Halloween Hangover

After finishing last night's post I went out with the boys and got seriously crunked up. At 10:30 Krusty and I realized we were pretty gone and started talking about heading home, but neither of us had driven and we had no intention of walking home so we ended staying for the infamous "one more drink." Next thing I know it's 2am and Juan is stumbling around the parking lot of Chumley's yelling into his cell phone for his girlfriend to come pick us up. As a result, I spent most of the morning staring at the screen of my PC, nursing a hangover and pretending to work.

One thing I did get done today was make some chicken noodle soup and I did it the old fashioned way from scratch. I threw a meaty chicken carcass into a pot of water with some salt, pepper, onions, and carrots and let that cook for two hours. Then I strained out the chicken and vegetables and returned the newly made stock to the big pot I was just using. After the chicken cooled I picked all the meat off the carcass, chopped it up, and put that into the stock along with the carrots that I used to make the stock. I threw in a one pound bag of egg noodles, added enough water to cover everything, let it all cook for about twenty minutes and boom, HillRat's soon to be world famous chicken noodle soup.

I have to say, this soup is delicious (I'm having another bowl right now). Adding the noodles before everything is boiling releases a little extra starch and gives the soup a really nice creamy texture. I really do love my own cooking.

But something occurred to me while I was making this soup. There seems to be a lot of talk about how American families eat so poorly; they go out to eat too much and eat too many prepared and convenience foods when they do eat at home. I'm lucky enough to work from home, so I have the luxury of being able to watch over a boiling pot of deliciousness and go through the necessary steps to make a big batch of homemade soup. I have to wonder how many families have the desire and skill to cook healthy and nutritious meals at home, but simply lack the time to do so?

Halloween

Today was the first time that BabyRat has been trick or treating. The last couple of years, we've simply gone to "Hilloween" over at Eastern Market and called it a night.

We went over the in-laws for a quick dinner of burgers and headed out with a whole posse (in-laws, me, wife, a cousin, and a brother-in-law) at about 6pm. We live in a very generous neighborhood where folks were giving out name brand candy by the handful. After about an hour BabyRat was getting tired and having trouble carrying her massive bag of candy, so we headed home.

One thing I have to mention was the parent WHO WERE DRIVING THEIR LAZY ASS KIDS AROUND!! I couldn't fucking believe it, maybe it was the parent who were lazy, but seriously WTF? If it had been ridiculously cold or something, I guess I could see it. But driving kids around to mooch free candy is just whack.