Sopa mexicana

Sopa mexicana
Originally uploaded by riblet.

I had a lot of beans left over from the beginning of the week so I decided to make a little soup from them. Here's the recipe for what I threw together. It tasted great! If I ordered this in a restaurant, I would have been so stoked on it.

Sopa Mexicana

1 tbs olive oil
1/2 cup diced yellow onion
1 cup sliced carrots
1 cup diced red bell pepper
2 cloves pressed garlic
1 bay leaf
1 tbs Mexican oregano (or regular)
2 tsp chili powder
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes + their liquid (I used Muir Glen)
1 cup cooked or canned pinto beans (leave out the liquid if you use canned beans)
1/2 cup cooked quinoa (I haven't tried subbing dry quinoa, but it would probably work just as well)
4 or 5 cups vegetable broth
1/2 cup bean broth (use it if you cooked your own pinto beans, if not - add that 5th cup of broth)
Chopped cilantro
Diced avocado
Salt to taste

In a soup pot, warm oil over medium heat. Add onion, carrots, bell peppers and a small pinch of salt. Sautee around for a couple of minutes and add in the bay leaf and oregano. When the veggies are softened, add in the garlic and sautee for one minute more. Add in the tomatoes and their liquids, stir and pour in broth, beans, quinoa, chili powder and bean cooking liquid if you have it. Bring to a gentle boil, stirring occasionally, then cover, turn down heat to low and simmer for about 20 minutes or so. If you simmer for a little longer, say 30 minutes, the flavors are really going to come together beautifully. Taste for salt and adjust if necessary. Remove bay leaf and serve with fresh diced avocado and chopped cilantro on top.

Makes about 8 cups of soup, which is around 5 servings. Leon told me that this was a super low calorie soup. It is also vegan, but you could put a cheese on it if you wanted. Pumpkin seeds would go good on this, too. Or chips. You can basically do whatever you want, I'm not going to hardline you on it. No pressure, okay?

Been busy

Wow, we've been so busy. Here's a little catch up. Remember when I told you we went to the newly remodeled California Academy of Sciences? Well, it was amazing! And you can get coupons for admission on the brochures for the place. The brochures are found at most any touristy information center, I found mine at the train museum. That's your frugal tip for the day. Anyway, Ira loved the aquarium and all the exhibits inside. The rain forest dome was pretty awesome, as you can tell from Ira's face in the picture above. At one point he touched a little halogen light in an elevator and got a nasty blister. Poor kid was the most upset I think I've ever seen him. Valuable lesson learned for Ira: don't touch a light no matter how cool it looks. Valuable lesson for us: on shoulders is not a great place for a kid to be in an elevator. I got freaked out a few times in the rain forest dome because of the loose butterflies. Then I happened upon a chameleon's feeding time. Guess what was on the menu for Mr. Chameleon? TOMATO WORMS. It's going to be at least 10 minutes before I can uncurl my toes after typing that.



Then we went camping by Doran Beach in Bodega Bay. This has got to be the best camping for kids. Just steps away from the beach, good wildlife watching and even some boats to see.



Then Amy and Frank came to visit. We went to see a really fun Pizzas show at the Fun Castle. You can't tell in this picture, but Amy and Frank were sore from head to toe because they had just climbed Half Dome in Yosemite. Ouchy!



And last weekend we went to a really fun and casual (sort of fake) wedding at the river. Everything was going great until someone got busted by park rangers for drinking beer. Boo! Even Ira was bummed about it, saying "Get out of here, rangers! I put spider webs on you! Pshooo!"

My kid, what a character. Do you know what he said to us the other day? Of course not, let me tell you. "I drive fast. A police not a catch me. No a give me a ticket!" Oh brother.

It's a good thing you're cute

Whatever he dishes out, I can take it. I'm afraid I've been blogging and facebook status-ing about too many negative things. The honest truth is that most of this parenting thing is smooth sailing. It's when the waters get rough that it feels like it never ends. Just check out this cute smile. He was having an excellent day at the aquarium. More photos coming later on, as well as an awesome story about Ira's bad dream.

Ira says...

Hey, it's not so bad around here. We had a rough week a while back when Ira's hitting phase resurfaced, but I think things are better now. Check out this picture of us in outer space! Ira knows how to build really cool rockets out of Legos and so we decided to check out the moon for a while.

Here's some funny things he's told me lately.

Ira: What does a computer say, mama?
Me: A computer can say whatever we want it to say.
Ira: A computer says, "Beep! I take yours chairs!"

So, to Ira, computers are basically jerks.
----
Ira: My scab gone, mama!
Me: It is? Where did it go?
Ira: He flew away, a find his scab dad.

Scab dad, eww.
----
Us: Did you have a bad dream last night?
Ira: Yeah....it's dark. My dream, it's dark. There's a fly standing on my bed. Yeah....I so scared!

This one was more about the tone and hand gestures. I wish we had a video camera.
------
Ira: Where, where rocket, rocket (singing).
Me: What's that song?
Ira: Liam sing that song.
Me: Liam sings "where, where rocket, rocket?"
Ira: Yeah...
Me: Oh! Does Liam sing "we will, we will rock you, rock you?"
Ira: (smiles huge) YEAH!

The neighbor kid is teaching my son Queen songs!

We're busy this week, planning for a packed weekend. It should be fun and lots of pictures to show for it.