Last week, I made tortellini soup. I made it this week as well. I have been using a dry, cheese-filled tortellini pasta which I purchase at Costco. I like it JUST FINE on a plate with simple Alfredo or marinara sauce, however the husband is not a big fan of it...until I put in in a soup! I also like the soup, so it is a WIN-WIN.
I had originally planned to do a post on the easiness of this dish by superimposing a bullet-point list of the ingredients on top of the image:
Broth
Lentils
Carrots
Onions
Spinach
Parmesan
Spices
My intent was to exclude any measurements because all I ever do when preparing this soup is EYEBALL it...or I use whatever amount or FORM of any ingredient which I find lying around. For example, I either use a can or two of chicken broth, or mix chicken bouillon with water (TO TASTE). I might use powdered Parmesan or shredded, or drop the Parmesan all together and use Pecorino~Romano. I prefer fresh minced garlic, however occasionally use fresh crushed or garlic powder to save time. I actually forgot the garlic the last two times I prepared this soup, and it was just fine! Last week, I tried chopped carrots. This weekend, a couple bags of single-serving baby carrots (I just bought another box of these from Costco so was trying to use up my old ones).
Sometimes I add a diced tomato and/or tomato paste - especially if I am trying to use up the last bit of leftover ingredients from a past meal. Here are ways to "mix-it-up" with your soups:
diced tomato
tomato paste/sauce
chili oil or red pepper flakes
sausage chunks!
corn
kale
celery
peas
saute garlic/onions/tomato in olive oil before adding broth
bay leaves!
cloves
swap out cheeses
THE POINT BEING: On a weeknight, (or any night for that matter?!) who needs measurements? As long as it's quick, healthy, tastes good, and utilizes what you have on hand, it's good!! Just remember, *to taste* is the key here. If you are the type of cook who relies on measurements, when you try cooking without your measuring cups (saves on dish! yay!!!) you should always taste as you go. Don't over-salt-and-pepper your meal!
SO, MOVING ON...I thought I would be all cute and write my ingredients over image. I know NOTHING about editing software, so I use paint. Plus, this is sometimes my "lunch hour gig" at work, and Microsoft Paint is all we have. We cannot bring our home computers to work, so no point in buying a fancy program for my laptop to bring with me.
See below for my FIRST attempt, I took a .JPG image, and saved as a .JPG image. But the writing blurred!!!
On my next attempt, I tried saving as a .GIF, but that degraded the image quality - it looks like it was printed in a cheap newspaper (please click on the image to get the full cheapened effect...):
Then I tried saving in .TIF and .PNG, and I think got the desired effect FOR NOW. (By the way, the color difference in text across these images is intentional, I was experimenting with these shades of pink).
I
still notice a little bit of blurring around the word "YUM", but these
two formats keep the quality degradation to a minimum. Now I just need
to find some time in my life to find out what sort of editing programs
all the other food/fashion/fun bloggers are using to incorporate text on
top of their images.
Well, that's it for now, I hope you enjoyed my approach to easy cooking and comical view of a poorly-tech-savvy blogger's attempt to edit her images.
Until next time, XOXO.
I had originally planned to do a post on the easiness of this dish by superimposing a bullet-point list of the ingredients on top of the image:
Broth
Lentils
Carrots
Onions
Spinach
Parmesan
Spices
My intent was to exclude any measurements because all I ever do when preparing this soup is EYEBALL it...or I use whatever amount or FORM of any ingredient which I find lying around. For example, I either use a can or two of chicken broth, or mix chicken bouillon with water (TO TASTE). I might use powdered Parmesan or shredded, or drop the Parmesan all together and use Pecorino~Romano. I prefer fresh minced garlic, however occasionally use fresh crushed or garlic powder to save time. I actually forgot the garlic the last two times I prepared this soup, and it was just fine! Last week, I tried chopped carrots. This weekend, a couple bags of single-serving baby carrots (I just bought another box of these from Costco so was trying to use up my old ones).
Sometimes I add a diced tomato and/or tomato paste - especially if I am trying to use up the last bit of leftover ingredients from a past meal. Here are ways to "mix-it-up" with your soups:
diced tomato
tomato paste/sauce
chili oil or red pepper flakes
sausage chunks!
corn
kale
celery
peas
saute garlic/onions/tomato in olive oil before adding broth
bay leaves!
cloves
swap out cheeses
THE POINT BEING: On a weeknight, (or any night for that matter?!) who needs measurements? As long as it's quick, healthy, tastes good, and utilizes what you have on hand, it's good!! Just remember, *to taste* is the key here. If you are the type of cook who relies on measurements, when you try cooking without your measuring cups (saves on dish! yay!!!) you should always taste as you go. Don't over-salt-and-pepper your meal!
SO, MOVING ON...I thought I would be all cute and write my ingredients over image. I know NOTHING about editing software, so I use paint. Plus, this is sometimes my "lunch hour gig" at work, and Microsoft Paint is all we have. We cannot bring our home computers to work, so no point in buying a fancy program for my laptop to bring with me.
See below for my FIRST attempt, I took a .JPG image, and saved as a .JPG image. But the writing blurred!!!
.TIF file:
.PNG file:
Well, that's it for now, I hope you enjoyed my approach to easy cooking and comical view of a poorly-tech-savvy blogger's attempt to edit her images.
Until next time, XOXO.
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