Finished Chicken & Rice

I am very proud of my cooking skills now a days. I still must admit that I am more hesitant to cook than to bake but I must eat therefore I must cook, haha. As much as I would love to eat brownies and ice cream and cookies for my meals, I do crave the other foods that count as actual meals, haha.



I first shredded up the chicken. Just with forks, nothing fancy.



I then started my rice. Just a cup of rice, and 2 cups of water.



Look, it's already starting to look like actual soup with the shredded chicken in it! =) I'm cooking!!



Here's my bubbling rice! It cooked a lot faster than I thought. I was going to give it the 15 minutes but it took just 10 minutes for it to cook. I boiled it then simmered it just like the directions said but I guess my oven/stove is hotter than I realize.



Here's the soup all finished! Look how soup like it looks! hahaha



Now here's me trying to be a photographer. I'm not so great at it, but it does the trick.



I think I did a pretty good job for never making soup before. I should have added more salt to the entire soup but I just did to my bowl. I'm proud of myself =) and surprisingly Luna stayed napping the entire time I cooked chicken and everything. That was a shocker. Cats in the past of ours have plopped themselves onto the counter and had at the turkey during Thanksgiving. Guess Luna just goes nuts for crinkling papers and yarn. My food is safe, haha.

Until next time!

<3 Carly

Is it Summer?

Really though? Is it summer? This odd weather has got me all frazzled. Which by the way, frazzled is one of my new favorite terms. It explains the confusion, but heart ache without confessing that you are truly mind boggled.

For my so called summer thus far, I have been studying. I really thought I would be knitting more than I am and with the weather it seems like the perfect pass-time but alas I cannot. I must study and study until there is no more brain power. You can't see how many times I spell things wrong here, but if you could I can't really spell anymore with all this brain power used towards studying and the backspace bar and I are getting really close I must admit, haha.

Do you wanna hear the greatest news though?

I FINISHED THE TEXTBOOK!

I am now reviewing and want to bake lots of cookies to celebrate or just eat the dough because that's what cookie dough is for right?

Anyway, between my studying and bathroom breaks, I check out a few blogs I must admit. And reading all of them lately has made me miss mine more and more and I love that I still have mine from high school, but it also saddens me that I always have a down time where I don't blog and it throughly upsets me. Not as much as how long it took me to read a 500 page text book but still it upsets me.

Let's backtrack to this 500 page text book just a bit. I'm usually a quick doer, get it done kind of gal. This 500 page text put me in my place though. My college years of cramming and absorbing in class were not useful because I had to read the whole thing. Even when others told me not to. I kept seeing "READ THE ENTIRE THING" over and over that I could not ignore. But now I must recall those 25 chapters all the time. Good thing I have lots of flash-cards! =)

But there is also a little distracting cutie in my apartment now. Her name is Luna and she is a 12 week old kitten! She is adorable and a little nutty at times(I call her a Lun, hehe). She tried to eat my homework multiple times after I had let her snuggle with me as I study, she'd wake up to eat and nom on my notebook. I feed her just fine, she is just a teething kitten. She likes to chew on hangers, windows, wires, anything hard and able to get her teeth on, haha.

I put her up there but she cries a lot to be put on my shelves.

But this is her favorite spot. I didn't always have the blanket on the chair but now she loves it once I put it there (yes this chair looks like the ones from Market Square).

She's a cutie and I just cannot get enough of her. Once I got this dinning room table, I could stay home and study(which didn't stop me too much before), I hate leaving her. She's still just a baby!

Back to my studying though, I passed the Certificate and then the big State Exam! I am just relaxing and knitting and let me tell you I love not studying right now, but at the same time, it's weird not to have to study now.

So after all my knitting, I got to making some soup for dinner tonight. It already smells good! =)

I defrosted a chicken breast the other day to specifically make chicken and rice soup. Now I've always been a little addicted to my Pinterest, but I've been doing really well and actually making the things I pin lately.

Except I didn't pick any recipe from Pinterest and I only merely used Pioneer Woman's as a guide.

I cut up the rest of the carrots I had in my fridge, a lot of celery and an onion(don't tell handsome, because if he eats the soup he won't if there are onions!).

I also bought some bay leaves at the grocery store because I am becoming more passionate about cooking and it seemed like the time I should get some bay leaves. =)

When I was cutting the celery and carrots and onion I realized how great it is to have a garbage bowl or something close to you when you are peeling carrots and cutting gross ends off. I took advantage of the container being in the sink.

Now for the broth, I used the chicken broth I bought at Trader Joe's a few weeks ago and added some water so I could cover the chicken.

Now all these ingredients are just just simmering after I boiled the chicken and broth together (although it said to boil everything together, I was still chopping when I got to that part, haha). Guess I just wasn't completely ready...

Anyway, stay tuned to hear about the final bowl! I'll be sure to update this and let you know how it tastes =)

<3 Carly