Bean Soup

This is excellently easy and delicious, which makes it perfect for people with concussions and homework! It also has a thick chili consistency, so it's great for eating with a thick hunk of bread or shredded cheese and sour cream.

Ingredients
1 lb. bag mixed beans (your choice, I got a 15-bean mix from Harris Teeter's)
1 large can chopped tomatoes
1 1/2 teaspoons homemade cajun seasoning (see below for recipe)
1/2 onion, chopped
5 + 3 garlic cloves

Directions
1. Soak beans in water overnight. Drain and rinse
2. Put beans in a pot with water, there should be 1-2 inches of water above the beans. Add 5 whole garlic cloves. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 2.5 hours.
3. Saute onion and 3 garlic cloves (minced) in olive or vegetable oil. Drain excess oil.
4. After 2.5 hours add cooked onions and garlic, canned tomatoes, salt and cajun seasoning. Simmer for another 30 minutes.

Serve!

Notes:
-Do not add salt at the beginning because it will prevent the beans from getting soft.
-Do not soak beans for more than 8 hours, it affects their quality and consistency.
-Do not be deceived when you try the soup and it does not seem spicy! Cayenne pepper builds on spice as you eat, so you won't feel the spice until you're halfway through a bowl of soup.

Cajun Seasoning
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp white pepper (or substitute another tsp black pepper)
2-3 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp paprika

Notes:
-If you use onion salt or garlic salt (I do not recommend using both) then do not put salt in the soup later. The mix itself will be very salty

Snow Signs

That one bad day

I seem to experience one really awful day near the beginning of every year. When I was eighteen, my car got totaled and I was on a train that hit a person. When I was twenty, I had a day of total insanity in the building where I was a resident assistant with people breaking into the womens bathroom and students throwing plants out windows. There are many more that will not be shared, but they happen nearly every year and they have always happened in January or February.

This year I believe it may have been today.

I should have known the day was off to a bad start when Georgetown announced that we would be having class on a national holiday to make up for the snow days. After not being productive until 1pm, I decided to head to school and work there. I got to the bus stop at 1:30, having dragged a bag of clothes I was going to drop off at the donation center at Georgetown. After 45 minutes, the bus still had not come. Suddenly a student walked up and announced that the Key Bridge was closed because they were bull-dozing snow off and therefore the bus was unable to get to us from Georgetown. Deciding against paying the cab fare, I start to walk, trudging through layers of slushy and icy snow to get campus. To add insult to injury, halfway through my 30 minute trek, it starts snowing. AGAIN.

When I finally get to campus, the donation bin is snowed out, so I dragged a bag full of clothes over for no reason and I have no where to put it. Then on my way to class I slam my hand against a door and burn my throat with coffee.

Exhausted after class, I decide that I am going to a Mexican restaurant to have a burrito and study. HOWEVER, on the walk over there, a chunk of ice falls off a building and onto my head. That's right. I experience an aerial ice attack. I was along a flat building with no eaves, but apparently some of the snow-turned-ice on the roof decided to fall down and land on my head. After an hour at home deliberating as to whether I should go to the ER or not, we finally decide to go.

At the ER, I wait nearly 30 minutes to get my room, and another 15 or so until the doctor comes. He is tall, thin, with long, black, curly, floppy hair. Total stoner-skater vibe. He starts talking to me about what happened and then asks me if I feel tired or have trouble seeing.

"Well, I haven't been sleeping a lot these past few days because I'm catching up on a lot of work so I don't know if that's a result of sleeplessness or getting hit on the head." He gets really concerned all of a sudden and says, "Well, you really need to get more sleep. That's a huge problem." Excuse me? I know it's a problem! I want to sleep, too! But I just had a chunk of ice fall on my head!!!!

Well, it all checks out and then he goes, "I need to get the supervising doctor to sign off on this and then you can go." This is usual in a teaching hospital, they do it at UCLA as well. The resident/student will check you out, and then a supervising doctor will come and check on you and compare their diagnosis with that of the student's. Well, when my supervisor comes in (40 minutes later), she says "Sorry you had to wait so long. My intern only recently told me you were in here."

I'm sorry, what?! He's an intern AND he forgot me? WTF mate. And then she looks me over again and says, "Well, you have a concussion (which was not mentioned by the intern), but it's not serious (which was noted by the intern). You can go home, just make sure your roommate checks in on you every six hours (not mentioned by the intern)."

All this is just lovely, and then the hospital that took three hours to give me two 10 minutes exams charged us $6 for parking! On top of which, we ended up driving around for 20 minutes when we got home because all the spots were taken or blocked by mounds of snow.

So all in all, I got today:
1. School on a holiday
2. A long walk with heavy bags and snowfall
3. A bag of clothing with nowhere to go
4. A hurt hand
5. A burned throat

AND

6. A concussion

This day has all the signs of "The Worst Day of 2010" but I can't officially name it that until January 1, 2011. Until then Karma, please, gimme a break!

Potomoc At Sunset (Pre-Snowmania)

Blizzard-y Season!

Post February Storm #1

Middle of February Storm #2

Moving

I have helped two friends move into the city, and it NEVER goes as planned. Last time we thought it was going to take 5-6 hours and it took 13!! One of hour of that was spent in the same area around K street driving in circles while we tried to navigate round-a-bouts and one-way streets.

Well, yesterday we were just trying to pick up one bed from one location but it somehow ended up lasting four hours. First we had to get to UHaul, where apparently they PRETEND it's only $30 and then tack on enough extras to make it $70. Granted, we didn't travel 50 miles so it ended up costing closer to $40, BUT STILL. On top of that, they wanted a local number in case we got lost (??). We thought ok, and gave them a number, which she then proceeded to call without warning us ahead of time!! So the person we listed got a lovely call from UHaul at 9am on a Saturday. Then at one point, the woman said, "And sign here for the contract please." My friend said, "I don't know what the contract says yet" (she hadn't had time to read it), and the woman looked at us like, why would you read the contract? and then said "sign here on the dotted line", as if we were causing trouble. Last time I checked, making sure your legal rights are protected was a good idea.

We finally get into the van and realize that we have an address but no directions and no map! So we end up navigating ourselves in a massive van through Washington DC based solely on where we think streets are laid out. Miraculously making it to our location, we then had to navigate a bed from one end of a long housing structure to the other end and down six floors and into our slightly-illegally-parked van. Then we have to again navigate ourselves to her new apartment.

Recapping the situation, the fact that it took four hours is not surprising, but seeing only a bed and a small lamp at the end of it made us wonder what we did during that whole time...next time my friends move I'm hiring someone to help them.

Coconut Soup Revisited II

This is a pumpkin coconut soup, which is basically coconut soup with a can of pureed pumpkin. I found it mediocre so I'm not posting the recipe, but if you request it I'll post it.

Recipe: Watercress Soup

Action: I am getting sick so I decided to make a soup earlier than planned. Using the broth I'd already made I added leek and potatoes. I used half the leeks called for and half the watercress. Cooking was simple and took less than an hour.

Reaction: I love this soup! I found it filling and delicious. Next time I would use the whole amount of watercress and skip the pat of butter. He calls for a pat of butter at the end in each bowl, which turns a fresh soup into a heavier one. I think it would be a good idea to add the butter if you're serving it as an entree but I thought it was too heavy. The soup is a bit simple though, so I would keep it for a more homey meal rather than a fancy one.

James Peterson

I got a new cookbook called "Splendid Soups" by James Peterson and it is a 600 page book that discusses, dissects and provides recipes for a variety of soups. I'm going to try to work my way through the book this year.I'm not going to post the recipes because people should be buying his book if they're interested.

I'm not going to make every recipe, but working my way from simple to complicated so I build up soup-making skillz. I want to try my hand at some of the more complicated things I've avoided in the past by using canned vegetables, bouillons and pre-cooked ingredients.

Action: I started this morning with vegetable broth. I bought most of the basic vegetables (the spices and some other things I had already), which came out to about $8 for 10 cups of broth. Cooking is simple and took less than an hour without any attention required while it was cooking (40 min).

Reaction: It's simple to make and relatively quick, but in the end, it's just broth. There's no picture because it is, again, just broth. It would be cheaper to buy the vegetable broths in the cartons (not canned!) and the flavor will be pretty much be the same. Except for when you're using pre-made broths they're loaded in salt so you'll have to adjust your recipe accordingly. I think I'll continue to make veggie broth in the future because it's easy, but I'm just going to use leftover veggie peels, greens and stems rather than buying new ones every time. It's not worth the price and I feel wasteful when I have to throw the vegetables away.

Next on the menu: Watercress Soup

UCLA

My winter break has been going excellently! My undergrad alma mater, UCLA, had a bowl game in DC. I wanted to go but I could not bring myself to spend $50 for the tickets. So I decided to go to the UCLA Alumni Association Pep Rally instead. I ran into two friends from UCLA and met other alumni and near the end of the evening, one alum walked by to say that he had an extra ticket to the game!! His cousin had gotten sick so he had an extra ticket, and seeing as how I was the only person without a game ticket, I got it for free!

So then it was decided that I was going to go to the game the next day. I got to the tailgating party that was being held in the Armory but I stood around for a while because there was no one I knew there and a whole bunch of Temple fans. Then suddenly, another friend walked by and she managed to score me a wristband for the UCLA VIP tailgating party! They had all-you-can-eat food and an open bar, plus some of the players and coaches and old players who now play in the NFL were walking by and shaking hands with everyone!

I cannot tell you awesome that whole day was. I went from not planning on going to having the whole affair and meeting all sorts of awesome people. I am not the type of person who just gets free tickets! This was ridiculously awesome and totally made my week.

To top it all off, UCLA beat Temple.