Two soups and a rant (not in that order)

I got a lot of stuff done this weekend. :D

Unfortunately, none of it was writing. :(

At least I'm out of that slump from last week. I stopped feeling the urge to constantly play D2 and managed to write some roleplay posts on Thursday and Friday. I partially updated my game today. Got one more post to go in there, though at the moment I have no clue what to write.

In other news, the one roleplaying game finally got deleted last night in a periodic admin sweep through inactive games. The game that I poured my heart and soul into for a good 5 months. Where ten players and the GM wrote 70-100 posts per day, every day, for over two of those months. Most of those within the same 3 hours of each day. The plot was that good, the pace was frenetic, and we were obsessed - we all showed every single night. The whole run lasted about 11 months, though it was really not going very well in the last 5. The GM was psychotic. Whenever there was the slightest, perfectly solvable problem, she threatened to leave the game. We (mostly I) were then obligated to beg her to stay and keep running it. Things would then continue with the problems unsolved and ignored and buried.

Problems don't go away if you ignore and bury them. They just fester and grow, until one day they explode and destroy everything.

In October, 3 months into things, the GM expanded the game to twice its size - and the whole thing lost focus. After the holiday season, half the players didn't come back. And it was not the same half that got signed in during the expansion. Things kind of limped along until May before we had our final OOC blowout and the GM left for good. I refused to grovel for her to stay again, and so she never came back. The game didn't end - it just stopped. We were so close to the conclusion, too. If I could've kept my opinions to myself for another month, we would've gotten there.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. That game, along with my Stargate game, were part of an era. And last night I saw its end. I never really got the closure that I would've wanted, but it's okay now. I'm okay now. I think I understand how it happened and I have no regrets.

Intermission time.

Tomato Soup with Nothing Green In It

Two family-sized cans of Campbell's tomato soup
Three cans water
half a head of cabbage
three carrots
about 3 cups worth of diced red potatoes
2 cups corn (I use frozen)
rice
hot dogs, sliced

Heat up the soup with water. (Don't let it come to too fast of a boil.) Rice, then carrots, then potatoes, then corn, then cabbage, then hotdogs. Use all of those or whichever you happen to feel like at the time. Makes about a gallon.

***

... caveats. It makes about a gallon assuming you don't let it boil over and make a mess all over the stove. Doh. :( Apparently tomato soup expands a lot when heated. A lot more than broth. It's been so long since I've made this one that I kind of forgot the details of how it goes.

Also, for some reason this soup tends to throw me into anaphylactic shock. I guess there must be a lot more sugar in it than how it tastes. That's why I add so many veggies to it - to try and counter that effect. And I try not to eat just this soup with nothing else accompanying it.

I made it earlier today, as one might guess - including the spillover. For some reason I've had a craving for it for the past week. I still have some of my spinach soup left from two weeks ago, and a whole lot of field greens salad that I was dumb enough to buy at Sam's Club even though I knew I wouldn't be able to eat it fast enough before it rotted. I guess that was just too much greenery. ;) Although I did end up putting some celery in. I keep that in the same container as my carrots, and it's so old that it's molding. So I figured I'd better use what was salvageable while I still could.

And speaking of the spinach soup...

Spinach Soup

One big bag of fresh spinach (yeah, you could buy a bunch and wash it yourself but I'm lazy, I buy the salad bags :p)(do not use frozen or canned! those are disgusting.)

One gallon pork broth (Penzey's sells it as a paste) or veggie broth if pork broth is unavailable

A bundle of bean thread (looks like translucent noodles, found in the Asian section of the grocery store)

Firm or extra-firm tofu (I buy Nasoya extra-firm)

Sliced (fresh) mushrooms

Saute the mushrooms and tofu in some corn oil. When it looks all sauteed, add the broth and bring to a boil. Stir. Put in the bean thread. Stir some more. When it boils again, add the spinach. As soon as it's all added and stirred in, turn off the heat.

***

This is one of those soups that doesn't really take much sitting time. It's ready to eat right away. I add some black pepper and sesame oil to it. It's based on something my mother made when I was a kid, and is probably the primary reason why I've never understood why people hate spinach so much. (That, along with another very basic stir-fried spinach dish where you basically just 'steam' it in the oil with some garlic.) I've always loved spinach.

Anyway, so where was I?

So I had a productive weekend overall. Did a whole lot of household chores - big run of groceries, laundry, dishes, soup-making, etc. But by the time I was doing everything else on my list, the weekend was over. :(

I was hoping to write the last three chapters of the bus story, but if I want to do it all in one shot, then I need an entire uninterrupted day. I didn't have that this weekend. Maybe next weekend? *sighs*