Chipotle

It never fails. Chipotle (the Mexican Grill, not the smoked jalapeños in adobo sauce) enters my mind and I am compelled to go get a burrito. It's just so danged good! My ideal burrito is rice, pinto beans, black beans, chicken, mild salsa (pico de gallo), corn salsa, lettuce, cheese, and sour cream.

So...what food cravings are you powerless to resist?

And speaking of chipotle (the jalapeño), I once made a very very delicious chipotle glaze that went over chicken breasts. It was like a barbecue sauce with spice. I should make that again sometime. Come September my culinary prowess will exert itself more strongly as I will have a REAL kitchen at my disposal. September 16th just can't get here soon enough!

I think perhaps thinking about food takes up too much of my time. Crap. And I don't even watch Food Network that much anymore!

Satisfied.

I think the most satisfying quick dinner for me is pasta with a little butter, freshly grated parmesan cheese, and freshly ground black pepper. Delish.

I have nothing else to post these days. Classes are good but monotonous. Summer is winding down (oh dear...).

French Onion Soup

French onion soup has been one of my favorite soups for a very long time. I try to order it at every restaurant that has it, and it's one of those soups that can taste vastly different from one place to another. I think my favorite is at Red Robin.

Today I was craving some, and instead of driving all the way to RR, I decided I'd give it another try making it at home. I used this recipe from Rachel Ray since she usually promises to be pretty easy. I've made french onion soup before for my family (with a different recipe), and while it turned out good, it was very sweet. And the batch I made tonight is good, but sweet. I need to try it again with a different onion--I used Vidalia this time which I know are sweet. I made a substitution of white wine (Chardonnay) for the dry Sherry, so that may be a way to improve it as well.

Anyone have a good recipe for french onion soup? Or any idea how to make it less...sweet?

Deutsch.

I took 3 years of German in high school. It's been 5 years since then and even then I didn't learn it/wasn't taught it very well. Strangely enough, I often find myself thinking little phrases in German instead of English. I wonder what would have happened if I took a more intensive course in German. Would I always think in fluent German?

Puppies and Kitties and Birds, oh my!

Tonight I went to a pet store with two of my future roommates. The pet store we went to is awesome. They have lots of puppies, and they'll let you hold and play them for as long as you'd like. We were there for probably an hour, hour and a half. First we played with a Corgi, who preferred to lick and nibble me the most. Then a Chihuahua who decided to show us how s/he could pee and poo on the floor. In the play pen next to us, a woman and her daughter had out two cats, a Siamese and an Egyptian Mau cat. The Mau decided that when the woman put him down he would go ahead and leap out of the play pen. I caught him and snuggled him, which calmed him down. The Siamese was so scared that s/he just curled up in my arms and was hiding. They also had very little kittens who I just loved to DEATH. Oh man. I wish I could have brought three home! Meanwhile, my friends were playing with a very shy Chihuahua and a Puggle. The Puggle tried to eat my necklace and climbed me like a tree. It was fun :-)


The last pets I played with were the birds. I tried to pick up a finch (they didn't like that) and picked up the cockatoos (cockatiels?). I picked up a rainbow lorkikeet and he became my best friend. He would not get off of me. Every time I'd put him down near the perch, he climb back up my arm to my shoulder. He also liked to squawk constantly at me, especially in my ear. His best trick was when he tried to be my lip ring by holding onto my lip with his beak. Too funny.

In short, the pet store is a great place to just play with animals and forget the crap in the outside world for awhile.

How was your 4th of July?

I saw real fireworks for the first time in ages this year, albeit July 3rd. I was a little sad because Columbus' fireworks were not as...spectacular as I would have expected for a big city's fireworks. We were going to go another set of firework last night, but since there were tornado watches in the area, I wasn't too keen on it. Instead a group of us went to see Transformers. I was pleasantly surprised because I liked it! The graphics were pretty awesome. Of course, now I'm going to name my first child Optimus Prime. Haha!

Classes are going well. I actually enjoy my microbiology lab, perhaps because we usually work in groups of 4 and my group of 4 gets along pretty well. Psychology is pretty awesome too; tomorrow is our first quiz. Next week I have 2 midterms, which of course I'm not looking forward to.

This weekend is Sam's graduation party so I'm heading home for that. It'll be nice to be home, I hope. And well, I like eating party food :-)