Eye of the Tiger (Shrimp)

So here I am, working, cooking, trying to get my crap in order, and now, amidst pie and cupcake contests- blam- I'm a part of the RedEye Virtual Kitchen Cook-off, judged by Rick Bayless, no less. I'm feeling pretty good about it, and it totally helps that I'm in the 2nd round, so I get a little preview before it's my turn to whip up the culinary masterpieces that I do. :)

I'll be posting pictures and thoughts here for the challenge, along with viral spamming of facebook and twitter and youtube, should I decide to post a video. Follow all the action by checking @redeyemunchtime on twitter or chicagonow.com/blogs/redeye/munch-time/ Long enough for you?

ALSO, next Tuesday, whomever wants to come over and eat my delicious meal after all my documenting is totally welcome...provided you do some social networking about it :) Muhahahaha...evil laugh...but seriously, help a sister out.

Break Room Surprise

I am the pantry MacGyver. Seriously. I could walk into an abandoned apartment with only a can or two of left-for-dead ingredients (pickled beets and such) and some random condiments rattling around a fridge and whip you up something delightfully nuanced and tasty. My latest scavenge was lunch at work while in the midst of a terrible cold. From our break room I managed to create a yummy soup, perfect for colds or lighter meals.

Here’s what I did: First I took a chicken bouillon cube and added hot water; less than the cup required – I wanted it stronger. I popped a can of V8 and poured 2/3 of it into the broth. We have a giant cylinder of instant oatmeal near the coffee machine, so I sprinkled about 2-3 tablespoons of that into the mix, too. This starts a tangent, but the options for savory oatmeal just recently invaded my mind-space and I am fixated on all of the possibilities that it includes for me. Imagine a door –opened-, just next to that of dried fruits and honeys and bananas, cinnamon and cream, with all (or even more!) of the equally intense and satisfying oatmealiness of it’s sweet counterpart.

But back to the soup. So I’ve mixed Chicken bouillon, V8, and oatmeal at this point. Next to add are the crushed pepper flakes lingering on our snack counter. Then salt and pepper, to taste, of course. The final ingredients are raw asparagus and carrot stalks that I brought in the day before but didn’t eat. I chopped those up, put them in the soup, and put my constantly-improving Tupperware into the microwave to just heat the veggies through. The result was an ever-satisfying thin soup with a more complex taste that you would imagine.