Bearshorty's musings

Soup Project 2014: Soup 2 - Creamy Sweet Potato Soup

Ingredients

2 Tbsp canola oil
1 large sweet onion, sliced
2 tsp ground cumin
3 sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 1/2 qt chicken broth (I used water)
1 3/4 cup plain yogurt
2 Tbsp chopped parsley or cilantro
1/4 cup toasted pumpkin seeds

Directions
1. In a soup pot heat oil. Add onions and cumin and saute 3-4 minutes. Add potatoes and chicken broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer soup 20-25 minutes.
2. Puree soup with 1 1/2 cup of yogurt and parsley. Serve each portion of soup with a dollop of remaining yogurt and sprinkled pumpkin seeds.

Thoughts on Soup:
My mother-in-law gave me this recipe a while ago and now that I have my blender I could finally try it out. And it is pretty simple, which I like. This came out pretty well. It will last for a while too. I do think next time I'll make it, I'll use 5 cups of water instead of 6 to make it thicker. I did use water instead of chicken stock, since I don't have any chicken stock and water is just fine. I also added sour cream into a bowl at the end instead of more yogurt since I like sour cream in soup like this. And I didn't have pumpkin seeds. I did love the parsley; it added a great flavor. I do have to say I love my new blender - you just stick it in a pot and it purees super quickly.



Other than making the soup today for lunch, I made myself a delicious salad since parsley smelled so good when I was cooking. And for dinner I made lo main noodles with stir fried onion and peppers (red, yellow and orange) and I make some steak. Original plan was to make broccoli for home cooked beef and broccoli lo main, by the broccoli didn't look that good - I think it was in the fridge too long. Still it all came out nice.

Bear and I also watched a new episode of "Community" after dinner and now I'm continuing my "Pride and Prejudice" rewatch.

"Supernatural" episodes I watched today S2E16 Roadkill and S2E17 Heart - were really good. I'm really enjoying Season 2.

For the first time in maybe half a year I actually watched Monday’s TV live. First “How I met Your Mother (HIMYM)” and then “House.”

I have been keeping up with “HIMYM” online but I was mostly bored with it and in the first half of this evening’s episode I switched to HBO and Harry Potter during the commercial and didn’t care to go back. The show seems to mostly stay in place and it is just not interesting anymore. I don’t think I’m coming back for it next season.

I need to catch up to about 4 episodes of ‘House’ and I don’t really care. I do like House and Wilson interaction in the latest storyline but that is about it – the rest, the patients just leave me indifferent. I will watch the finale, of course, and I will probably catch up to the episodes I missed by having them run in the background while I’m doing something else but I’m glad the show is ending. It used to be a must watch for me but I really stopped caring.

In fact, this TV season has the lowest number of shows that I follow or that I watch live. There are only three that I watch as they actually air and that I get excited about: Glee, Community and Grimm. I’m still surprised by how much I got into Glee this year after two years of indifference and occasional watching. Community is the funniest comedy around and Grimm is my favorite new show and I adore it to pieces and it just keeps getting better and better.

Modern Family and Grey’s Anatomy are shows I like that I usually watch online after they air. HIMYM is the show I do watch online but reluctantly. And House I kind of watch online now, but not really. I gave up on Bones in April when I realized that I just didn’t care anymore and I don’t miss it at all. But that’s it.

At least summer is coming up with the crack that is True Blood, SYTYCD and Burn Notice. I’m done with Leverage and I don’t even remember other shows. I haven’t even finished last four episodes of Dexter Season 6. (And I will watch Borgias all at once on Demand probably).

Last folder review today and end to the writing classes and lots and lots of grading. I woke up at six and did 20 papers straight. That is a lot of papers. I also added some comments to Paper 4. But I got everything done by the time I had to do my folder review and my brain didn’t feel like it was going to fall out of my skull.

Whenever I finish a semester or a class, it never feels exciting, just anticlimactic – mostly because I’m just tired from all the grading. I still have all those history papers and final exams let, so my semester is not over and I’m glad the writing classes are over but I don’t really feel anything about it.

At least ending a day with a new Community episode is always a plus.

I’m working through the Sandman at a faster pace than MarkReads, and I’m getting into it again. It is a little funny – I read the first four volumes before so a lot of it is like reading a brand new story – but as I read it is coming back to me. I think I can appreciate it more now, especially since I’ve read much more Gaiman.

Thursday is a grading day so I pretty much just did that.

“Community” was a little weird today with an Abed episode.

It is really weird to use my parents’ computer. But there is no choice.

Today was pretty ordinary – grading rough drafts, catching up on ‘House,’ watching “Community.” I did love all 1984 references and making fun for corporations as people.

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope the New Year will bring only good things.

I’m back to posting and being back online consistently – it was nice to take a short break although I did still check email and watched videos online. I also just caught up to posting the last week on my journal. I didn’t want to overwhelm anyone’s reading pages so I posted them just on my journal, in case anyone wants to read it.

But here is a short summary of my Christmas/New Year/holiday week: I had a very nice Christmas with Bear’s family where I got four books among my presents (yay), including Stephen Fry’s latest autobiography, and a pocket watch so I could pretend to be in Doctor Who universe. Then Bear and I went to Montauk for a nice relaxing vacation with hiking every morning and even time at a spa! And in the middle of this vacation on a beautiful Waking Dunes hike, Bear proposed with a lovely ring, which I thought was just perfect for me. It has an art deco design on the sides. So I got to be a bit giddy and girly.

( 2011 A Year in Review in a list )

Today itself was a low key day. While Bear set up his laptop in my room and was doing some work I read Karen Armstrong’s article “Homo religiosus” which I will teach next semester. I do love her stuff but she is dense and complex. The students will certainly be challenged.

I did go outside to go to the bank with Bear but otherwise I stayed home and read.

Of course, in the evening I had to get ready for our holiday celebration. It was just my parents and Bear but since it is New Year, we all dressed up – with yellow and orange themes since next year is the year of the Dragon. So I’m wearing an orange shirt I got for my birthday, a black skirt and stockings with make-up and everything. I look more like a tiger. Mama made a delicious table of holiday food including a chicken and we took our annual holiday photos with the tree.

I hope 2012 will be a good year. That is the best part about the New Year celebration a hope of a new beginning.

( Some pictures from the last week: )

It is another Thursday and another day of avoiding papers, no matter how much I know I need to do them.

“Community” – I will so miss it. From random cat to Batman shadow to Abed’s inept climbing to the kicking the soccer ball foosball style – this show so makes me laugh.

I was grading Exam 2 all morning and all the way until my 1pm lecture. But I got them done. Somehow Mondays are most productive grading wise.

My made-up on the spot law lecture based around Manor roll records went over great – they did need a little review after all the lecturing. And it allowed me to really clarify the concepts of different jurisdictions. And in my Global class I gave them an In-Class Exercise and gave my Africa lecture. So productive day at least.

Hunger Games trailer came out today. It looks so perfect just like the book is reproduced on screen exactly how I saw it in my head. I can’t wait.

( House S8E6 )

( HIMYM )

NBC benches “Community” in January for a bit – No, NBC, that is your best written show! I really hope they get one more year.

It is again one of those day where I can’t bring myself to grade. Migraine is not helping. At least I put together my lesson plan for tomorrow on how to have a good thesis.

Wow, the new TV resolution is amazing. Even before I turned it to HD. I was watching “Bones” on it and it was like I was in the room with the characters. Which was not always a great thing as the corpse was also in a very high resolution and a little gloss.

I’m still mad at “Bones” for denying an audience significant moments but at least we don’t have to deal with annoying will they/won’t they anymore. I like it better this way.

“Community” continues to rock. I want that jingle as a song.

Grading day. Folder review is tomorrow and I need to grade Paper 2 and some midterms. I have 23 papers to go but the most I can do a day is 15 to 16. Grading to folder review day is weird because I grade for a few hours and I need to break with something. So I would pause for a small break. But it is exhausting. I’m pretty much either grading or resting my brain and I do this all day from 7am until after midnight knowing I need to get up at 6am and grade some more.

I did finish one class by 1:30pm, so I had time to each lunch and take a nice walk to the library. Mama came with me most of the way before she took a store detour so I didn’t get to be in head as much as I like. But it was a nice walk even as the weather was drizzly and I got a little wet from the October weather.

I don’t know how I can even finish Sharon Kay Penman’s “Lionheart,” the book I picked up in the library, in two weeks. And I can’t renew, I don’t think, since it is a new book. It is almost 600 pages and as much as I know I will get into it, I just don’t have that much time. I will probably have to request later. And as I looked at the end, this is only half of the story of Richard I – another Richard book coming called “King’s Ransom”. Yay. So this book is until the end of the Third Crusade. I love her historical fictions. She really creates the world and history provides all the crazy characters and events. I just love the historical accuracy of it all. I finally understood the whole Becket and Henry II nuances after I read her “Time and Change,” she just makes my history alive. (I study medieval England and I get to teach it again from the law perspective in November in my law class. I can’t wait.)

As I read the first chapter of the Penman book I noticed that writing fanfic in the past year is changing the way I read. As I started “Lionheart,” I was automatically paying attention to writing techniques like when point of view was shifting or exposition. I don’t know if it is good or bad.

Tonight’s “Community” made me laugh so hard. It was definitely one of the best episodes. I love the multiple timelines. The fifth timeline – the “darkest” one made me laugh and laugh way into the commercial. Loved how ‘real’ timeline ended up – the less Jeff, the happier they are. Really clever tonight, show.