A Meeting of the Passions

You know when two things you really love come together in one heavenly moment? I had one of those moments this morning. The sheer brilliance of Handel's Messiah and a Sonic banana milkshake. At the same time. There are no words. I almost had an out-of-body experience right there in my car.

It helped make up for the unfortunately eventful morning I had. About which I will say nothing else.

I made the yummiest soup the other night. Not healthy, but yummy. And easy. It's the kind of dish that impresses people because they think you worked hard on it when you really didn't. On the next really cold day, try this:

Tomato-Tortellini Soup

2 14-oz. cans reduced-sodium chicken broth, or if you're veggie like me, vegetable broth

1 9-oz. package refrigerated tortellini (again, since I'm veggie, I used the cheese kind. You might prefer the chicken kind.)

1/2 an 8-oz. tub cream cheese spread with chive and onion

1 10 3/4- or 11-oz. condensed tomato or tomato bisque soup (you have a choice here, but use the bisque! It increases this recipe's yumminess like you wouldn't believe)

Snipped fresh chives (optional) (I didn't have these on hand, so I didn't use them. But they add color to the soup and would get you points on plating, if you were on Iron Chef America.)

In a medium saucepan, bring broth to boiling. Add tortellini, reduce heat. Simmer, uncovered, for five minutes. In a bowl whisk 1/3 cup of the hot broth into the cream cheese spread until smooth. Return all to saucepan along with tomato soup; heat through. Sprinkle with chives before serving. Makes 4 servings.

Ewwww...

I subscribe to Better Homes & Gardens. It's got great articles, photos and recipes. Plus I figure if I keep a copy of it and a couple of Williams-Sonoma catalogs on the coffee table, I will appear to have better taste than I actually do. Anyway, I never see anything in the magazine that scares me. That is until I opened up the latest issue and found this:



It's a gelatin salad containing celery, green onions, cucumbers and vinegar. Some people who reviewed the recipe online said not to judge it by the way it looks because it really is good. But I think I'll keep my veggies separate from my Jell-o, thank you.


Scary recipes aside, here are some things we have been doing this month. Here's Jenna performing at the children's program at the Bible study I go to every week...

... and here's Julia outside the Clinton Presidential Library last weekend.

We also visited Little Rock's River Market that day...

...and spent the afternoon hanging out downtown. Isn't downtown Little Rock cute?

I love seeing the father of my children carry around their girly stuff. Jenna is relatively new to venturing out in big-girl panties, so we have to carry a clean-up kit and complete change of clothes everywhere we go.

Then Tuesday we headed down to Houston for Thanksgiving. We gathered with my brother Brian at my parents' house and met my aunt and uncle from Beaumont for dinner on Thursday. On Saturday, we drove through Baytown on our way home and met Julia's best Baytown friends, Natalie and Meagan, for lunch.

The countdowns are on -- Hannah Montana this Saturday and Meagan and her mom coming to visit exactly one month after that!