I love the rain. .....But

WHY must all the worms come out when it's raining?!? 


I was in class tonight (prof let us out like 20 minutes late AGAIN). I got 108% on the test I was terrified I failed! That made me pretty excited. I'm presuming he used a curve...


And then on the way out, I step into the courtyard and look down at the ground. Worms. Everywhere. [This is my worst phobia--the sight of worms leads to panic, and nausea to the point where I have been known to vomit like a person possessed by demons]. I must have looked like a damsel in distress, because a very nice boy from my class came over and offered me the use of his umbrella, and then asked if I was ok. What a cutie: he held the umbrella over my head and used his phone to check the ground for worms all the way to my car.


I got home to find most of Little Sis's cookie cake on the kitchen counter. I had hoped they would eat it all. It nearly defeated me: I had a couple tiny pieces and then had to run away. Now I'm sitting here foaming at the mouth and using every single ounce of my willpower to keep away from the kitchen.

... My cat just launched an attack on the aquarium at the top of my blog. She seemed perturbed by the fact that she could not reach the fish. 


Vegetable soup was a success. And so as promised, here is the recipe:


You will need:
- Lots of veggies!! Seasonal/Autumn veg is best, since this is a wintertime sort of soup. It's lovely as a starter at Thanksgiving and Christmas! Today I used 1 Spanish onion, 4 cups of broccoli, 3 cups of carrots, 1 butternut squash, and 2 large parsnips. The 2 parsnips turned out to be a mistake--I would recommend using maybe half of a big one, and then instead using more broccoli and squash. Or you can replace the parsnips with potato (always the gold ones). It tasted good (OBVIOUSLY) when I made it, but the parsnip flavour was very strong. Technically you can use whatever vegetables you want, but you must begin with an onion. I also would not recommend using celery--bits of string always seem to get left in the soup even after the blender.


- I used 1 1/2 tbsp whipped butter (105 cals). You can make the whole recipe vegan-friendly if you replace this with something non-dairy. 


- 4 cups vegetable broth (I used Swanson, 60 cals). I think I actually should have used more, as the soup came out quite thick, but you can always add more if you notice it's not soupy enough. You could use chicken broth if you want, but I think that takes away from the flavour.


- Salt, pepper, thyme, sage, and celery seed. You can play around with any herbs and spices, but I really recommend using the celery seed. 


To make it:
- Chop up all your veggies. Make sure to try and separate/group them according to how long they usually take to cook. The onions should be kept separate from everything.

- Using a really big pot,  cook the onions in the butter and a little salt and pepper until they are transparent. 

Cook them on a medium - low heat, so they cook slowly and don't start turning golden-brown. Once they're transparent, add half of the broth, and the first batch of veggies (in my case, the squash and parsnips) and bring it to a boil. 








- Simmer for 10 - 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Then add the rest of the broth and the rest of the veggies, and bring it to a boil again. Let it simmer another 10 - 15 minutes, until everything is cooked. You want the vegetables soft enough that you can easily squash them with a fork. Ad the celery seed, sage, and thyme (or whatever you want to use) when everything is almost cooked. 

- Once it's cooked enough, take the pot off the stove and let it cool down for a while.  Then get your potato masher out and mash it all up to make the blender's job a bit easier.


- Let it cool down for like 20 minutes after mashing, and then put the whole mess into the blender. Puree it!

In total, I made about 9 cups of the soup, at roughly 155 calories per cup. If you want an extra garnish to make it look pretty, when you're serving it you can add a drizzle of light cream (30 cals per tbsp), and then you mix that into the soup as you're eating it. I would have posted a photo of how that looks, but my soup turned out a bit too thick (I had no broth left), so I couldn't make it look photogenic enough.

I invented this recipe all by my self. :D It's pretty basic and others have come up with it before I did, but I'm still proud of myself.