Chicken Tortilla Soup with Avocado Relish

 Just a week later than I intended...here's the recipe for Chicken Tortilla Soup with Avocado Relish. 'Tis the season; it's the last week of the semester and grades are due today! Enough about me. Let's get to this hearty winter soup.

Ingredients

For the soup...
1/2 white onion, roughly chopped
6 peeled garlic cloves
1 jalapeno, seeded and roughly chopped
1 can (14.5 oz) fire roasted crushed tomatoes (make sure they're fire roasted!)
8 cups chicken stock (I like organic)
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon ancho chile powder
2 chicken breasts (optional)
10 corn tortillas

For the avocado relish...
2 avocados
1 small tomato, finely chopped
2/3 cup chopped onion (about 1/2 of the remaining onion from the soup)
1 serrano chile, seeded and finely chopped
2 Tablespoons fresh cilantro
2 teaspoons lime juice (1 lime)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Directions


For the soup...

• Place tortillas on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray and broil until brown and crispy. (Note: The crispier they are, the easier they will be to break apart.) I broil on low since I don't have the best attention span while cooking. 
• Meanwhile, brown jalapeno, onion, and garlic in a little olive oil until blistered and slightly charred. 

• Put veggies in a food processor with roasted tomatoes and puree until smooth.

• Move to soup pot, add chicken stock, and bring to a boil with chicken breasts, if using. 
• Once boiling reduce to a simmer and simmer uncovered for 30-45 minutes. 
• Remove chicken breasts, if using, at 30 minutes and shred or cube. At this point, I add the tortillas (which I have crumbled), the oregano, and the chicken, once shredded/cubed. 

While the soup is simmering, make the avocado relish...

• Chop above ingredients and combine with lime juice, salt, and pepper. Set aside until soup is ready.

For a hungry couple, this soup should last through three dinners. Enjoy!

Week 18

I'll be on week 19 tomorrow (the halfway point for me, since I am carrying twins!), but the week 18 update is better late than never.

This has been a week of serious growth. I can feel my skin stretching, so I am just slathering on the oil and lotion in the hopes that I won't get too many stretch marks. The increased pressure on my tummy has been bizarre; not painful, and not too uncomfortable, just odd. Bending down is starting to feel like a full body workout. But I am trying to enjoy it all now, because I know in the not too distant future, it's gonna get worse! 

Oh, and in bittersweet news, my sweet tooth came back just in time for the holidays and three weeks off work. Surely, this can only promote stomach stretching...

Otherwise, I am feeling good. My energy is up, I am not nauseous any more, and the headaches are stable - not better or worse. I'll take it! 

Weekly Roundup

While I haven't been doing much blogging of late, I have been documenting my ever-expanding belly for the last 17 weeks. And since I just finished reading The Odyssey with my students - and what is pregnancy if not one crazy journey? - I thought I would share my preggo odyssey thus far.

Oh how I miss you, high waisted jeans! I'll be back. I swear!

 
Please remember that there are two in there, which explains why I am looking way further along than my 17 weeks.

Oh, and can you tell when we starting taking photos with the new camera? If you guessed 16 weeks, ding ding ding, you're correct!

Stay tuned for my tortilla soup recipe later in the week.

Getting Our Ducks In a Row: Part 1

Months ago, I posted about our quest to find the perfect digital single lens reflex (DSLR) camera. After buying trade magazines, watching way too many video tutorials, and searching endless websites, we decided that the Canon Rebel T3i was the one for us.

It's a solid entry level DSLR camera that should help us get our feet wet with taking digital pictures in manual settings, but not so basic that we will outgrow it in a year or two. (Hey, I did take a photography class in high school - granted, before digital cameras were around - but f/stops and apertures are not new terms to me. It's gotta be like riding a bike, right?)

We also loved that the Canon T3i can take video because, let's be honest, I am not gonna haul both a giant camera and video camera around. This way, if and when the twins start doing something adorable that needs to be captured on film for all eternity, I can switch from camera to movie mode in with the click of the dial.

So we were settled. All we had to do was wait two months for my birthday to roll around...

And when it finally did two months ago, I was paralyzed by indecision. Now lenses had entered the picture, and I wasn't sure if we should just buy the camera with the stock lens and upgrade as needed, or get a bundle that included a better lens.

Just to add to my camera crisis, our local Costco began selling DSLRs. They had bundles with the model above the T3i, the Canon 60D, and an older Rebel model, the T2i, for what seemed like great deals. (Check them out here and here.) And it's Costco, so we liked the idea that if we weren't happy, we could always return the camera within 90 days. We almost bought the 60D - Ryan was sold - but it just felt like too much camera for us, and it was more than I wanted to spend on a camera.

So another month went by sans camera, until, over the weekend, we finally pulled the trigger clicked the "buy" button!

We bought the T3i from Amazon with the stock lens. We figured we could get to know the camera before deciding which len(s) we wanted in the future. The camera and a high speed data card are coming this week, and I am thrilled! Maybe now I can finally take some decent photos of our smooth walls and my ever-growing baby bump.

So step one in getting ready for babies has been checked off the list. Now we just have to tackle the rest...

Any DSLR pros out there? What camera do you use? Any thoughts on the T3i? Any tips for this DSLR newbie (gear or setting advice)?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Pinterest via Nico Lvy via Etsy TPartyDes

Happy Thanksgiving all!

If you're traveling, safe travels. And if you're staying the day at home, may you be surrounded by loved ones and lots of great food.

In the spirit of the holiday, here's what I am thankful for this year (in no particular order):

• Getting to meet our new (and first) nephew today! 
• Spending the holiday with family we don't see enough of (due to the pesky states between California and Colorado).
• My family that I won't be spending Thanksgiving with. But that's what Christmas is for!
• Getting to *finally* eat some turkey! Oh, how I've missed you, turkey sandwiches. 
• The two twins in my belly. Enough said.
• Ryan, who will be such a great dad and who has been super patient with me these past four months.
• Amazing friends. I wish we lived closer.
• The pooches. I might never get exercise or stop to appreciate the little things if it were not for them.
• My job, which keeps me on my toes in all senses of the world, and finances...
• Our home. We have arrived.

The Rug That Started It All

I'm back as promised with the rug that is serving as our inspiration for twins' nursery.

It's the Dream Menagerie Rug from Anthropologie. It's 5' round, which should be perfect to ground the middle of the room that the nursery will be in. At pretty much $300.00 plus shipping, it's not cheap, but it's 100% wool, so we don't have to worry about the twins (eventually) crawling all over synthetic materials and the chemicals used to process them.

I love the bright, vibrant colors and the giraffe peeking its long neck up from the foliage on the left. Ryan is as smitten as a man can be about a rug with the bright orange lion (his favorite color and animal), which I think is also a sweet homage to our lion hunting pups. (Just to clarify, we don't use them to hunt lions. That's what Rhodesian Ridgebacks were bred for.)

The wide color palette means that we can take the room in any direction, and this rug should be suitable for either gender - or both! - once we find out what we're having.

And Anthro has it shown in a shared children's room, so it's nice to see that the rug can grow with the room and the kiddos.

So that's all we have figured out for now. Once we know the genders, I will shift into overdrive putting the palette and the other design elements in place. Only a month to go...

Happy day before Thanksgiving!

Nursery for One

When we first decided to start trying, I created this nursery inspiration board that I was quite settled upon, even after we found out we were pregnant. I even went so far as to order the sheets (see below for source info). But once we found out we were having twins, this just didn't feel right anymore. Perhaps because we decided to switch which room the nursery would be in, or perhaps because it just did not feel vibrant enough for the colorful life that would certainly be ours in a matter of months. But I still love elements of it, which will certainly make their way into our twins' nursery, and so I thought I would share.

 

Crib - Ouef Sparrow Crib in Grey

Bedding - Menagerie by Dwell Studio for Target

Rug - West Elm Jaipur Printed Dhurrie

Plush Giraffe - Fiesta Toys via Amazon

Wall Decals - Elly Elephant and and Gerry Giraffe

Smile Pillow - Honey Pie Designs

Elephant Nightlight - Jonathan Adler

World Pouf - Urban Outfitters

Alphabet Art - Ink Tree Press

Grow Sign - Oh Dier

I'll be back to share the new rug that is our jumping off point for the new direction we are headed with the twins' nursery. Until then, what are your thoughts? Are giraffes and elephants too tired these days? Are themed nurseries too predictable? Or do you have a soft spot for long necks and pachyderms like we do?