Slow-cooker Vegetarian Tortilla soup

My weekend was great! It included a midnight showing of Wayne's World at one of my favorite places in Chicago, the Music Box, seeing an amazing local punk band, the Lawrence Arms, and having a bunch of my friends over for a friendly round of quarters.

But after the heart-breaking football game on Sunday, I'm very glad me and Tom had prepared a delicious soup to rekindle my cold, angry heart. While the Steeler's game left a horrible taste in my mouth, this stuff turned out to be QUITE delicious.

While preparing the shopping list for the weekend, the boyfriend insisted on another crock-pot experiment. After perusing the web and Pinterest for vegetarian slow-cooker recipes, we hadn't found anything too interesting. However, a recipe for Chicken Tortilla soup popped up. Being raised in a meat-and-potatoes household, I had never even discovered tortilla soup until after I had ceased with the meat, so we decided to try improvising a Caitlin-friendly recipe, taking some direction from recipes online, but also adding our own ingredients as we saw fit. This is what we ended up with:

2 cans vegetable broth
1 package fake chicken
1 can corn
1 can black beans
1 onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 can enchilada sauce
1 can crushed tomatoes
2-3 cloves garlic minced
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1 bay leaf (i'm not really familiar with what this adds to a dish, but since one of the recipes called for it and I had it on my spice rack shelf, I threw it in)

After cooking up the fake chicken in a pan with some oil to add cripsyness, we combined all of these ingredients in a crock-pot. At the last minute, Tom decided to also throw in a can of chili beans that we had lying around (and I'm very glad he did).

 We let that simmer on low for about 6 1/2 hours. When we returned from watching the travesty Steelers game, I preheated the oven to 350, cut 6 corn tortillas in to strips and baked them for about 8 minutes.

 When they were crispy enough, we doled out the soup, and topped it with the tortilla strips and a handful of shredded cheese.

The soup ended up being great! The fake chicken was juicy, the beans offered a nice, fuller texture and the after-taste was awesome. I can't handle spicy things well, but if you are a heat-lover, adding chile peppers to the mix would have offered a nice kick. I can not wait to eat the leftovers for lunch!!

Photos from my travels

I have been very lucky throughout my life to visit some amazing places all around the world. An Alaskan Cruise, a month in Australia, backpacking through Europe; I've seen more in my 26 years than most do in their whole lives.

My parents passed on the traveling bug to me when I was very young, taking us all around the US, from New Hampshire, to Texas, to Nevada. When I was 10 they took us on our first overseas trip to Ireland, and I just haven't been the same since. Any chance I have to see a new place, I run with it. Since the invention of digital cameras, I've been better able to document these travels, thank Heavens! Now, I do NOT claim to be any sort of skilled photographer, but here are some of my favorite pictures I've taken while traveling around the world the past few years.

I like this picture because it's from a less-touristy part of Venice (that isn't saying much, as the island is only so big), and I like how they left the extremely old bridge up and just added a new one). This is also my first successful picture with a longer exposure.

Venice, Italy. Taken from on top of the bell tower in Piazza San Marco

Brugge, Belgium. As picturesque as you'd imagine.

Prague, Czech Republic. This city proved to be pretty magical and this particular picture was taken from a monastery on top of the mountain that had the absolute best view of the city. There was also so amazing home-brewed beer up there :)

Oktoberfest, Munich, Germany. In addition to the overflowing beer halls and AMAZING smelling food, at night Oktoberfest becomes a beautiful display of lights, rides and fun. I took this picture on top of one of those big slides you see at fairs. It was the only ride I was brave enough to take on.

Interlaken, Switzerland. I can't believe I was lucky enough to go here. Most of my Europe trip was comprised of making last-minute decisions, then hopping on a train. A friend and I had a few days to kill, so we decided to go to Interlaken in order to get a good view of the Alps. Well, this town was absolutely breathtaking and we ended up staying an extra two days because we couldn't get enough of the fresh air and the site of Jungfraujoch, that mountain peak you see in the background.

Cinque Terre, Italy. If you have a friend who has been to at least one of the towns along the Cinque Terre coast, then you already know how beautiful it is. The hike was a little difficult, but more than worth it.

Florence, Italy. One of my favorite cities in the world. This picture was taking from atop the Duomo, which required climbing a total of 884 stairs.

The ruins of Pompeii with Mt. Vesuvius in the background.

Rome, Italy/Vatican City

Roman Ruins. I just like the lighting in this one!

Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain. The most amazing piece of architecture I've ever laid eyes on. This picture isn't that special, but the place sure is!

Train Station, Madrid, Spain. The reason I like this picture so much is because of the bleakness. I know that's odd, but after spending a few days traveling alone, I was wandering the train station while waiting for my overnight train to Paris when I snapped this. It's just always pleased me.

Salzburg, Austria. This picture was taken from the Mirabell Palace, with a view of Salzburg Castle in the background. This town city was wonderful. Small, beautiful and interesting. Everything you could hope to find in a travel destination!

Lake Bled, Slovenia. After taking a day trip to see Lake Bled from Ljubljana, I really wish we would've stayed in this town. That island holds the Pilgrimage Church of the Assumption of Mary, and behind it you can see the medieval castle that sits on a hill above the lake. My eyes hurt by the end of the day because I had been trying to absorb as much beauty as possible.

 The next two photos are from Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia. This is the oldest national park in Eastern Europe and is famous for its waterfalls and cascades. I hiked this park by myself in mid-November when there was very few other visitors. I've never felt more peaceful than being surrounded by this quiet nature. I can't wait to go back in summertime when it looks very different.

This is from a small church outside of Dunedin, New Zealand.

Wellington, New Zealand. On of my favorite cities. It's beautiful and cultured (the Lord of the Rings filming location tour didn't hurt either).

Sydney, Australia. This is probably my favorite picture I've ever taken. I took this from a boat in Syndey Harbor after taking a whale watching cruise (where I may or may not have gotten VERY sea sick).

Uluru, Australia. I don't think I need to say much about this place. It's amazing and secluded. Oh, and I climbed that big rock there.

Kata Tjuta, Australia. This rock formation is very close to Uluru but looks completely different. I like this photo because you can really see how flat the land is around these two sacred aborigine sites. I was also lucky enough to snap this picture from a helicopter!

Isle of the Dead, Port Arthur, Tasmania. You'll have to read up on Port Arthur's extremely interesting history as Australia's first penal colony. The Isle of the Dead is a small piece of land where they buried every inmate and prison employee. It's a lot of bodies for a small island. Creepy, yet fascinating!

Mt Wellington, Hobart, Tasmania. I love this picture with the old brewery and the mountain in the background. Cascade is Australia's oldest brewery and makes some delicious beer.

I couldn't conclude this post without a Stone Henge picture. They're the coolest rocks I ever did see, and they're just a very nice day trip from London.

Unfortunately, I'm not in possession of my Alaskan photos, or this post would be MUCH longer. Maybe if you're lucky I'll be able to post those at a later date.

Where is your favorite place that you've visited?

Mexican Casserole Love

So I guess now is the time to admit the love affair I've been having for the past four years...with burritos. Growing up in Pittsburgh did not provide a lot of opportunities for genuine Mexican food. My main exposure was through Taco Bell and Chi Chi's, which I loved, of course, but when I moved to Chicago and found a burrito joint on every corner, my passion for this tortilla-rolled delicacy really took flight. I could eat one almost any day of the year, however I restrict myself to about once every other week, due to that whole "extremely fattening" thing. 2 Amigos is my current favorite joint, and at a whole 4 doors down from my boyfriend's place, has become quite the temptress.

Anyhow, after seeing a recipe for Mexican Casserole, I knew I had to make my own version. All the recipes I perused called for different ingredients, so I just combined all of my favorites in to this absolutely delicious (albeit, not very healthy) dish.

The oven was preheated to 350 degrees. In a pan I heated together a can of refried beans, half a package of fake ground beef, 2 cloves garlic, minced, half a green pepper, chopped, 1/2 an onion, chopped, and about half a can of corn. I didn't sautee anything, just heated up so the beans were softer and everything was nicely mixed together. Doesn't that mixture look just plain scrumptious?

 In a casserole dish I placed a large flour tortilla on the bottom, then layered about half the bean dip on it and topped it off with a healthy dose of shredded cheddar cheese.

 Then came another tortilla, topped by the rest of the bean mix. Instead of cheese on top of this part, I sprinkled a decent serving of roasted red pepper seasoning, then topped the whole casserole off with another tortilla and a LOT of shredded cheddar.

It baked in the oven for about 40 minutes, and we just kept an eye on it until it looked like this. Then consumed the crap out of it (with a bunch of sour cream, of course)!

This ended up being the perfect meal for a night in with a movie. I'll probably make this in a bigger casserole dish for my next party. What are your favorite burrito ingredients that you'd include in your own Mexican casserole?

Dang, now I want a burrito...

Vegetarian Chicken Cheese Soup

As I am in my early days of actually enjoying cooking, I just discovered how wonderful Crockpots are! After making amazing vegetarian chili, I searched around for some more good crock recipes. Since cheese is one of my major food groups, this vegetable cheese soup recipe sounded delish, but changes improvements were necessary. So two weekends ago (posting on time during the holidays is just impossible), my household hunkered down  to make some cheese soup and record some songs.

As an Irish gal, I scoffed at the recipe calling for only a cup of potatoes, and cut up 3 medium sized spuds. It's difficult to have too much onion, so I included a 1 large onion (chopped). I then chopped up the cup of carrots and gathered the ingredients together for crockpot time!

It was then time to combine the 2 cans of vegetable broth, 1 can of creamed corn, potatoes, carrots, onions, 1 tsp celery seed, and a little bit of pepper. After careful consideration (see: I had a "duh!" momement), I added two cloves of minced garlic to the mix. 

The original recipe instructs us to cook this mixture on low for 8 hours, however I majorly overslept had a very busy morning, so I turned it up to high for 4.5 hours, after which time I added a 15oz jar of processed cheese sauce and about a cup of shredded cheddar.

My love of fake meat is unwavering and the meat-eating men in my life tend to prefer when I make things that include this delicious faux-animal carcass, so it only made sense to add fake chicken strips to the mix, after letting the cheese-saturated soup cook for about 45 minutes. Next time I make this, I'll probably fry the chicken strips first, to give them a little bit of crispyness. Also at this time, I was feeling that the soup looked quite runny, so I ended up adding about a cup of flour, which did help slightly. If you have any thoughts on how to not make it so watery, please let me know!

After letting all of that cook for a final hour, it was time to enjoy! So me and three boys put the music aside, grabbed a beer and turned on America's Funniest Home Videos on Netflix (trust me, it's funnier than you remember). They gave me RAVE reviews and I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it myself. I will definitely be making this again. See a summary of the ingredients below, and make this soul-warming dish ASAP!

2 cans vegetable broth

3 medium sized potatoes

About 1 cup chopped carrots

1 onion, chopped

1 can creamed corn

1 tsp celery seed

2 cloves garlic (minced)

Pepper - as much as you desire (I tend to use less pepper than others)

1 jar processed cheese (can be found in the chip aisle)

1 cup shredded cheddar (or whatever cheese you prefer)

1 package fake chicken strips (I used chicken-less strips from Trader Joe's but I also love Morning Star Farm's fake chicken strips)

If you have any suggestions on how to make this recipe better for the next time around, please leave a comment!

Hey Girl,

My first really big celebrity crush was Justin Timberlake. I mean, he's got it all: looks, dance moves, the voice, sense of humor... but the past few years I've been haunted by another movie star dream boat: RYAN GOSLING. Now I know that it's very trendy to like him right now, but I've been jonesing for him for years. SO, this blog offers me the perfect opportunity to make my own Hey Girl series. This is how Ryan Gossling would talk in my ideal world:

Gnocchi, spinach and pine nuts: Easy and AWESOME

A friend of mine recently told me about this recipe that I immediately wanted to try. I love a well-done Gnocchi dish, but I also hate complicated recipes, so this one was perfect for me. I fed it to my (male) roommate and boyfriend and they both told me it was the best thing I’ve ever made, and they’ve tried my pierogi pizza (stay tuned…).

I promise to start including pictures, but for now, here are the deets:

Prep/cook time: about 15 minutes

Serves: 2 

1 16 oz pkg gnocchi
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp pine nuts
2 minced garlic cloves (or if you date someone like my boyfriend, way more)
1 10 oz pkg spinach (or however little/much you’d like, but more is better because it really melts down)
salt and pepper to season
1/4 c (or more if you’re me) shredded Parm cheese (Motz would probably work well here too)

cook the gnocchi til it floats, drain and set aside
throw butter, garlic and pine nuts in a skillet/wok, cook about 3 to 4 minutes over medium heat until the nuts are lightly browned, add gnocchi and spinach about 1-2 minutes, then add salt and pepper and cheese. 

gnocchi should brown a little on the outside and the cheese should melt and spinach should wilt.

Now, I doubled this recipe because there were three of us eating. It still turned out good, but because of the amount of gnocchi, it was hard to put in all the spinach, as the wok was just too full. If I ever double the ingredients again, I’ll probably cook the first half separately, as to make sure everything gets coated well and I get in my desired amount of spinach.

To Start Off

I have a lot of quirks and experiences that would make for a worthy blog, however I had the idea to start this one because I am finally starting to enjoy cooking and creating my own clothes. Call me narcissistic, but I think it would be fun to share my successes!

But fortunately for you (or maybe not), I know my big mouth won’t stop at what I cooked for dinner last night. I have traveled many places around the world, have been in two different thankless jobs for the past three years and, until recently, have led a very Sex and City-esque life in Chicago. I have a feelings this blog will be filled with food, fashion, opinions and stories, which doesn’t sound half bad.