cream of rainy day soup ala rachel

yesterday was beautiful. i worked all day long (but no one came in, so i got caught up on a few of my favorite shows...). it was one of those overcast sprinkly kind of days, so the air smelled so nice, and it wasn't even too cold. by the time i got off work, it had actually really started to rain instead of mist, so i decided that it would be a good night for soup making. so here it is, the step-by-step process (i wouldn't call it a recipe, it's sooo much more) for cream of rainy day soup:

1. decide to make soup and then spend about an hour looking through recipes in your little box and online at http://allrecipes.com
2. after reading a whole bunch of corn chowder recipes, pick and choose ingredients from several and make a grocery list
3. spend way too long at the store getting ingredients and a few other essentials
4. get home, wash the small skillet and the big soup pot
5. in skillet, cook half a package of bacon to the damn near burned stage (i like it uber crispy) and place the cooked pieces into the soup pot
6. in bacon drippings, saute half of a large onion (diced)
7. add to the onion two diced celery stalks
8. when veggies are tender, spoon most of them into the soup pot with the bacon.
9. throw a big package of fresh sliced mushrooms into the rest of the drippings and the few onions that you couldn't get out of the pan with the spatula
10. when the mushrooms are tender and have soaked up all of the rest of the drippings, dump them into the soup pot as well.
11. into the pot, add bag of frozen corn from your grandmother's garden (about 2-3cups), three medium potatoes (cubed), 4 cups of water and enough chicken bullion for it.
12. boil until the taters are tender, then add a splash of heavy whipping cream (probably about 1/2 cup), and copious amounts of shredded sharp cheddar cheese (think half of a bag or more people... no such thing as too much cheese)
13. let the soup cook for about another 10 ish minutes until all the cheese is melted in and everything thickens up a bit
14. eat. freeze the leftovers in individual ziploc bowls for lunch or dinner at work.

one thing that i would suggest in retrospect would be to take the cooked potatoes out of the pot and blend them up for a bit, so that you don't have huge chunks of taters. also, eat with biscuits. never forget the biscuits. :)

like a rainbow with wings

flying colors, that is...

i passed my praxis for history!!! i needed a score of 135 to pass, and i kicked that test's butt with 187. :) *happy dance*

Eddie Izzard-Cake or Death

gotta love eddie...

my date with sir elton john

wow.

that man can play the piano. the concert was AWESOME. thankyouthankyouthankyou to my buddy chris who sponsored the trip.



this is as good as my camera phone gets from row 'k' of the bleachers. that's elton there in the spotlights. there was also a really big led screen behind elton and the band, and there were several images scrolling around during many of the songs. this is the other picture i managed to get:



you can kinda see elton and the piano under christ's shoulder. i have to say that this is one of the top three concerts i've ever been to. :) tom petty at the rally was better, but only because we were so close to the stage. due to the traveling and crazyness of the weekend, i am again behind in the homework arena. tonight will be a catching up time for me. wish me luck.

on the way to elton john

i'm sitting in the hotel, waiting for my friend to get reado to go. first, we are going to eat at johnny corinos (yum) and then we'll be off to the concert. yay!

royality

hello all!

so, i'm not queen, but homecoming coronation was a blast. here is a picture with the crown that kaia gave me.

there are also more photos at my flickr site : http://www.flickr.com/photos/arnorachel/

it is also liked at the right.

things here are crazy. so much to do and so little time, so for now i'll leave it at that.