hybrids: the quesarito

It may be optimistic to put a category ("hybrids") on this post because who knows if there will ever be another post in this category? I kind of feel like I'm naming it "The first annual post on hybrids." :)

I'm not completely a marketer's dream, but I do tend to get drawn in by new things. And I kind of love hybrid foods or flavor combinations that don't seem immediately obvious. McGriddle? Check. Or maybe my love is really for the combination of sweet and savory/salty. Trail mix or just peanut M&Ms with pretzels is one of my favorite snacks. If it's not a ready-made sweet/salty combo, I like to alternate what I eat because I think it brings out the flavor of each item more. But I'm getting off track. The feature of this post isn't even a sweet/salty combo...

So when I heard about the Quesarito from Chipotle, I knew I would probably want to try it someday. In my mind, a quesadilla is a crispy flour shell (made crispy from frying in some oil) with cheese inside. Given my love for crispy flour shells (an alternate title for this post could have been: a list of all of the unhealthy foods I love, sheesh), this sounded amazing as the outside of a burrito. Last Monday, I got one. Chipotle charged me the price of a burrito plus the price of a quesadilla (which seems fair because that is exactly what I was given), which is more than I really like to spend on this type of food, but also much less than the $13 the person who took my order warned it would be. She based her amount on the fact that I would be charged for both a burrito and a quesadilla. I had never ordered a quesadilla from Chipotle before, but I knew my burrito was less than $7, and found it difficult to believe that a quesadilla could possibly cost the same as or more than a burrito, but whatever.

Preparation: They made a full burrito. They made a full quesadilla. They wrapped the burrito in the quesadilla.

As I mentioned, I've never ordered a quesadilla from Chipotle before, but there was nothing crispy about it. There was minimal cheese between the two shells making up the quesadilla. And while this was no doubt healthier for me (if you can call it that at all), I didn't feel I really got to experience what the quesarito has been built up as. Mostly, I had a burrito with three shells. Yikes. Especially yikes for someone who usually gets her burrito in a bowl with the shell on the side and eats about half of the shell.

So maybe a quesarito as described in the link above really is amazing, but the one I had was not. The best thing about it was that it was big enough for three meals. But, really, those meals were just a lot of tortilla shell.

this week

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Today

First snow day of the year on April 18!

thanksgiving {co style}

Some of you might be wondering how long I could possibly draw out the rehashing of one holiday. Oh, I can draw it out. It's the second day of March and I am just now bringing to you the second (and last, phew) post on Thanksgiving.

The morning of Thanksgiving, my parents delivered me to the airport in KC, and I flew back to Colorado. I helped with a few last-minute cleaning things, and Brian's parents arrived! It was great to go from thinking about a week or so before that I wasn't going to get to see any extra family to seeing quite a few!

I can't say I remember a whole lot of what we did. We did head to Target late on Thursday night to get some Black Friday deals on dvds and towels. CU women's basketball was hosting a tournament that weekend, so we went to their game on Friday and watched them win. This was the first women's game we had been to in a while, and we realized, wow, this team has changed. The game was very exciting. This actually kicked off a devout attendance for us this season, and it has been a really fun season of basketball. The team has been ranked for many weeks now, and is currently ranked #19; we are hoping to be able to watch them play in the NCAA tournament (either on TV or maybe we'll buy tickets to the first 1 or 2 rounds that are actually being held at CU and hope they play there). But anyway, Thanksgiving.

Brian and I had never done a turkey before, and we were glad to have a reason to try it! Saturday we spent quite a bit of time preparing food, and we ended up with a lot to offer: turkey, mashed potatoes, turkey gravy, baked sweet potatoes, whole wheat rolls, salad, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie, and then Bruce and Pat also brought MCC Sale bohne berrogi and sauce and verenike, for which I made a ham gravy. You know any day you make three kinds of gravy is a great day! (I had also made sausage gravy for our brunch on Saturday.)

We ate well, and then headed back to the events center for more basketball where we got to see the Buffs win the tournament! What a wonderful holiday it was.

thanksgiving {kc style}

Just one of the things I was thankful for during Thanksgiving season is that I got an entire week off from work. And I was glad that my break lined up exactly with Brian's, which would be nice for traveling...except that Brian ended up having a lot of work he needed to get done and decided it would be best not to travel during the break. I, however, decided that, instead of wasting my life away browsing the internet day after day (let's be honest) and not getting to see any of my family, I would fly to KC to visit Mark & Emily. They were gracious about accepting my presence at a busy time -- right in the middle of a move to their new apartment.

We checked out the Gear For Sports warehouse sale, where I bought a bunch of $10-$15 Under Armour hoodies for teams I don't care about / have never heard of. I mean, a good quality hoodie is a good quality hoodie. Plus, one of them was for Bethel University, which I thought was neat. I had to think of you, Tine, because, for whatever reason, there was lots of Huskies gear, but since my team is in the same conference, I couldn't bring myself to purchase any of it. :)

Mark & Emily hosted a Friendsgiving that was a major feast. Here's Mark with his first ever roasted turkey (it was delicious!)

Turkey protecting itself from aliens.

Mark & Emily got me and another of their friends hooked on the show Revenge while we were there, so we spent a lot of time on their sectional. I may have to subscribe to Hulu Plus now (and also because stupid Parenthood is only making their last episode available for free, and I can't very well miss 2 or 3 episodes in the middle of the season).

{UNNECESSARY UPDATE: Parenthood on Hulu is back on my nice list.}

The next evening, mom & dad drove up, and we had a Thanksgiving meal of our own. The father of one of Mark & Emily's friends smoked a turkey for us. Oh. My. Gosh. Smoked turkey is so yummy. I want one every year. We also had a bunch of leftover sides from Friendsgiving, we had made up a batch of our grandma's recipe for whole wheat rolls, and mom made pies!

Here's a fun activity for you: Go back and forth quickly between the next two pictures. 1. how we really spent a lot of our time. 2. when we realized we shouldn't look so slouchy for a picture.

my bro got married

Three weeks ago, my brother and Emily got married in Lawrence! We had a bit of a rough start driving out. We had to leave early on Friday to get there in time for the rehearsal. It had snowed the night before (which made it a crazy night to be getting a pedicure...walking around in flip flops with my pants rolled up, brrrr). We actually left on time to make it to the rehearsal with more than an hour to spare, but luck was not on our side. There was a wreck on our first highway, so that slowed us down. Wet stuff was coming down and the defroster couldn't keep up, and it was also freezing onto the windshield wipers, so we had to stop and scrape that off a couple of times so we could actually see. Then there was a crazy wreck on I-70 that shut down the interstate in both directions for a loooong time. I had never seen such a terrible looking wreck before. Something like 11 semis and 1 SUV were involved. The wreck was actually in the west-bound lanes, and they didn't open those back up until 5 that evening. I mean, seriously, check this out: click here. I can't believe only one person was injured.

But anyway. So we were late. And we missed the rehearsal, sad. But we did not miss the rehearsal dinner with amazing BBQ and mom's homemade pies (with peaches that I helped pick and put up this summer)!

Early on Saturday, we girls headed to the church to start getting our hair did.

You can't see it, but that Starbucks cup has a really sweet note written on it from Mark to Emily, aw.

And there was some eating of some yummy Druber's doughnuts, mmm. A guy who was our neighbor growing up and one of Mark's groomsmen brought a box of them to Lawrence for us.

The wedding was beautiful. Brian and I got to walk down the aisle together. We did not have our arms linked incorrectly like I did at prom once. I did almost forget to always keep my body facing the bride, but I remedied that quickly. And probably no one really noticed, but now anyone who reads this and watches the video will be looking for it.

After the wedding, the wedding party hopped on a party bus with this sign and drove to photo locations in Lawrence. It was freezing but fun.

The reception was a huge party! The food was delicious! The candy bar was fun! The open bar was appreciated! And mostly I got to see a ton of my family and family friends, which I loved!

Here is a picture of my hair from the very end of the night. It was really cool but apparently was looking kind of rough by this point. :)

ranked book list {take 2}

Original post here.

1. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
2. Columbine by Dave Cullen
3. Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
4. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, with the first being my favorite, followed in order by the other two...but why read just the first one and not know how it ends? (unless, of course, we are talking about the Twilight series...) by Stieg Larsson
5. The Hunger Games trilogy, with the first definitely being my favorite, followed in order by the other two, by Suzanne Collins
6. Marley & Me by John Grogan
7. Julie and Julia by Julie Powell 
8. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Speak. I read this book because some of my students were reading it in their freshman English class, they were struggling, and I am always in the market for material being handed to me for my sessions. :) But, oh geez, I need to read some more mediocre books to push this one down on the list. The story is decent, and the subject matter is really important, so I am glad the teacher assigned it, but I thought the writing was horrible! And not subtle! At all. It definitely felt like the author tried way too hard to write with figurative language, and it just didn't work. Sorry to keep harping on Twilight, but reading this reminded me of its terrible writing. I maybe wouldn't have mentioned it, but I just looked up this book on Amazon for the link, and the movie version came up as well. Who plays the leading character? Kristen Stewart. I know I am judging a dvd by its cover here, but I just don't know that I could handle sitting through all of that.

ranked book list

Oftentimes, I am at a loss for how to pick the next book to read. So while this project won't help me in my quest, maybe it will benefit others who find themselves in a similar position. My posting is kind of spotty, so maybe I won't keep this up, but I thought I would keep a running, ranked list of books I've read recently. When I finish one, I'll repost the entire list with the newly added one highlighted somehow. And maybe it will help me in my search for the next book to read -- perhaps it will spur on commenters to leave suggestions for me!

1. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
2. Columbine by Dave Cullen
3. Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
4. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, with the first being my favorite, followed in order by the other two...but why read just the first one and not know how it ends? (unless, of course, we are talking about the Twilight series...) by Stieg Larsson
5. The Hunger Games trilogy, with the first definitely being my favorite, followed in order by the other two, by Suzanne Collins
6. Marley & Me by John Grogan
7. Julie and Julia by Julie Powell

sometimes you just go along with what works.

I work with one of my students on recognizing signs that a conversation is over/nearing its end and then saying something appropriate to end it…and, of course, actually ending it (just saying, if you enter a conversation with this student, it can be difficult to get away). We were doing some role playing. The cue we were working with was one of the most obvious ones (i.e., I would say, “Well, I really need to get going.”). The student was pretty excited about coming up with pretend scenarios we could role play. In the first one, I was supposed to be almost late for a dentist appointment. After we finished that one and she was coming up with the next one, she asked,

“Do you have a dog at home?”

“No, but I have a cat.”

“A boy or a girl?”
“A girl.”

“Ok, pretend it has cancer and you have to get it to the doctor for its treatments.”

day in review {10/16/12}

4:40 alarm goes off
5:00 finally drag myself out of bed
6:17-7:00 on the road
7:30-11:00 read the ENTIRE PLAN test to sophomore student (imagine reading the entire -- directions, passages, questions, answers, repetitions if necessary -- ACT out loud to someone) while still sick with a cold...much coughing and blowing of the nose and losing of the voice
11:10-11:40 lunch
11:40-12:10 scheduled weekly therapy time with student...who is skipping...and has been skipping most of her classes for the last two weeks...instead, attempt to see student with autism, who is having a rough day...abandon that plan as well
12:10-1:10 impact intervention English class...in which one of my three students is skipping...and in danger of having to go to court for truancy
1:20-2:20 work with two students 1:1 in their intervention study hall...one of whom leaves to "go ask his teacher a question about his homework"...and is gone for 25 minutes of our 30-minute session
2:20-2:58 second attempt to see same student with autism...whose day has gotten considerably worse...he is now screaming...and slamming doors...and calling his classmates stupid...and grabbing at anything he can...and threatening to run (a very real threat...I've been a visitor on only one of his previous runs)
2:58-8:38 sit in my office for "parent/teacher conferences"...only one parent has signed up during all 9.8 hours of my required out of contract time for p/t conferences (this exact scenario will be repeated tomorrow night...except I already saw my one parent yesterday, so no visitors tomorrow)
8:45-9:33 on the road
10:20 in bed as soon as I can in order to get as much sleep as I can before the alarm sounds at the same time the next day

love.

One of the best things about getting to spend a sixth of a year at our home places is the chance to spend a lot of time with our nephew and niece. They are sweet, sweet kids, and we love them so much. Unfortunately for you (because you have to miss out on their cuteness!), I'm not going to post their pictures here for the world to see.

We were glad we got to be there for our niece's first birthday party. Missing some of those important milestones is one of the toughest things about living as far away as we do. We usually have to miss our nephew's birthday, and it was rotten to have to wait weeks before I got to meet my niece last year, so we are happy for any opportunity to be there when we can! My sister-in-law definitely has talents in areas where I don't, and she created a super cute party (I suppose I am making assumptions here that it was her and not my brother-in-law, though he no doubt helped pull it all off!).

Several days during the summer, Brian's parents watched the kids during the day, and we got in a lot of play time on those days! We could always expect that we would (1) need to "work the fields" with play tractors and take them to the mechanic, and (2) put out a lot of fires. Both of these activities require a lot of crawling on your knees around and around the living room while pushing a toy vehicle. I seriously needed to invest in some knee pads. One evening when the kids were over, we had a hot dog roast, and then Brian's dad let R be a real fireman and put out the fire with the garden hose. Pretty cute.

At the end of the summer, I had to come back to Colorado by myself because my job started a couple of weeks earlier than Brian had to be back for classes. The night before I had to leave, the kids were super cute when they were leaving to go home and kept giving me big hugs and saying good-bye. Definitely made me tear up. Miss them!

birthday

This year I turned 31. More of my life goals were accomplished in time for my 31st birthday than they were for my 30th birthday last year.

I had a great start to my birthday because right around midnight, I picked up Brian from the airport; he returned from a five-day out-of-state trip. My mom baked my favorite kind of cake (chocolate zucchini) for my birthday and let me have a piece at lunch!

In the evening, we picked up Brian's parents and ate at Tres Amigos in McPherson. Mmm. Then we went to Brian's parents' house for cake and ice cream.

It made me very happy to get to spend my birthday with a lot of the people I love the most. And I told you I was excited about that yummy cake!

being useful

I won't pretend I'm not loving this life of leisure and zero responsibility this summer, but it is also nice to be useful when I can.

Unfortunately, one opportunity I had to be useful recently was due to others' loss. So while I wish this event had not taken place, I was glad I could help out. Last weekend, some relatives' barn burned down, and Wednesday morning, Brian and I (along with his parents and some other relatives) were able to help with clean-up. We filled one of those huge, long and deep dumpsters with metal and picked up glass. Some worked on dismantling part of a chicken house that had burned and taking down trees.

I've also been working more on sorting things at my mom & dad's. Here are a few gems I've found so far.

Aw, our holiday celebration group! I also found our Hanukkah candles (they went into the Et Cetera box).

A cutie picture from our freshman year. Em sent this to me as a postcard the summer after and concluded her message with "Are they models?" I feel like this is a line I should have a memory about but don't. Can anyone fill me in?

Stay tuned for more special finds I may come across!

father's day festivities

Ok, this will fulfill the "day-to-day," "exciting haps" (for me, this means anything out of the ordinary, ha), and "pictures." :)

Brian and I hosted a meal for Father's Day for our dads (and moms, of course) and Dave & Shelley's family too. Can you really say you hosted a meal when you don't live in the location it is taking place? This means my parents had a pretty big hand in hosting it. Saturday morning, we worked on getting their place ready. What you see above are the results of my and mom's labor in the flower bed. We did lots of weeding together, which was actually pretty fun.

Our menu was BBQ pork sandwiches (this is the best crockpot BBQ pork recipe I have ever used), potato salad, baked beans, chips, and no-bake cheesecake. Mmm, mmm. The only element that wasn't successful was the cheesecake because we used Neufchatel instead of regular cream cheese, which means it did not set up. Lesson learned: do not try to be healthy.

This was my first time making potato salad. I think my mom makes the best potato salad!!, so it was fun for me to get the chance to make it with her. Here it is (after it's been reduced in quantity by being served at two meals).

It was a lot of fun to have everyone together. Our nephew and niece are pretty much the most adorable kids ever, and we LOVE spending time with them. Our nephew says the most hilarious and also sweet things, aw.

requests?

After a long hiatus, I am wanting to get back into blogging. Of course, there is the age-old problem of what, exactly, to blog about. So I'm copping out and asking if anyone has any requests. Sorry, this is not one of those blog offers of "I will answer anything you ask me." :)

no time for landscaping? no problem.

During our (short! for me because I had to get back to start my internship) Christmas break, we headed up to KC. The impetus was a gathering of the bridesmaids for my brother and Emily's wedding so we could all try on dresses, which was a fun time! We also were able to be there for longer and spend some time with Mark and Emily. Exciting for me -- not only because BBQ is scarce where we live, but largely because this is the best BBQ I've ever had -- we were able to make it to Oklahoma Joe's for supper. Nom nom nom.


Then we decided to be Christmas-y and drive around looking at Christmas decorations. Emily guided us to an famous decoration stop in the KC area:



The yard on all four sides of the house was packed full of inflatables...plus some on the roof and some suspended overhead in the yard! In some places, only small walkways allowed you to get through. They were also projecting a Christmas movie onto a large screen above their garage and shooting out really cool fake snow from the top of the house. What are you going to do but take pictures among the crazy?!


Really, though, the project was charitable too -- I think you could adopt an inflatable (or something), and the money went to an organization (like a children's leukemia foundation??).

While we were there, a limo pulled up and let out a bunch of people who got out and looked at the inflatables. We figured this was a guided Christmas decorations tour, so we moved into stalker mode and waited for them to get back in the limo so we could follow them around town and see all of the good decorations without paying for it. Oops, it turned out we really were stalkers -- the inflatables must have been the finale of the decorations tour because we ended up just following them back to their house...

So we went back to Mark's place, and he and Emily found a "best of KC" tour that we could follow. And what's more Christmas-y than looking at lights while drinking hot chocolate? Brian and I were wowed by the machine at the gas station that was solely for shooting whipped cream into your drinks. We found some pretty cool houses, and I especially enjoyed the ones set to music.

261.5

This is the minimum number of direct contact hours I have had for clinic work during the last 1.5 years (I'm still waiting to confirm hours for my offsite placement; hence, "minimum"). I was actually kind of surprised to see that the number was that high. It does feel like an accomplishment!

Of course, that number doesn't include all the hours of prep work and paperwork that went along with it. Wowza.

Take all of that plus hours spent in class plus hours spent out of class for class reading and assignments and projects and studying, and I can definitely see why I have been busy.

Yay for winter break*!

*side note: I can't believe the university this year, of all years, isn't starting spring classes until Jan. 17. Now until then would be a completely AMAZING break!! I, on the other hand, start my internship Jan. 3. I am super excited for my internship but am also in need of a break. I am definitely thankful for the break I do get.

asha convention {san diego}

Before Thanksgiving, I traveled to San Diego for our certifying association's (ASHA) annual convention. The convention itself was a packed few days. I'm pretty terrible at estimating things, but there were probably 20 or so lectures going on at any given time, which made scheduling one's day a chore. In addition, there were also concurrently running poster presentations and an exhibit hall (read: lots of free stuff).

I was fortunate that my schedule allowed me to fly out on the morning of the day before the convention and further fortunate that one of my friends is from the area and was already there, so she picked up a handful of us from the airport and took us to the beach! I was my most relaxing day in months!

Jen, Loriann, Jocelyn, me, and Jenny at Mission(??) Beach

ignore the months-old polish...

That evening after a few more of our friends had arrived, we went out to a wine and cheese bar, and the relaxing, wonderful times continued. These are great and supportive people. I think it started because one of our group was recently engaged, but we went around and everyone shared something good that had recently happened to them, and we toasted each person. :)

Kelby, Loriann, Jen, me, Heather, Jenny, Jocelyn, Emily

A number of my classmates presented posters at the convention. I found out after he left, that this guy I had captured on camera at my friends' poster was actually one of the authors they referenced on the poster. Sweet!


Here are some of us in the San Diego airport waiting for our flight back to Denver. Our flights were filled with speech-language pathologists and poster tubes.

Danielle, Suzanne, Amy, Davis

pumkin spice yum

I love a good Pumpkin Spice Latte as much as the next person this time of year. This drink recipe is not exactly the same, but it sure is good. Sorry, no amounts for you -- I just throw stuff together.



--strong coffee (I use my stove top moka pot to make an espresso-like coffee)
--milk
--splash of half-and-half
--sugar
--pumpkin spice
--ice cubes (5-6)

Mix all in a blender.
Yum.
I have a pot on the stove right now that will soon be made into this drink.
Today for kicks, I think I will top with some Redi-Whip and sprinkle a little pumpkin spice on top to make it pretty.

**update**

And pretty it was.

under the belt

This week I got a few new experiences under the belt.

First, I and another clinician have been providing Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT) therapy to a 60-something client with Parkinson's disease. LSVT is THE speech therapy for individuals with PD and one of the only therapies in our field with such high levels of evidence supporting it. It truly is amazing. Not only were we delivering this therapy, but we were being supervised by the creator of it (who is also one of my current professors). It seems she doesn't usually do clinical supervision in our clinic, so this was a unique opportunity -- and one you can bet I was pretty nervous about. I was also nervous because I don't think of myself as having an "LSVT personality," in which you are a super excited cheerleader and also a boss of the session and client. However, it went very well. BUT, the specific experience this week that was a first for me was that we had to dismiss our client. LSVT is very regimented and requires treatment fidelity to be effective. Part of the therapy is homework -- daily on the days you receive treatment (four days per week) and twice daily on the days you don't (the other three days of the week). Our client was not doing homework. It was a tough thing to dismiss: Sure, it was too bad I didn't get the full experience of the therapy and seeing the results and getting those therapy hours, but more than that, I felt bad for the client. It kind of feels like sending the message, "You failed" (which I know is not true). Plus, I had built up a relationship with this client and all of a sudden I was saying, "Sorry, I'm not going to help you anymore." Sad. I don't disagree that it was the right thing to do. I hope the client will find a time in life when he can commit to the therapy and comes back and does it!

Second, I performed my first real bedside swallow evaluation on a real life hospital patient yesterday! The patient came in with suspected stroke due to right-side weakness and some decreased ability to talk, which was then exacerbated by a fall onto a hard surface (so likely post-concussive as well). Imaging did not confirm stroke, but a swallow study is always in order for suspected stroke because cranial nerves can be damaged, impacting your motor and/or sensory functions -- both of which are very important for swallowing. As you might imagine, the subfield of swallowing in speech-language pathology is a very important one -- it's probably the only one in which your decisions could result in the death of the patient. Yikes. The goal is to determine whether the patient is safe for swallowing, and what types of textures or strategies might facilitate safety. Safety is does not just mean eating without choking; what you really want to be concerned about is aspiration (food or liquid going down the trachea into the lungs) because this can cause aspiration pneumonia and subsequently death. AND aspiration can be silent! That is, the patient does not react to food/liquid slipping down past the vocal folds with coughing -- it just goes down. Aspiration can not be confirmed with a bedside swallow evaluation; a video fluoroscopy swallow study is used for that, in which you actually watch by way of X-ray video barium boluses being swallowed and can see it going down the wrong way. But anyway, I did the bedside eval, which looks at swallow structure structure and function (including strength and range of movement) and sensation. We then provide different consistencies to the patient and observe swallowing, while also feeling on the neck for proper movement of the larynx. Yes, I was nervous. Yes, I forgot some things or did not fully do some things (no worries -- my SLP supervisor was right there helping me out). I got lucky that my patient has no dysphagia / no risk of aspiration. Yay, patient!

amazing discovery of the week:

Tomato bisque is easy to make. This is an amazing discovery for me because I love tomato bisque...no idea why I never looked into this before. Probably because I only have it at those fancy soup and sandwich places (and Noodles & Co, haha). [[True confession: I HATE tomato soup (like the canned stuff) and always have. I wonder why I ever even tried eating tomato bisque...]] Yes, I went an easier route (read: canned tomatoes) than some recipes that are out there, but it is still quite tasty. All we did:

--finely dice a medium yellow onion
--sautee until translucent in 1 T butter and 1 T olive oil (or whatever combination of oils/fats you prefer)
--stir in 1 T of flour (or corn starch) and 1 T sugar and cook for at least 1 min while stirring continuously to prevent burning
--add a little bit of water (I added probably 1/4-1/2 c)
--stir in 1 T Better Than Bouillon (or you can use a can of chicken broth instead of this and water)
--add two 28 oz cans of crushed tomatoes
--add salt, pepper, sugar, chicken broth stuff to taste
--bring to a boil
--reduce heat and simmer for 15-20 min; add more liquid if you need it
--allow to cool some and add 1.5-2 c half-and-half (or heavy whipping cream) or don't add it to the pot and simply add desired amount to each bowl

So easy. We didn't even bother with pureeing it (I generally hate pureeing soup in a blender...at least my blender...because it takes so long). Using crushed tomatoes and finely dicing the onions makes for a pretty fine-textured soup.

This plus a colby jack on poppyseed/sesame seed/hazelnut bread sandwich Foremanned made for the perfect lunch for today. Yay for a perfect lunch to suit the weather; boo for it only being like 51* today. And rainy. Ick.