New Things & Tuesday Potluck

Half way through the work week yippee!! First things first, I finished reading A Stolen Life on Monday and started my third book of 2012: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. It's hard to describe A Stolen Life as "really great" because it's about such a terrible story. That being said I really admire Jaycee Dugard for telling her story and being so honest and open. Truly a book that makes you think. I'm about a third through The Immortal Life and am already loving it, though I'm surprised the book has so many great reviews. I'd think you need to be a bit of a history/science geek (I am) to thoroughly enjoy this. Maybe it will take a different turn?

This week so far has been a full of new things. For Christmas I got a crock pot and a Wii (equipped with Zumba Fitness/Dance Party) and tried them both out on Monday!Zumba Fitness is HIGHLY recommended. Even though I only did about a 30 minute work out but I already know I'm going to get a lot of use out of it! I recognized most of the songs from my zumba classes and the moves were pretty typical. I can tell this is going to come in handy as the temperature starts creeping down. It may even be the thing that gets me up early to exercise before work...we will see!

The crock pot I received is a 3-quart pot from Target. My parents also gave me a great cookbook to go along with it and that's where my first crock pot experimentation came from! On Monday night I made Chicken Tortilla Soup -- it was a simple recipe and only took 3 hours to cook so I figured it was a good one to try out first. The end product made about 4 servings.
Chicken Tortilla Soup - Serves 4 (adapted from Best Loved Slow Cooker Recipes)

Ingredients:
1 lb of boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2 15 oz cans of diced tomatoes
1 4 oz can of mild chopped green chiles
2 garlic cloves, diced
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 can of chicken broth - divided
1 tsp of cumin
s & p to taste

All I did was throw everything into the pot and left it on high for 3 hours. Eventually I removed the chicken, shredded it and then threw it back into the pot. I decided to add in a can of black beans for a bit more staying power. I ate the soup for lunch yesterday and it was DELISH! I topped it with some shredded mexican cheese and dug in:
Last night we hosted a pot luck at my apartment. My friends and I try to do this about once a month and it's a great way to get everyone together. I made my favorite pasta salad:

We also had portabella mushroom pizzas, pretzel bites, avocado and bean salad, cheese and crackers, stuffed peppers and blueberry pound cake muffins.Everything was so awesome and I'm always so impressed with what my friends come up with! Tonight I'm heading out to dinner with TKO to a surprise restauarant weeee!! I love going out to dinner and surprises, so a surprise dinner just makes me go crazy. All this food talk made me hungry for lunch. Adios!