Chicken Tortilla Soup

This past week I decided to make one of my favorite soups. It was delish! It was a recipe I took from Sandra Lee and slightly modified it. So good and easy in fact, I thought I would share the recipe. If any of you are like me and like simple, easy, and quick recipes this is one for you.

• In a lightly oiled saute pan cook 2-3 chicken breasts until no longer pink. Once cooked let the meat cool slightly and then begin pulling chicken apart into thin strips/chunks that are skinny and about .5 inch long.
  
• In a separate pan saute about a half cup of diced onion and 3-4 cloves of garlic until lightly browned.
• Combine pulled chicken, onions, and garlic into large pot.
• Add 1 box/container of chicken broth to the pot
  
• Add 1 box/container of Cambpbells V8 Southwetern Corn Soup
• Add 1 can of Green Giant Mexicorn
• Add 1 can of Diced Mexican Tomatoes (or something with diced tomatoes and chiles)
• Add a 1/2 cup of crumbled tortilla chips
• Add one dash of crushed red pepper
  
• Bring the pot of ingredients to a boil, then lower heat to a simmer for 20 minutes
• When serving add sliced avacado, sour cream, shredded cheese, crunched tortilla chips, and tabasco sauce as desired.

Voila! You have a tasty meal in just 30 minutes :-) Enjoy!

The rest of the Sequoia pics...

So my week was insanely busy...but here are the rest of the well awaited Sequoia pics. What a fun trip....where shall we go next? hmmmm.....

Preview & Edited pics from Sequoia

This weekend I finished up converting the pics from our trip to Sequoia National Park from RAW into JPEG format . Here is a sneak peak of some of my favorites. I took a stab at editing them in photoshop...I like the vintage effect it gave, but I have a lot more to learn. I'll post the other pics (non-photoshoped) later, for those of you who want to see the full trip and a ton of pictures! But for now enjoy this condensed preview version...

Amazing!

Last week James and I celebrated our 3yr. anniversary by camping in the Sequoia National Park and I'm so glad we did. We had planned to camp near the top of the mountain but it was still snow covered. James like the idea of camping in the snow, but....I convinced him that staying at the bottom of the mountain where flowers and warmer weather would make the trip much more pleasant and me much more enjoyable :-) So we camped at a lovely campsite called Buckeye Flat, site 18 which was the best site on the whole lot. It was a small campground for tent campers only. Our lot was more secluded and bigger than the others. There was a rushing river that was behind our site and the sound of it put me to sleep at night. There were spacious bear boxes at each site, The first evening at the site we were able to take a short trail from our campground to the beautiful waterfalls. The temperatures were in the high 60s and surprisingly not many bugs, which is always a great sign to me!

The second day we drove back up to the top of the mountain. We hiked up to see General Sherman one of the largest giant sequoias in the park. And from there we took a short hike in and around the grove. There were snowy patches all around. It was beautiful but that area was a little too manicured with its paved hiking path. We continued to the museum, and then headed out to a  lookout called Beetle Rock. It was a massive rock overlook. We found a great little resting spot and admired God's beautiful work. Afterwards we headed out to Morrow Rock on a whim. It was a fabulous decision! We hiked up stone steps and slowly made our way to the top of this giant rock. At the top we had a full panoramic view of all the snow-capped mountains and the valley below.  It was windy but it was definitely a wow moment. Strangely enough a bunch of monks were visiting Morrow Rock that day as well. 

After that we decided to take a desolate trail to see Crescent Meadow. I thought there might be flowers there. The meadow was only about 2.6 miles from Morrow Rock, so I thought it would be easy. Boy it was tough. There we were hiking through giant sequoia trees and snow getting glimpses through the trees of the snow capped mountains in the distance. We didn't see a sole the whole time! I felt like a mouse in a strange fantasy land. At times James and I would have to check the snow or ground for footprints to ensure we were on the right track. It was beautiful and difficult, but it was worth it. When we arrived at Crescent Meadow there were no flowers, not even grass yet. But there was a lot of water covering the meadow. Instantly James and I heard the frogs. They were so loud it was deafening, really it was crazy! Since there weren't any flowers we continued on and hiked back to the car. We took a different route to ensure we saw the tunnel log where cars drive through the giant fallen sequoia.

We had wine and foil pockets, filled with meat and veggies, for dinner. And the entertainment for the night was the new neighbor camper who sounded like a bear every time he blew his nose. It was quite frightening, and funny!!! The next morning we checked out Hospital Rock with the ascent paintings. Then it was off on another hike where I could see the pretty flowers. It was beautiful! I was a little worried about seeing a bear, as there were some signs of a bigger animal using the trail we were on, but no bear this time. (James was a little disappointed...) We headed home shortly after our hike. It was a wonderful camping trip! Now I'm set on going to Yosemite....I just need to figure out when.

 I'm still editing my pictures, this week has been super busy and we have a ton of them. (Of course!)  But I promise they are coming soon...stay tuned :-)