chilled cucumber soup and wisdom teeth

light and refreshing chilled cucumber soup

yesterday, made a soup based on the recipe on epicurious.com's chilled cucumber dill and smoked salmon soup. i cut the recipe in half and uh.. i'm too ghetto for dill and smoked salmon, so i left that out. 1 tbls butter, 1 small onion diced, 2 large cucumbers seeded and sliced lengthwise then into .5 in slices, 1 small russet potato peeled diced, 1.5 cans low sodium chicken stock, .5 cup nonfat plain yogurt. in a big heavy soup pot melted butter med heat, added onions ~3 mins to soften, added potatoes and cucumbers. cooked ~2 mins more, stirring about, then added the chicken stock. simmered covered ~25 mins, cooled a bit, then put in two batches into a blender on puree well. put back into pot, when cool, mixed with the yogurt (the recipe called for sour cream or creme fraiche, but this is just as good, and good for ya). chill in the fridge until cold then put a dollop or little swirls of more yogurt on the top of the individual bowls when ready to serve. the yogurt and the potato and butter flavor made the soup taste really creamy and rich tasting, even though i used no more than a tbls butter for the whole thing. it's good for ya even though it doesn't taste that way. from one of the taste testers, "it looks and tastes restuarant quality". the cake i made today didn't fare so well.

i'm so happy. today, i ate my first solid food. the swelling went down, and i can talk again! today, i did not lie around in pain in front of the tv half asleep. it was someone's birthday, so made a cake for him. one of my first attempts at making a cake... it didn't come out TOO bad. i won't be hurt if you end up throwing it away =) so much fun though-- just chilling with a close friend or two. it's all in the quality, and not quantity. these people are the good ones. this is as close as i'll ever get to be to being a glutton. you know little kids who eat too much and have so much fun that they start to feel sick? yup, haha.. went a bit overboard. probably shouldn't lie down now or i might force up an unpleasant combo of oreo milkshake biscuit gravy antibiotic chocolate cake goodness. ah.. finally, full. goodbye jello and congee. determined to gain back all the weight i lost this summer. in muscle! forced vacation leave isn't so bad after all. funny how the idea of "summer!" never seems to show up until you're not looking for it. !good times.