Chicken Soup Recipe

I found a staple recipe for chicken noodle soup that is so good.  So good I need to share.  It came out of this cookbook and is so yummy and easy I made it twice within one week.

• 1 Tbs vegetable oil
• 1 med yellow onion chopped
• 1 Tbs minced garlic
• 1 chicken bouillon cube
• 1/4 tsp dried thyme
• 1/2 C dry white wine
• 6 C low-sodium chicken broth
• 2 C shredded rotisserie chicken
• 2  med carrots, peeled, chopped
• 1 celery stalk chopped
• 2 oz egg noodles
• 1 Tbs roasted garlic 
• 1/4 C chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat.  Add the onion and garlic.  Add the thyme and cook, stirring frequently, until the onion is translucent, 5-7 minutes.  Add the wine and cook for 2 minutes.  Add the stock, the bouillon cube, the chicken, carrots and celery.  Simmer until the vegetables are tender, 25-30 minutes.  Add the egg noodles and cook until tender, about 5 minutes.  Stir in the 1 Tbs roasted garlic and the parsley.  Just before serving, season with pepper to taste and add more roasted garlic if necessary.

It was worth learning to roast a head of garlic in the oven and buying fresh parsley.  They say, and it's true, this soup is best made at least 1 day in advance.  The flavors marinate and, ode to the white wine and garlic, it's just so good!

Dinner Date

While my old boyfriend/current husband worked late Friday, I had a dinner date with Pierce.  We read books, cooked pretend food on the floor and played with toy cars before sitting down to eat.  Though he chose to forgo use of a plate, he was a pro with the fork.  And who needs a bib or booster seat when you have kitchen towels and Webster's Unabridged Dictionary?

Baby Harrison woke from his nap to join us for a few minutes.   Really he just wanted his diaper changed.   I'm sure he's smiling thinking of his Mom & Dad and how much they were enjoying their dinner date.

My BF

Once upon a time not so very long ago 

(though it keeps drifting farther and farther away) 

I was a girl with a boyfriend.

 

And we strolled through a field of wildflowers,

 

Took pictures of them, 

 

And smooched.

Trendy Names

I was thinking about names today.  How trendy ones come and go with a generation (Prince & Apple), others predate their popularity peak (Cameron & Jenna) and how Biblical classics stick around for ages (Matthew & Sarah).  Not a new thought, but fun to think about.

My friends have named their children things like: Maddox, Mac, Harrison, Molly, Pierce, Jackson, Ethan, Audrey, Francis, Emma, Seth, Kayden, Kylie and Kennedy.

My friends names include: Valerie, Natalie, Stephanie, Hillary, Haley, Ashley, Whitney, Jennifer, Julie, Krystal, Shannon, Allison and Michelle.

Our mothers names include: Janet, Florence, Melissa, Marcia, Carol, Connie, Peggy, Nancy, Rosemary, Sandra, Barbara, Donna and Kathy. 

Our grandmothers names have the most in common:  Grandma, Granny, Nana & Meme.

I love my name.  First, middle and last.  Love love love it.  I've always read "Jenna" means "little bird."  Tonight I learned it also has Arabic roots with the word "heaven."  I also learned the name was made popular by the TV show Dallas... and in 1983 the character was played by Priscilla Presley.  Wonder if Mom was a fan.

I love my brother's name too.  Cameron Reid.

I remember the very first time I encountered another Jenna.  My Granddad was indulging us at Burger King and we snuck in a few minutes on the playground.  I was probably 10 or 11 and heard a random Mom call out my name, to which a much younger little girl responded.  I remember standing there kinda baffled as I processed the idea of someone else having my name. 

I also remember once after being called "Jenna Claire" in public (lovingly... our middle names were never a sign of oncoming discipline) a stranger who overheard Mom call me responded with, "well that's a pretty southern name."  We were at Wiregrass Commons Mall outside of Kirkland's.  Funny what random memories can stick with a brain.

What does your name mean?  Any stories to go with?

Spice Life

I noticed an odd-man-out while sorting through my spice cabinet.  See him down there?

 

It's Mr. Curry in his outdated attire.

Now I didn't have anything in there relevant to this advertisement,

But it was definitely years past its prime.  And realizing I have stocked a kitchen long enough to own spices in discontinued packaging was a minor domestic revelation.

More Fun Saturday Things We've Recently Done In An Effort To Not Sit On Our Booties All Day Long

On New Year's Eve Matt suggested we make eating sushi on the last evening of the year a tradition.  Awesome!   For the first annual event we had a leisurely 9:00 meal downtown... and I'm just now realizing he didn't order sushi, but chicken fried rice!  Oh well.  After dinner we walked through the touristy souvenir shops, listened to a band outdoors and stood in a long line for something hot at Starbucks.  After a few fake midnight countdowns in the crowd, we and the rest of Annapolis welcomed 2011 with a pretty impressive fireworks show.  (There was also an early bird display at 8:00 that we watched from inside our apartment.  Very cool!)

On Saturday the 8th,  Matt played in the Apple store at the mall while I went to a baby shower.  There was also some grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning thrown into the mix.

This Saturday, the 15th, we did some major couch potato time.  The only thing that got us up was Matt having told his coworker we would listen to his band play in Baltimore that evening.  However,  upon arrival at the tavern we learned the band had already left!  Turns out he Ravens were playing a big game and everyone wanted to watch football instead of listen to music.  We laughed, left and walked around the corner to eat mussels cooked in Old Bay & Guinness before driving back home... where we resumed potato status on the couch.

War Eagle

Ahhhh... so proud to sport this car decal. 

A long, fun and perfect football season is now behind us.

War Eagle.

December Saturday

While Matt and I are relatively decent at playing tourist already, we're on a renewed mission to get out, see and do.  The couch needs more of a break from our derrieres and the batteries in our remote deserve to last longer than six months. 

Recently our dental hygienist informed us of a special time constrained BOGO ticket offer the Newseum had going on.  The Saturday before Christmas we bundled up, got on the Metro and bought our BOGO tickets with hardly a minute to spare.  Which was great, because I don't know if it was really worth the regular $20 a pop fee... in comparison to all the free things around town.  But it was good and we're glad we went.  Tons of great photographs, a million snippets from history and a lot of painting the media in good light (no surprise there.)

Afterward we strolled across the street to watch ice skaters in the Sculpture Garden go round and round, fall and get up and go round and round again.  After being at the museum I felt compelled to document every comment I heard and expression I saw.  But I didn't have a camera crew.  So we went inside the National Gallery of Art where we made fun of boys in dresses and stood in awe of paintings created in years with only three numbers.

Then we walked through dusk into the evening past displays of greenery and white lights.  While warming up in a Barnes and Noble we talked ourselves out of going home for supper and instead, completely embraced the day by eating Ethiopian food.  The End.  Until next Saturday...