Sick Day soup

 

Last week it seems everyone passed around some kind of bug at my work, seriously gross I know. I wanted to wear Joshua's sweatpants and watch Center Stage all day, but I also really wanted a delicious chicken noodle soup. So I bought one of those hearty Campbell's chicken noodles soups, heat it up, and could barely stand it. So then and there I set out to make a noodle soup that actually made my mouth and body feel the warm steamy savory way that I wanted it to. This veggie noodle soup turned out the be really delicious! I ended up doubling it and we kept reheating some for dinner, Joshua already asked to make it again.

Veggie Noodle Soup:
serves 4 full bowls, 6 as a side

2 tbs butter
3 carrots; diced
3 celery stalks; diced
1/2 onion; diced
2 shallots; diced
4 cups vegetable broth
2 cups water
1/8 tsp cayenne
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp rosemary
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
4-6 oz pasta (I used angel hair pasta)
6 oz baked tofu; diced (I love Trader Joe's savory baked tofu)
2 cups kale; roughly chopped

1   in a large pot melt the butter and sauté the carrots, celery, onion and shallots for 3-5 minutes
2   the mix in the broth, water and spices, bring to a boil
3   put the pasta, tofu, and kale into the pot and simmer until the pasta is cooked
4   ladle into large bowls and top with your desired addition of salt and pepper

(we had fun eating it pho style with chopsticks and soup spoons)

If only tacos were everynight

 

So the Elrod's love tacos. We walk the line between in love & obsessed with them. Mostly we eat them twice a week, unless we have pizza that week than we may only have them once. After climbing the other night some guy in the gym mentioned tacos and Joshua and I immediately looked at each other "great now everyone in the gym can't stop thinking about tacos" Possibly not true, but than we don't want to be friends with anyone who didn't hear that and crave tacos.

So Friday night we dared to even - make our own tacos!

Delicata Squash Tacos:

2 delicate squash
olive oil
salt
pinch of cayenne pepper
corn tortillas
1 can black beans; drained and rinsed
2 red tomatoes; diced
1 red onion; diced
1 jalapeno; minced
1 clove garlic; minced
1 lime
cilantro
baby radishes; sliced thinly
few ounces queso fresco (or cheese of your choice)

1   preheat oven to 400 degrees F, cut each squash in half and scoop out seeds
2   slice squash into crescent shaped pieces about 1/2" thick
3   line squash on baking sheet and drizzle on olive oil and sprinkle on a little salt and cayenne
4   bake for 10 minutes then flip the squash pieces over and bake for another 7-10 minutes, they should be easily pierced with a fork
5   while the squash is roasting, in a small bowl, mix together tomatoes, onion, jalapeno, and garlic
6   cut lime in half and squeeze one half into a small bowl, add lime juice, to taste, to the salsa
7   cut the other half of the lime into wedges
8   serve corn tortilla with a few tbs of salsa, pieces of roasted squash, top with cilantro, 2 radish slices, and some queso freso on top and with a lime on the side!

Fancy looking tacos with little effort! Yum!

The "R" Party

 

 

 

Our friend's roommate works at the neon company that redid Rainier's big R last year. This year they made a giant replica of their winter jubilee can to be totted across Seattle and they threw a party to celebrate. There were cupcakes with R's and trucker hats, dancing bottles that were stuck at weird angles and demonstrations of glass bending into straws for people. It was quite the shindig.

 

 

Plus it was a Thursday night with free beer and a hotdog stand and light up hula hoops, we had a great time. You know everyone else had a great time because the night ended with an old guy playing a giant harmonica and forcing everyone to join in while he crooned some weird song. My favorite instrument was the pretzel jug being shaken!

Biggest Bonfire

 

 

To kick off our United Way fundraising week at work we have a big bonfire at one of our co-worker's farms. He has a big horse, 2 baby horses, a goat, 2 dogs, and a kitty. Everyone else filled the place in with their dogs and kids and we had a big chili cookoff with tons of cornbread, fried chicken, and cookies to fill in.

 

 

We lucked out and the weather was on our side and we had a really great time! The lighting of the big bonfire was my favorite because I truly love groups of people ganged about a bonfire, life feels right!

 

Plus I got to wear overalls and rubber boots at the same time! Yeah!

Cincy Trip Wedding Again!!

 

The second wedding we went to in Cincinnati was to our college friends wedding. The reception was in Longworth Hall which has beautiful exposed brick and they decked it all out with lights and pretty things. We had a whole table full of college friends (we even cheated and pulled up an extra chair) We had an amazing time that night! We danced so much I had feet full of blisters the next day. The dance music mix was the groom's baby and it was THE BEST music mix in the whole world. Such a treat to get to spend the whole evening with all these people and get in lots of good dance floor time with the new Mr. & Mrs.

One of the ladies even brought her new little baby and he danced the whole night with us (asleep) it was awesome! Also since the groom is Vietnamese for a portion of the night they had a glittery outfit change which we all loved! How fun!

 

 

 

Earlier that day we got to have breakfast downtown with some lovely friends that were in town for the wedding. We had tasty food and coffee and then wandered down to the market in Washington Park. If you haven't been it's amazing! So many hand made goods and food truck, beer carts and Music Hall as a backdrop. It was really fun to finally get to go see it all! Well Cincy until next time!!!

 

Cincy Trip Family Time!

 

In between weddings we spent a bunch of time with family & friends. All of my siblings were in the same place for one night only so we went back to Rhinegeist, sadly some loud event was happening but we made it work. We played corn hole, complained about the noise like old people, and ran into a few old Cincy friends. The Agin clan is now at 8 members! I love it!

 

This was by far our most relaxed trip home. The weather held back some options and made for great Harry Potter movie marathons with the family. We made pizzas one night, visited an old neighbor, checked out UC's updated campus stuff, but we did take one little side trip-

We drove up to Fort Wayne, Indiana to visit with some awesome people! They were some of our best friends in Seattle and they are currently residing in Michigan. They're so awesome that when they found out we were flying to Cincy they asked us to meet up! We both drove halfway to have lunch for the afternoon! It was such a blessing to see them again, they're keepers!

And then of course we fit in some time for some of our besties (Josh will hate that I used that word) Katy and I loaded up on some Harry Potter marathon action and potato soup, I think the guys just drank beer and made steaks :)

Cincy Trip Wedding Time!

Last week we flew home to Cincinnati to catch a few weddings. (we got lucky one was the day we landed and the other was the next weekend so we could go to both!) It was so lovely to get a chance to hang out with people without the Christmas craziness thrown into the mix.


First up we went to Josh's high school friend David's wedding. The ceremony was outside, in October, on a super blustery day but after a little whining (on my part) of being cold we got to watch them get married by another of Josh's friends and it was all very sweet.

 

A lot of Josh's friends (okay they're mine too but I met them through him and so I will still call them that so I can keep people all straight and in categories that make sense in my mind) came in for the wedding too! We finally got to meet on of their sons for the first time and a few we hadn't seen since they'd gotten married. The wedding was very nice but we also secretly mostly loved that it brought all these great people into one place where they had no choice but to party with us all night!

And there was photo booth, like a real one! The older I get the more exciting I find them (we did it 3 times)

The next day we got to continue in the visiting and met up with the George's at Rhinegeist . It's a fabulous new brewery in Cincinnati hosted in a giant warehouse with art, corn hole, ping pong, and beer. It was a Sunday afternoon so it felt all sunny and open inside and not too many people. We got to play a game of corn hole, the boys were not very good us ladies rocked it! Their amazing little guy Riah was running around, he also loved the corn hole sets and eventually learned to throw them into the hole! Also he now talks and he said my name and I'm pretty sure it made my day!

Then we wandered over to Mad Tree Brewing for some more good Cincy beer before meeting up with some other friends for sushi. Time is always to short when we hang out the them!