Let them eat soup!

We have been eating a lot of soup the last few months. Soup is delicious! I suppose I have always thought so, but I feel like I have rediscovered my appreciation for it lately. It's hot and it doesn't require a lot of dirty dishes usually either. I like standard kinds of soup but I have trying my hand a number of new and interesting kinds too. There have been so many delicious ones I finally decided I should share them with one and all!

(Before I launch into the soups, I should add that I am a big fan of AllRecipes.com. I love the variety of recipes and I REALLY love that there are reviews. I feel like that provides something of a guarantee that the thing will be delicious. And they usually are--I have very rarely been disappointed with the results (*cough*fried cheese curds*cough*). Anyway, that is the story. Now the soup!)

Easy Chicken Fajita Soup
This was so so good. The funny thing is that it really IS just like fajita filling--all the pieces are in big long chunks. If I had wee ones, I would definitely make smaller pieces but it would still be just as tasty. I also followed a recommendation to make this to go along with and that was a very good decision.

Thai Chicken and Coconut Soup with Noodles
I don't know how authentically Thai this actually is, but I do know that it's really good. Coconut, cilantro, noodles?? So many things that I love in my food! It can turn out super salty so keep that in mind.

Chunky Chicken Noodle Soup
Sometimes we like traditional soup. I have tried several different chicken noodle soup recipes, but this one is my favorite. I like to throw in a potato. I made my own noodles once or twice--we had no rolling pin then so I used a can of biscuits to roll the dough out. True story.

Potato Clam Chowder
Another traditional soup--clam chowder is one of my very favorite soups. I tried a few different recipes, but I like this one because there's no cream so it's not super heavy or fattening. We like to occasionally watch our figures around here until dessert.

BLT Soup
It sounds kind of funky, but this soup is REALLY good. I feel almost as much pride in it as if I had made the recipe myself. I like this soup because there are a lot of shortcuts you can take in terms of quickness and healthiness--like bacon bits or turkey bacon or premade croutons. I also like throwing in a little radiatore just to give it a little something extra. Try it! You'll love it.

Well I think that is enough soup for one day. I heartily recommend them all, and if you try them, let me know what you think! And of course I am always happy to hear about new soup recipes.

On Valentine's Day

I love Valentine's Day! I think I am a sucker for festivity. I just like to be excited about the things that everyone else is excited about, whether it leads to fun things for me personally or not. What's not to like about V-Day after all? Pink! Red! Sparkles! Flowers! Sparkles! Chocolate things!

As a singleton, I was always kind of annoyed by the whole S.A.D. thing. I mean, isn't Valentine's like any other holiday, big or small, in that if you WANT to have fun with that day then you can? Not that you have to go hog wild with every single holiday, but there's no reason for anyone to feel bitter and sad on Valentine's Day. You can have fun with your friends or family or by yourself, it doesn't matter if you don't have a valentine. In my second year at college I started a Valentine's tradition for myself where I would watch a Disney movie, and I had a great time every year. Now as a non-singleton, we still are doing that (amazingly, Mr. Graham had no trouble adopting that tradition).

Naturally I have more fun on Valentine's Day now with my buddy, but that's true of pretty much any occasions and I still don't feel like there was anything lacking in my earlier V-Days.

Anyway, here is my gift to all of you. I can't even tell you how many times I have watched it but it is a lot.
(I just watched it like four more times.)

On a not-really-related note, we finished watching Daria recently, which I had never seen before. It took a little while for me to get into, but I loved it by the end. I think we are going to be Daria and Trent for Halloween. Gee Quinn.