Carrot Soup

Ginger and garlic make this a warm full bodied soup, one that is ideal in cold weather as lunch or as a first course for a main meal.

Ingredients

1 medium onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 1/4 lbs. raw carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 inches fresh ginger, crushed or grated.
1 teaspoon sea salt
ground black pepper, two grinds
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon raw rice
4 cups vegetable stock

Method

Warm the olive oil in a heavy-based pan over low heat. Add onion, garlic and ginger. Cook gently over low heat until onion appears transparent. Add carrots to the pan and continue cooking and stirring for a few minutes. Then add hot vegetable stock, nutmeg, sea salt, pepper and rice.

Cover and bring to the simmering point. Continue to simmer over the lowest possible heat for 30 minutes or until cooked.

Purée mixture with electric blender or rub through a fine sieve.

Garnish with fresh finely chopped parsley leaves. Serves four.

I use lots of garlic in mine. Literally 6 to 10 cloves. Trust me the fresh ginger can hold it’s own. You are not going be like..”gosh all I can taste is garlic.”  That is not going to happen.  So don’t be afraid to hit it hard if you like garlic in your soups and sauces.

ALSO, beware the wrath of your blender. DO NOT try to blend it all at one time in a 6 cup blender like you see above. I am just stubborn and lack patience. This method will likely have orange soup everywhere! I’m serious. You have to really know how much pressure the blender cap is gonna be under. It is more than you think. And remember the soup is burning hot. Two words…oven mitt…for sure. Attempt at your own risk and most likely with disastrous results. Plus, carrot stains.  Be careful! I’m probably going to get one of those fancy immersion blenders.

I usually divide the servings up into serving savers and freeze the extra for hot lunches.

Bacon Wrapped Chicken Stuffed with Cream Cheese and Jalapenos

 This is a delicious entree that is very hearty. It is simple to make as well. There are only five ingredients if you include the Tony Chachere’s you sprinkle over the top before you put it in the oven.

 

Recipe Ingredients

 All you need to get started is:

1. Package of boneless/skinless chicken breasts
2. Package of bacon
3. Jar of Jalapenos
4. Package of cream cheese

Fixing up the chicken is easy

Lay out the chicken breasts. For a more healthy portion I recommend using an electric knife and slicing the thick chicken breasts into two thinner pieces of breast each. This will also turn 3 servings into 6 more healthy servings. This is also a good idea if you are going to be serving a couple of additional side items or having salad (and/or dessert) with the meal.

 

Spread cream cheese on the chicken. I prefer to use diced jalapenos. That isn’t what I happened to have so I put the sliced jalapenos in a bowl and cut them up and then spooned them over the chicken. I think you get a better flavor using diced jalapenos and juice. Notice I don’t give exact measurements for the cream cheese and chicken. That’s because I didn’t get the recipe from anywhere. I just eyeball it. In fact, as you can see I hit it heavy because I don’t make it often and it is what I consider a delicious indulgence. You can go lighter and it will probably taste just as good and be twice as healthy. I know it will smell terrific.

Roll up the stuffed chicken and wrap it bacon

Roll up the stuffed chicken pieces. Use toothpicks to help hold it together as you find necessary. Wrap the delight in pieces of your favorite bacon. Sprinkle Tony Chachere’s on top. You can use ground pepper but Tony’s has the heat that complements the chicken without overpowering it with that black pepper flavor.  Bake in a 400 degree F oven for about 45 minutes to an hour. If you are doing a larger batch then bake for 1 hour to an hour and 15 minutes. Use your judgment. I just keep an eye on it.

Yummy!!

I wish you could scratch and sniff the monitor. Give this one a try. It’s very good!

Buddy’s First Christmas

 

Buddy - Christmas Eve 2008

Buddy’s next milestone will be his first birthday on April 7, 2009.

I Moved!

I made it to Louisiana last Sunday. It took me over a week to get settled in because my room wasn’t quite finished when I got here. I spent the first few days helping finish that. I primed and painted the walls and hung blinds. The rest has been getting the extra stuff I have in storage and unpacking. Buddy was a good boy on the long drive down. I gave him some medicine from the vet that helps with motion sickness so I think he may have been a little bit tired from that.

This Sunday I went to my friend Paula’s daughter’s cheer competition that was held at the River Center in downtown Baton Rouge. The team got first place in their level. We also went to lunch and did a little bit of sightseeing along the Mississippi Riverfront. I snapped some photos with my iPhone.

View of Mississippi River from Baton Rouge

Baton Rouge Shoreline

USS KIDD rests in a unique docking system designed for the near forty foot rise and fall of the river each season. Half of the year, she rides the currents of the Mississippi; the other half, she sits dry-docked in a cradle where visitors can see her full dimensions.

Buddy…The World’s Greatest Shorkie

My boo boo is growing up {tear}. What can you do? When we last visited the vet in July, he weighed 6 lbs. 4 oz. and I thought he was getting big then! He was only 3 lbs when I brought him home on May 31st. Now at 6 months old he is tipping the scales at a whopping 11lbs. and a 1/2 oz!

He has the tiniest button nose

For Those About To Rock

Who's The Fairest of Them All?

Toothy grin

 

His favorite thing is just to be by mom, even if it means assisting with a nap

Impromptu Road Trip

I had planned to do an iPhone Post but the WordPress app wouldn’t upload and now I can’t figure out how to delete the draft post. I took some pics with the iPhone camera but the WordPress app gave me an invalid image error when I tried to upload the post. So I don’t know. I am disappointed. What’s the point of the app if I can’t post on the go?

My friend Sue and I drove up to Grafton. Today was one of those days that was sunny, partly cloudy, dark, gray and rainy. Just depended what time it was and where you happened to be.

Halo effect produced using the Camerabag app for iPhone

The weather was fine when we got up to Grafton. This town lies on the river’s edge on a mountain side. Sue wanted to drive through some of the “neighborhoods.” I was a little relunctant. I told her I wasn’t really into the whole Deliverance experience. I said if it starts rockin’ the weird-shit-o-meter we are turnin’ around! Seriously though, it’s a gorgeous. The bluffs along the Mississippi are breathtaking. This area boasts some of the most spectacular views of the river valley.

We stopped for lunch but I won’t say where because it was awful and it tore up my stomach. Suffice it to say, I won’t be going back there. If for some reason I do (like I’m riding Sea-Doos on the river) I’ll make sure I only order one of the frozen appetizers that gets dropped into the fat fryer. Can’t really screw that up. We headed back down towards Alton and that’s when the weather turned stormy.

At first it was just a light sprinkling of rain

Roadside construction gets rained out

That turned into a pretty decent downpour. Apparently flooding this past spring/summer washed out parts of the road bed.

Gray day on the Mississippi

So we headed to Alton. About 8 or 9 years ago, we can’t even remember, Sue and I took a “haunted tour” of Alton and one of the stops was the McPike Mansion. We stopped by today and it looked exactly the same as I remembered it. Right down to the chairs out front.

McPike Mansion - Alton, IL

It was short a road trip. I wanted to get back to Buddy. He just had his neuter surgery on Tuesday so he is still recuperating. Doin’ good though. He is getting so big…11 lbs. and 1/2 oz.

Everybody Needs A Friend

Best Friends

Buddy (Shorkie Tzu) and Xena (German Shorthaired Pointer)

Finally….Baby Pictures!

It has taken me a while to get some pictures up of Buddy because he moves so fast. I can’t catch him with the digital camera. I picked up a cheapy 35mm disposbable and captured some cute moments. He’s pretty cute most of the time so it wasn’t too difficult.

He is almost 5 months old now so he is teething. I managed to rescue one baby molar. I think he must just eat them.

Since we live on the lake I got Buddy this spiffy lifejacket.

I thought it would be good to introduce him to the water. He did not think it was good.

He is usually a pretty good boy. Very well behaved. But sometimes when he wants to do something and I won’t let him, he gets frustrated. And he let’s me know.

My nephew Vincent really likes Buddy, except when he bites (chews) him and tries to hump him.  

All teething babies have to have their binky.

Some times he does things that are so charming. When he crawled in his bed and then peeked out at me I had to get a picture of that.

There have been times when I didn’t get that shot. For example, when I was cleaning the kitchen recently I didn’t realize I had left the bathroom door open. It was so quiet I thought to myself, “I wonder what my little boo boo is doing?” I turned around and the entire living room/dining room floor was COVERED with shredded toilet paper. I went in the bathroom and there was just an empty piece of cardboard on the roll.

I would have taken a picture but I was too busy bitching at the dog about how toilet paper costs money and he’s a bad boy. I know he didn’t understand but it made me feel better while I was cleaning it all up.

Things are going…so so

Buddy is getting big. He has doubled his weight since I brought him home on May 31st. The vet is pleased with his progress and he is very healthy. The teething is our only issue at this point. He is potty trained on the potty pads. What a relief!  In a month or so as he develops more bladder control I will move him to “going outside.”  

Work is going. I applied for an internal job and not only did they hire someone else, they didn’t even call me in for an interview. It has to be political because I am very qualified and skilled with an excellent work ethic. It just goes to show that it can be a negative if you are “too good.” I’m trying not to let it get me down. It’s not worth it.

Buddy Boy

GOSH! I can’t believe it has been three weeks since I have been able to get on the computer!  Having a baby really changes your life. It has been very rewarding though. Buddy is now sleeping through the night and not having ‘accidents’ in his kennel anymore. He is also going potty on the potty pad. This makes me so happy! We are halfway through our puppy training class and he is doing such a good job.

P.S. It’s my birthday! I’m 29 again for the eighth time!