Life as a Resident and Emily's Tortilla Soup

So the latest greatest in my life is that I started a residency in theriogenology at Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine. So what does this mean? It means that for 6 months each year for the next two years, I will basically be working at Texas A&M in their equine reproduction service. I will be training to be a specialist in reproduction (theriogenology) and in 2011 I will be eligible to sit for the American College of Theriogenologists board exam. If I pass, I will be considered a diplomate. So far it is going great. The other two residents are really nice and the mentors and staff are so welcoming. I have already seen some pretty amazing things....a two day old hermaphrodite miniature donkey and an embryo being biopsied, frozen, thawed and transferred into a recip mare, just to name a couple! The alternating 6 months each year will still be spent in Whitesboro working for Dr. Hartman, so I am truly getting the best of both the private practice and academic worlds. Sometimes I can not believed how blessed I truly am!

So to keep up with my recipe a week plan, I decided to make Emily's Tortilla Soup the other night for dinner. We had talked about it on our vacation in Mexico because Amber had ordered some that was not as yummy as she had hoped. Emily gave me this recipe sometime during vet school and I have altered it a little but have always referred to it as EMILY's tortilla soup. While talking about it, she told me that she only made it one time and doesn't have the recipe anymore, so we got a chuckle out me proclaiming to people that this was my friend Emily's famous recipe! Anyway this is a really good and pretty danged healthy recipe, so here goes:

Emily's Famous Tortilla Soup

1 T olive oil

6 cloves minced garlic

1 small bunch chopped cilantro

2 chopped onions

8 tortillas, cut into strips

2 chicken breasts, cubed

1 box chicken broth (32 oz)

1 small can tomato sauce

1 T cumin

2 t chili powder

dash of red pepper flakes

1/2 C rice

shredded Cheddar

Avocado, sliced

Sour Cream

I usually just put the onion, garlic and cilantro in the food processor, since Trent won't eat onions if he knows they are there...but anyway saute them in olive oil until the onions are soft, then add in the cubed chicken. Cook until the chicken is done the add in spices, broth, tomato sauce and rice. Cook until the rice is done. (I use long grain brown rice since it is healthier but any kind will do)

Cut the tortillas into strips. You can either fry them with a little bit of olive oil or bake them. I usually spray a cookie sheet with olive oil and lay the strips flat and bake for 5-10 min on 350 degrees until they are crisp. (I usually use the whole wheat tortillas but again whatever kind you like or have on hand will do)

So now you just put your tortilla strips in a bowl, ladle in some soup and top with whatever you like. I do avocado, cheese and a little dollop of sour cream.

Also, sometimes if I make this for guests I do it like the tortilla soup at El Chico and put the broth in a pitcher, the chicken and rice in a serving bowl, and put out the strips and toppings and let people assemble their own soup. Not necessary but it looks pretty : )

A Happier Part Two in Playa...

After our tough morning, the rest of our first day of vacation was fun. A lot of laying around on the beautiful beach and sampling frozen drinks. That night we discovered our favorite restaraunt at the resort, Asiana. They had awesome sushi and we ate there about once a day during the trip. Trent, in his new effort to try foods outside of his very narrow comfort zone, discovered that he loves wasabi. Then later while strolling along 5th Avenue, he discovered that wasabi does not love him back. We are pretty sure that the NSAIDS he was taking for his shoulder must have caused an ulcer, which was not at all helped by the wasabi. So Trent actually spent most of the vacation curled up in a ball with stomach cramps. So I won't be winning any wife of the year awards but I completely abandoned him and hung out with our friends all week and had a great vacation.

So I haven't figured out the whole blogging thing yet and so the pics are out of order but this is Trent and I on the beach near our hotel. We had our 5th wedding anniversary while on the trip and I used this fact to force him into posing for some photos. Colby took them and they turned out really great, Thanks Colby and Trent : )
So what I actually did on our anniversary was leave Trent in the room and go snorkeling with the rest of the gang. We first went to a gorgeous beach where the sea turtles come to feed on the underwater sea grass. It was incredible. They were so peaceful and graceful. We saw four or five sea turtles and a spectacular coral reef with lots of colorful fish. Next we went to a nearby cenote. Cenote are a series of limestone caves filled with freshwater and connected by an underground river. People actually scuba dive through the water filled tunnels connecting the caves. It is supposed to be amazing, our guide told us kind of like being in outerspace because there is no water surface in the tunnel, it fills like floating. However I think I will stick with snorkeling in them because even that was a bit difficult for me with my combined claustrophobia and fear of the dark. The cenote was truly beautiful and very cold, i.e. the wet suit photos.

Colby, Emily, Amber and Moose on the platform going down to the water in the cenote. Our guide, Helen, is the the background.

This is the cenote that we snorkeled in

A sea turtle eating sea grass

Me, Emily, Colby, Amber and Moose getting ready to snorkle with sea turtles

The pristine beach where we snorkled with the sea turtles
So another fun thing we did was take the ferry across to the island of Cozumel and spend the day. First we had lunch at the Hard Rock. Then we went snorkeling. On the boat ride out to snorkle, Emily told us a story about how when she and Colby snorkled on their honeymoon, the guide told them to leave their jewelry on the boat because it attracted baracudas.....so low and behold, while snorkeling we see a baracuda. I am snorkeling next to Amber, who keeps grabbing my left hand and pointing it at the baracuda. I am thinking how sweet she is that she doesn't want me to miss out on seeing it but after the 3rd time she does it, I start thinking "hey, I'm not blind I see it!" Then we stick our heads out of the water and she is laughing hysterically. Turns out she could care less if I saw the baracuda, she was trying to feed me to it and was using my wedding ring as bait. So after narrowly escaping being fish food, Amber and Moose (or Aaron as his grown up friends refer to him) decided to go back to the resort and the rest of rented a jeep so we could drive around Cozumel and check out the beaches. We saw a Mayan ruin, ate at a really cool cliff top bar over looking a beach and collected shells and coral before taking the ferry back to Playa del Carmen. Those were our main excursions during the trip. We did a lot of relaxing on the beach or at the pool. Ate a ton of really great food and had a lot of laughs. I hope that we don't wait so long to take another trip together because it made me realize even more how much I miss hanging out with our incredible friends.

This is Trent on one of the beautiful beaches we found on our jeep trip. I really love this pic of him looking all thoughtful while staring at the water.

Relaxing and reading on the beach. Colby and I are currently having a contest to see who can read the most classic novels by Christmas....yes, we know we are nerds.

Trent took this photo of Emily while on the boat ride to snorkle in Cozumel. She looks so pretty and he was really proud of his photography.

I love this pic of Amber (also taken by Trent, I wonder if I should worry that he keeps taking pics of other women?)....anyway I think it completely captures her personality. She is one of the most fun people I know, you can not help but laugh when she is around!

Amber, Me and Emily on the beach in Playa del Carmen

I think this is a cool pic of Trent with a Tecate and cigar, pretty sure he was in paradise at that moment

Emily and I posing as hood ornaments on the jeep that we rented to drive around Cozumel

Our hubbies: Aaron Stachmus, Colby Carpenter and Trent Bliss

The ladies: Amber Stachmus, Emily Carpenter and me

For Grey Dog

Bailey and Trigger at Boomer Lake taking their last swim before vet school graduation, 2006
Bailey was always convinced she was going to catch a duck, she almost swam across the length of the entire lake on this day!

She had the softest floppiest ears

She could play fetch for hours

It has been a crazy two weeks, so I think I will break this up into a couple of posts because most of what I have to say doesn't really go together.... So I left Whitesboro on Aug. 1st and drove the 4 hours south the College Station. Reunited with Trent, the dogs and the cat and then packed my bag for Mexico. We drove to the airport in Houston the next day and eagerly awaited to meet up with our friends, who flew from OKC to Houston so we could all arrive in Mexico together.

We found them and headed to our first stop, the airport in Cancun! We got our luggage and then loaded on a van to our resort in Playa del Carmen. Everyone arrived safely and we had a lot of catching up to do. Our resort, The Royal, was really nice and had a beautiful beach. The rooms were awesome and even had a two seater jacuzzi tub! We had a great dinner and then all loaded into one of the prior mentioned hot tubs (in our bathing suits of course!) and had some laughs before turning in for the night.

The next morning was not so happy. Trent's phone kept ringing and he finally answered it. It was the dog sitter calling to say that when she came to check on things, Bailey was weak and pale and could barely walk. She took her into the vet school and they were running fluids and blood work and trying to figure out what was wrong. She had been completely normal the night before. Trent told her to keep us updated and I got in the shower. Five minutes later Trent came in and told me that Bailey was arresting and they were trying to revive her. He told them to let her go and not put her through all of that.

Our Bailey Grace Bliss passed away on August 3rd 2009. It is still so hard to believe that she is really gone. It seems like I am going to go in the bedroom and find her curled up in the middle of our bed. Bailey was only 8 years old. She was Trent's dog. He got her about a year before we met and for a tough period in his life, Bailey was his constant. For me, Bailey is part of Trent, I have never known one with out the other. Also, the two of them pretty much have the same personality: either spastic, happy and every one's friend or completely immobile and lazy, no where in between.

When we started dating, Bailey was always there: cuddled up on the couch, at vet school parties and cook outs, being a distraction while trying to study....trying to shove me out of the bed. Literally, she used to worm her way in between me and Trent until she was wedged in between and then she would start stretching her legs until she had shoved me all the way to the edge of the bed and I was about to fall off. Eventually, she decided to share her dad with me but in the beginning she was really jealous of me! We used to take her and Trigger with us all the time during our Stillwater days, some of my favorite Stillwater memories are when we used to take them to swim in Boomer Lake. She was the cuddliest dog I have ever met and even though she was a Weimaraner, she was convinced she was about the size of a tea cup poodle and should be able to curl into a ball and fit anywhere. She wasn't supposed to get on the furniture but she always found a way to sneak up. She would start with getting you to pet her head, then one front paw would be on the couch and she would wait. Then the other front paw and then she would wait. The back legs were the most hysterical to watch her "sneak" up one at a time. Pretty soon you had a whole dog curled up next to you and you didn't even know how it happened. Bailey loved people and was the nosiest dog ever. She would follow me from room to room in the house and I was always tripping over her when I was trying to do something. Prompting me to threaten to beat the grey off of her quite often : )

Trent requested a necropsy and they found two large tumors on her liver and mets all over her abdomen. One of the tumors had ruptured and caused her abdomen to fill with blood. For our vet friends, they said it was likely hemangiosarcoma but we still don't have the histology report back.

I am so grateful that she waited until I came home from my 6 months away before she died. Even if it was just one night, I am so grateful I got to have one last night of spooning with her. Grey dog, we love you so much and we thank you for all of the wonderful memories we have with you.