Tortilla Soup

A couple of weeks ago, my husband burned out our blender making smoothies. He's a really good smoothie maker, it's just that our blender was older and not really made for heavy-duty smoothie making. So, after much research and going over our budget, we invested in a BlendTec. We are now converts. It also came with this really good tortilla soup recipe.

Ingredients:
2 C warm water
3 small tomatoes
1 medium carrot
1" slice red pepper
1/4 avocado
1/4 medium onion
2 1"x1/2" chunks pepper jack cheese
2 sprigs fresh cilantro
1 tsp herb seasoning
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 can black beans
1/2 can whole kernel corn
1/2 large can chunk chicken breast
Handful of tortilla chips

Add all ingredients to your blender/BlendTec jar in the order listed except the beans, corn, chips, and chicken.

Cover with lid. Blend on high (for the BlendTec, select "Soup"). Add chips, beans, and corn and pulse several times. Add chicken.

If you want it warmer, put in medium sauce pan and heat over medium heat.

Serve with tortilla chips.

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Reuchel Sandwiches

A classic Reuben sandwich has corned beef, sauerkraut, Thousand Island dressing, Swiss cheese, and rye bread. A Rachel has a lot of the same stuff, except it's made with pastrami and coleslaw. For the Reuchel, we used pastrami, Thousand Island dressing, Jarlsburg (a type of Swiss cheese), sauerkraut, and white bread. We also threw on some red onion, just for good measure.

Ingredients:
4 slices of bread
Generous amounts of Jarlsburg cheese
Heaps of sauerkraut
Scads of sliced red onion
Mounds of pastrami (about 3 large slices per sandwich)
Thousand Island dressing

To assemble the sandwiches, spread both slices of bread with dressing. Place the other ingredients on the sandwich in any order you want.

Butter the outsides the sandwich. Grill until golden brown.

Eat hot.

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Quiche Lorraine

This is a recipe I got from my mom. She's been making it as long as I can remember. It's pretty simple and very delicious. Even though this is usually a breakfast dish, it's great any time. If you use my pie crust recipe, you can make two quiches (double the recipe below).

This one is for Audrey.

Ingredients
4 slices of thick-cut bacon, cooked and crumbled
1/2 lb Swiss cheese, grated
4 eggs
1 C cream
1/2 C milk
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1 unbaked pie crust

Mix all ingredients together.

Pour into pie shell.

Bake 35-40 minutes at 375F on lower shelf in oven. Center should still be slightly wiggly.

(For the one pictured below, we also added spinach.)

Additional optional ingredients:

• Mushrooms
• Carrots, shredded
• Spinach, 10 oz. package
• Broccoli
• Asparagus (1-1/2 lb)
• Red pepper
• Avocado
• Zucchini
• Ham (with cheddar cheese instead of Swiss)
• Salami and corn
• Tomato and onion

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