We had a really great tomato soup served with balsamic caramelized onion and crimini grilled cheeses. If I had any adjustments to make, I would have used fresh roma tomatoes and roasted them in the over for about an hour. That is my absolute favorite way to make tomato soup, it adds an intense burst of flavor. Also, I would have used a multigrain or whole grain bread, but the boyfriend came home with a white sourdough. Alas, that is what he wanted and requested!

Tip: It is not super important to get all the vegetables uniform or chopped up small, because you will blend this at the end.

creamy tomato soup

serves 6.

2 TB Olive Oil
1 yellow onion diced
2 celery stalks, plus the green leafy bits at the top diced
2 carrots sliced
5 cloves of garlic minced
1 bay leaf
1 1⁄2 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
1⁄2 tsp dried thyme
salt & pepper to taste
3 14 ounce cans diced tomatoes
2 tsp tomato paste
dash of sweetener of choice (i used sugar)
3 to 4 cups vegetable broth (with 1 TB nutritional yeast)
1⁄2 cup skim milk
2 TB cream

In a stock pot heat the olive oil, add onions and celery–about five minutes. Sauté until onions are translucent, add carrots, spices, and garlic on medium heat. When garlic is tender and the spices fragrant– about 2 minutes, add diced tomatoes and paste. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for about 10 minutes; add three cups of broth. Cover and simmer for twenty more minutes, taste for sweetness (should have a nice balance) and add salt. Using either a blender or immersion blender, blend until smooth. If you used a blender, return to pot. At this point, check for consistency, and add more broth if needed. Add cream and milk.

As previously mentioned, we served this with a delicious grilled cheese consisting of balsamic caramelized onions, baby portobella mushroom, and swiss cheese. (this is for two sandwiches) I caramelized 1⁄2 thinly sliced onion adding a splash of balsamic vinegar, added 4 ounces sliced mushrooms, another splash of basalmic and when those were cooked, I lightly buttered the bread. Put each slice butter-face (hah!) down in a pan, arrange 1 slice of swiss cheese on one slice and the mushroom/onion mixture on another. When cheese is melted, bread toasted, put the two together!

We seriously eat brussel sprouts almost weekly, we just love them! Only fresh ones will do for us, and luckily a local grocery store has them frequently in stock. Perfectly shaped little bundles of joy, they are! Is it a little creepy that I now think of little baby heads whenever I look at them (Cabbage Patch Kids).

On tonight’s menu brussel sprouts sautéed in a wee bit of olive oil until they get a delicate little crust on them. Then we always use the tongs tediously turning them over onto the rounded side and cover. One must be careful not to over-cook, as they are best with a bit of crunch. We are also having Gardein Multigrain Tenders which I tossed with wing sauce.

2011 is going to be a great year, I can feel it. I have taken some big steps in a much healthier direction--I am eating so much better, working out at least six days a week, and cutting out the negative! Each moment that I spend with others is because I enjoy their company; no more obligatory social time, each minute of my life is now spent with intention. Finally. When I moved back to Rapid City, I was feeling a bit shell-shocked, and needed a serious breather. In short, I had a bit of a Single White Female experience, which left me so emotionally drained and stressed. I won't go into details, but I really had to get the eff out there! While, I miss plenty of my friends, I have reconnected with olds ones, and am much happier in my relationship with Court. We get along swimmingly, and could not be in a better place! Again, finally. A lot of what last year boiled down to was priorities, I was trying to keep everything together for the ex-roommate, that I never really let myself breathe. Enough about that, I am just in a really great place now: emotionally, physically, and mentally. Ready for the next chapter in my life!

So, I was the 250th person to take the pledge to consume no processed foods for the month of October. So far, it has been coming along swimmingly, with only minor setbacks. Let's see if I can remember what I've eaten:

lots of salads with loads of nutritious greens, nuts, veggies, and seeds.

autumnal chili which has also been repurposed into taco salads

pizzas made from teff and amarynth flours

vegetable sandwiches on ezekial bread (i allowed myself this luxury, as it is nutritious)

amazing french onion soup

whole wheat pastas with various sauces

eggs poached in salsa verde with a mushroom quesadilla on a corn tortilla

palaak paneer with home-made paneer

tomato tofu

mushroom stroganoff over fragrant brown rice

it's been really fun, challenging and rewarding. I have taken away a deep intention and appreciation for food, that was always there, but has been renewed! Everything I consume has an intention and a purpose, rather than just eating whatever is in front of me or that i have access to.

I am back in South Dakota indefinitely, but it is all for the best. Minnesota wore me down. While I will always remember the friends I have made, and will keep in touch with a great many of them, I do not think small-town Minnesota and I necessarily meshed. Besides, early fall is one of the best times to be in the Black Hills.

It's been a really, really long time since I've updated this blog, and a lot has happened in my life! Let's see, I graduated from college, finally! It seems that I majored in food service, because that is all my degree will warrant me. Maybe it is all that I am qualified for, but I seriously don't mind the work.

I just moved back to SD on Sunday, and have been working for my sister's boutique. It is really, really, dull but at least it is work. I basically spend my days on facebook, twitter, reading the news or doing crosswords. Needless to say, business is very slow.

I finished Women, so I can cross that off of my list. I am still working on Portrait of An Artist, but I should be able to get that finished quickly. Women was brilliantly funny, albeit depressingly so. While I am not an alcoholic nor chasing after women, I related to Chinaski. He reiterates throughout the novel his disdain for humanity, yet seems to seek out companionship in many forms. People will screw him over many times (Bobby and Lydia), but he continues to take them back, so he must have the ability to see semblance of positivity in his crummy peers. After I get a few more books knocked off the list of thirty, I intend to read more of Bukowski's novels with Chinaski in them. I attempted Post Office years ago, but never finished.

I finally found a job at a newer restaurant/bar, I bar tend and serve which has been pretty good so far. Apparently business has slowly been picking up through word of mouth, because no advertising has been used. As far as restaurants/bars in this area go, I really could not have found a better place. It's laid back, locally owned, and I make decent money. Things are looking up... finally.

I have started reading A Portrait of an Artist As a Young Man by Joyce. I loved the short story "The Dead" and decided to start reading this to prepare me for Finnegan's Wake in the not so immediate future. I have a list of about thirty books that I am going to try to read over the next year or so, and will continue to add more to it. There are loads of nonfiction dealing with diet, environment, and human rights that are not apart of the thirty, but will also be reading on the side. Let me know if I need to add anything, or if you've read any of them. I am using random integer to pick the next book. It chose Women by Bukoski. So far, the list consists of:

Last night I made a batch of VWAV's tempeh sausage, and it turned out wonderfully. I made a late night SOS with it. I planned to make biscuits for biscuits and gravy this morning, but the late night SOS sufficed my craving. I never knew that I liked biscuits and gravy until my mother made it right before I went vegetarian. She used home-made venison sausage and made the white gravy in a crock pot. Before this I had tried it in diners, but they were always cold or the gravy far too thick and gnarfy. Now I am a bit obsessed with the dish, but because of our current small town location I have to make them on my own. No diners/restaurants in town have faux meats except for some mock duck and a couple of places have garden/boca burgers.

I just did a quick 30 minute yoga practice, but it was sweaty and flowy. So, my body feels quite refreshed and some what flushed of toxins. Even though things haven't changed on the job front, I am trying to stay positive, and exercise is helping with that. It really does help my moods, and in this current financial crisis I need it!

This blog has been quite sparse for a long while now, and at some point maybe I will regain some motivation to breathe some new life into it. I used to maintain a domain of the same name, and would redesign it all the time. I wrote about EVERYTHING in my life, but now I can barely find words. Oh, how the internet has changed! Now we have twitter, facebook, and all these programs that make our life constantly connected to others. When I first started making websites in 1997(?), people used IRC, AIM, and message boards. While these still exist, the personal website has changed immensely and so have our tools for connecting with others. I used to make graphics in my sleep, code all the time, but now I just use templates and cannot be bothered to code anything. The first site I had was up at AOL, containing bad angsty poetry and a diary of sorts and had no images as I had no scanner nor camera. I believe the second was probably a tripod site, then I moved to altern.org, mailsync.org, another one of these that i cannot remember, to ohsovery.org, then to plopfizz.org. Do any of you remember the whole hosting your friends thing that was big during this time? Like one person would register and maintain a domain, and then their friends (who appeared to mostly be internet friends) would have sites on their domains. It probably still happens, but the whole domain thing is really changing too. Personal sites are no longer the same, they used to be like electronic versions of personal zines, and now they are just constant updates of that person's life. I guess I kind of miss those old days.