No escape

I've been dreaming about teaching all week. It's horrible. My days are already consumed with teaching, my thoughts filled with school even when I'm not there. My final refuge--sleep--has now been taken over.

I'm so sick of teaching. Stupid students. Stupid classroom management.

Recipe Review: Tortilla Soup

In all fairness, this is hardly a new recipe. Although this is the first time I have made it, I am intimately familiar with the product. This is my step-mom's tortilla soup recipe. Much beloved by my whole family, this recipe was probably the single biggest factor in my step-mom gaining the love of my sister and me (well, that and being a really nice person). In any case, I'm so glad that I can make this soup myself now, since she's been tinkering with the recipe of late and I'm not so fond of the changes.

Tortilla Soup
Serves 3

• 2 cans (14.5 oz) Chicken broth
• 1 can (14.5 oz) Mexican stewed tomatoes--blended
• 4-5 Sprigs cilantro
• 3 Flour tortillas (burrito size)
• 1 Ripe avocado
• 1 Tomato
• 2-3 oz Pepper jack or cheddar cheese (I just used a small pile of each)
• 1 sauteed chicken breast, cut into small pieces (or more, if you like. I used tenders because they cook faster)
• 1/4 tsp. Pepper flakes
• Ground pepper
• Garlic powder
• Chili powder (if desired)
  

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F

2. Cut flour tortillas into 1/4 in. strips using pizza cutter, place on a bake sheet in a single layer, bake until crisp (13 minutes or so).

3. Blend stewed tomatoes with rinsed cilantro, pepper flakes, ground pepper, garlic powder, and chili powder (if looking for additional spice).

4. Add to saucepan with chicken broth, heat through.

5. Cut avocado in half, remove seed, run knife through avocado lengthwise, then crosswise to dice.

6. Rinse and dice tomato.

7. Grate cheese.

To serve:
Place avocado, tomato, cheese, and baked tortilla strips in individual bowls, ladle soup over ingredients.

I was very surprised at how quickly this recipe came together. If I had some pre-cooked chicken around, this would be a 15 minute meal.

Never was a Friday so needed

This was Thursday night's M.Ed. class. My concentration level was just about zero. To be fair, I had just given a test which nearly ended in student revolt. My students were just blown away by the questions, all of which were based out of what we had studied. Some even were refusing to describe the pictures of mitotic phases. Pictures! How could they not even try? That whole evening I wrestled with the idea of curving the test, eventually deciding that I wouldn't. They should know this stuff, so a bad grade is just a punishment for those who weren't paying attention in class (which many weren't). Since it looks like a couple of people in today's class will be getting As on the test, I feel quite justified.

Today, as I was driving to work, I suddenly noticed that the scenery seemed... unfamiliar. When I reached a sign for the next exit, I realized that I had missed my turn. It took me three minutes to get back to the freeway I was supposed to have taken. Apparently I was really out of it.

The Project

I like food. I like to cook. I am, however, fairly lazy. I have so many cookbooks, but have hardly made any of the recipes from them. I've got hundreds of recipes in folders in my computer that have merely been looked over. This summer, I went through most of my cookbooks and marked the recipes that sounded good, but still I haven't tried them out.

I am therefore giving myself a task - The Project.

My plan is to try one recipe a week. All of my classes have yet to start, so I don't know how much energy I will have in the coming months, but if I even wound up trying one new recipe a month it would be an improvement. As means of keeping myself on track (and giving all my fellow lazy cooks out there the vicarious thrill of trying a new recipe), I will be posting the results of my experiments as well as the recipe, should you find yourself needing to try the dish.

This evening's recipe? Stir-Fried Chicken and Asian Greens.

The results? Bland. Not horrible, but nothing to recommend actually making it again. As R put it, "I can't believe someone liked this enough to write it down."

Ah well. Friday's tortilla soup should be better.

I just don't get spectator sports

My roommate has people over for the football game, which means I'm currently avoiding that end of the house. There is a fair amount of noise emanating from a couple of people. Me? I don't get the appeal. There was a giant shouting match in my advisory over the Chargers and the Patriots on Friday (the two teams playing at the moment, for those not familiar with American football), so apparently some of my students are rather big fans. That, or they're just noisy and argumentative.