch the 8-10 year olds whom Patrick coaches. The sun was out, but it was very windy and I now have a little redneck from it! Whoops! His team unfortunately lost and I hope that all of the kids actually will show up for the game because he said there are a couple of boys who know a little bit about soccer. We shall see.
  Saturday night, we hung out with some of our friends and watched the semi-finals. I didn't do a bracket this year, so I really have no interest in any of the teams. I did like that Butler won. I really have no idea why, but maybe they will be strong enough to beat UConn.
  Patrick and I then took Wrigley out to Piedmont Park for the dog park where I thought he would be really excited to play with the other dogs, but he didn't really seem too interested. This is the second time we've taken him down to the park and the last time he was just a puppy and we kept him in the small dog area but we put him in the large dog area this time. He had his hackles up for the first five minutes and then just moseyed along. He walked around with a few of the dogs, but really would have rather had all of the people pet him than play with their dogs. Still, once we got home, he passed out, so he must have had a little exercise.
  Agility on Thursday night was pretty fun. There is one other corgi in the class but she is about a quarter of Wrigley's size. It seems like it will be a good class and I'm excited to see what Wrigs will learn over the next several times. This week, we have to teach our dogs a new trick to perform at this week's class and I'm trying to teach Wrigley how to crawl. He is able to do it for the most part, but he doesn't go very far. I'll try to get a video of it and post it here.
  Today, I went over to one of my neighbor's house and we sat on her back porch and let our dogs run around the yard. Her dog is a little black toy poodle and Wrigley just loves him. He ended up having so much fun that I had to carry him back home for a bit because he wanted to lay down in the middle of the road. I guess these last two weeks that I haven't been able to walk him have really deconditioned him. (Oh yeah, I ended up spraining my ankle after I finally went to the doctor two weeks after my original injury, but should still be able to run the Peachtree and my uncle wants me to run a half down at the beach around Thanksgiving. We shall see. I'm supposed to wear this brace and take a couple of pills until I can gradually increase my running. UGH. I guess I'm glad that I finally went to the doctor, even though I felt like my nursing skills came in handy as I was correct in my diagnosis.)
  Alright, off to hunker down tonight as this crazy weather sweeps into the city!