Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2022-06-29 07:20 pm
azurelunatic) wrote2022-06-29 07:20 pm
Entry tags:
Easy potato soup two ways, and more context on how I broke my foot on New Year's eve back in '18-19
It is traditional to have a substantial personal story here so any recipe skimmers will be defeated by the power of Copyright!!
Today I went to the doctor for a follow-up on last Friday's appointment: a nasty boil or abscess in a very personal part of my body. The culture was unenlightening (there are a lot of critters in the area in general) and had nothing particularly interesting going on. I finish up the course of antibiotics for that (as opposed to the prophylactic series for my mouth operation, which concluded Sunday morning) very soon.
It's pretty much stopped draining, but there's still a palpable (but soft) lump in the area, which might be an annoyed gland of some kind. Warm compress/bath soaking to continue.
The appointment was meant to be on Monday, doctor selected on the basis of first doctor available, but then that doctor was out sick Monday. So I called for a reschedule, and drew my own GP for Wednesday (today). In the meantime, I had also booked an appointment with my GP, as my left foot has started acting up to the point that I got glared into making the appointment by Belovedest after the tenth or so time of hearing me scream when I set my foot down wrong. The first available normal appointment was in the second week of July, naturally.
But now that I was unexpectedly in the room with my own GP, I asked about the foot, got my foot felt up, and got shipped off to Imaging. Yay! I didn't manage to get it imaged the first time around. I was able to cancel the 2nd week of July appointment, hooray, and I got a referral out to a podiatrist if it keeps being bad. The working theory was either some post-breakage arthritis, or maybe Morton's Neuroma.
Since I hadn't told the story fully the first time, I should elaborate here.
We'd gone shopping for some St. Mark's Day sales, and brought home some deeply discounted fairy lights. I decided that I was going to hang them up in the northeast corner of the basement (aka the "dungeon", which at this point is mostly spare storage and a cleaning nightmare waiting to ensue because Some Ladies Can't Be Trusted *glares at cats*), for ~ambience~. At that point it had some disassembled 'gym equipment' stacked with some holiday boxes along the west side, a decorative mirror looking for a good mounting place against the east wall, a display rack with a bunch of implements in the center-north, and not much else.
It's also worthy of noting thatnorabombay has been saying "You're going to get killed on that thing" about the sex swing, approximately since 2017 when Belovedest first mentioned that this equipment could be set up. It's the variety that's a collection of metal poles of various width that can be friction-fit and then bolted together, forming a four-pole tent structure with two sides with cross-braces, and a hook to suspend the seat in the center. Currently it was in a stack of poles following the Great Flood Incidents of late 2017, which had necessitated taking up the rug that was the all-important non-slip, non-stretch footing.
And it was across those poles that I tiptoed, stretching, seeking an attachment point for the string of lights.
A pole rolled.
My left foot, the balance foot, came down hard on a protruding bolt-socket right in the middle of the 4th metatarsal. I slipped, staggered, and went down with a crash sideways across the floor, whacking my head directly into the mirror (narrowly avoiding a field trip into a BDSM mirrorverse, since I didn't go THROUGH).
Lying there on the floor, head aching and foot pounding, I tried to calculate if I should be calling for assistance or help. Was I hurt enough for it to qualify as an emergency? Did I need the presence of someone else immediately? The calculation was surprisingly difficult.
While I contemplated this, there was a pounding of feet on the stairs and both housemates appeared, making my quandary moot. I was regaining my sense of humor by this point, and I'm afraid that I may have concerned them by starting to giggle.
This was not how Nora had envisioned me getting hurt, and yet? Prophecy fulfilled.
(I didn't go to the ER, because an ER after 9pm on New Year's Eve is not a good scene; I spent the next week with my foot up in bed instead. By the time I got in to see my doctor I had already ordered a boot and talked with my boss about being out for extremely legitimate can't-walk issues. I never did find time to get the x-ray done. It ached at me if I bent my foot wrong for a couple months, but that eventually cleared up.)
Anyway, soup. Dietary notes: As we make it, this is treif; it is likely most easy to make a milk dish by adding more sour cream and omitting all of the meat ingredients. I imagine this would also go nicely with a mushroom base, but I haven't tried that. If you have a satisfactory sour cream substitute, consider that. It's inherently carbohydrate heavy due to the potato, but the broccoli version does add some brassica bulk.
This makes one large soup bowl, and feeds approximately one person. In practice in this household here, it fed one person plus the leftover served as a soup course for a large dragon.
Many of the ingredients are powdered; they would also likely be good in less-powdered forms, but the goals were a) don't have seed-sized particulates that could get caught in a healing mouth; b) skip the blending step in a traditional potato soup done from scratch.
0. Have instant mashed potatoes.
1. Boil a kettle of water.
1a: if using broccoli, start steaming it.
2. While the kettle is heating up, locate your other ingredients.
UNIVERSAL FLAVORS
Warm:
Onion powder (a good whack, maybe 2 or 3 teaspoons)
Granulated garlic (also a good whack, maybe 1/2 to 1 teaspoon)
Ground pepper (a solid shake or two)
Bacon bits
Cold:
Cheddar shreds
Sour cream
Half and half or milk
Finishing:
Butter to taste
TYPE 1: Beef
Warm:
Beef bouillon, or some other type of beef soup base; we have a thing that's basically Syrup of Beef in a squeeze bottle in the fridge. Enough to make about two cups of reconstituted broth.
TYPE 2: Chicken-Broccoli
Warm:
Chicken bouillon, etc; we have one of the giant food service containers. Use enough to make about two cups of reconstituted broth.
Cayenne pepper: a sprinkle
Paprika: a slightly more generous sprinkle
Finishing: steamed broccoli -- remember to leave extra room!
Assembly:
Begin with a large soup bowl; I use the 18 oz Corelle soup/cereal bowl (in Winter White, if I had an affiliate link, lol)
Add all the warm ingredients to the bowl.
Pour in about 2 cups of water, just off the boil. (I use an electric kettle. It's fantastic, even though it's a US one and therefore less instant and powerful.)
Ready with the potato? Pour in instant mashed potato, stirring vigorously, until the texture is just slightly more soupy than you want. Stir more, and carefully add enough to get it exactly right. Don't overflow!!!!
Start adding the cold ingredients, cheddar shreds first. Once those are mixed to your satisfaction, add sour cream until it tastes like there's more cheddar in there than you actually put.
Dilute with your milk ingredient.
Stir in the broccoli, reserving some florets for the top if you're feeling fancy.
Add your finishers: sometimes a little more bacon and cheddar is called for on top.
Serve immediately but sip cautiously: the cold ingredients will have cooled the dish substantially but it will still be fairly warm.
Today I went to the doctor for a follow-up on last Friday's appointment: a nasty boil or abscess in a very personal part of my body. The culture was unenlightening (there are a lot of critters in the area in general) and had nothing particularly interesting going on. I finish up the course of antibiotics for that (as opposed to the prophylactic series for my mouth operation, which concluded Sunday morning) very soon.
It's pretty much stopped draining, but there's still a palpable (but soft) lump in the area, which might be an annoyed gland of some kind. Warm compress/bath soaking to continue.
The appointment was meant to be on Monday, doctor selected on the basis of first doctor available, but then that doctor was out sick Monday. So I called for a reschedule, and drew my own GP for Wednesday (today). In the meantime, I had also booked an appointment with my GP, as my left foot has started acting up to the point that I got glared into making the appointment by Belovedest after the tenth or so time of hearing me scream when I set my foot down wrong. The first available normal appointment was in the second week of July, naturally.
But now that I was unexpectedly in the room with my own GP, I asked about the foot, got my foot felt up, and got shipped off to Imaging. Yay! I didn't manage to get it imaged the first time around. I was able to cancel the 2nd week of July appointment, hooray, and I got a referral out to a podiatrist if it keeps being bad. The working theory was either some post-breakage arthritis, or maybe Morton's Neuroma.
Since I hadn't told the story fully the first time, I should elaborate here.
We'd gone shopping for some St. Mark's Day sales, and brought home some deeply discounted fairy lights. I decided that I was going to hang them up in the northeast corner of the basement (aka the "dungeon", which at this point is mostly spare storage and a cleaning nightmare waiting to ensue because Some Ladies Can't Be Trusted *glares at cats*), for ~ambience~. At that point it had some disassembled 'gym equipment' stacked with some holiday boxes along the west side, a decorative mirror looking for a good mounting place against the east wall, a display rack with a bunch of implements in the center-north, and not much else.
It's also worthy of noting that
norabombay has been saying "You're going to get killed on that thing" about the sex swing, approximately since 2017 when Belovedest first mentioned that this equipment could be set up. It's the variety that's a collection of metal poles of various width that can be friction-fit and then bolted together, forming a four-pole tent structure with two sides with cross-braces, and a hook to suspend the seat in the center. Currently it was in a stack of poles following the Great Flood Incidents of late 2017, which had necessitated taking up the rug that was the all-important non-slip, non-stretch footing. And it was across those poles that I tiptoed, stretching, seeking an attachment point for the string of lights.
A pole rolled.
My left foot, the balance foot, came down hard on a protruding bolt-socket right in the middle of the 4th metatarsal. I slipped, staggered, and went down with a crash sideways across the floor, whacking my head directly into the mirror (narrowly avoiding a field trip into a BDSM mirrorverse, since I didn't go THROUGH).
Lying there on the floor, head aching and foot pounding, I tried to calculate if I should be calling for assistance or help. Was I hurt enough for it to qualify as an emergency? Did I need the presence of someone else immediately? The calculation was surprisingly difficult.
While I contemplated this, there was a pounding of feet on the stairs and both housemates appeared, making my quandary moot. I was regaining my sense of humor by this point, and I'm afraid that I may have concerned them by starting to giggle.
This was not how Nora had envisioned me getting hurt, and yet? Prophecy fulfilled.
(I didn't go to the ER, because an ER after 9pm on New Year's Eve is not a good scene; I spent the next week with my foot up in bed instead. By the time I got in to see my doctor I had already ordered a boot and talked with my boss about being out for extremely legitimate can't-walk issues. I never did find time to get the x-ray done. It ached at me if I bent my foot wrong for a couple months, but that eventually cleared up.)
Anyway, soup. Dietary notes: As we make it, this is treif; it is likely most easy to make a milk dish by adding more sour cream and omitting all of the meat ingredients. I imagine this would also go nicely with a mushroom base, but I haven't tried that. If you have a satisfactory sour cream substitute, consider that. It's inherently carbohydrate heavy due to the potato, but the broccoli version does add some brassica bulk.
This makes one large soup bowl, and feeds approximately one person. In practice in this household here, it fed one person plus the leftover served as a soup course for a large dragon.
Many of the ingredients are powdered; they would also likely be good in less-powdered forms, but the goals were a) don't have seed-sized particulates that could get caught in a healing mouth; b) skip the blending step in a traditional potato soup done from scratch.
0. Have instant mashed potatoes.
1. Boil a kettle of water.
1a: if using broccoli, start steaming it.
2. While the kettle is heating up, locate your other ingredients.
UNIVERSAL FLAVORS
Warm:
Onion powder (a good whack, maybe 2 or 3 teaspoons)
Granulated garlic (also a good whack, maybe 1/2 to 1 teaspoon)
Ground pepper (a solid shake or two)
Bacon bits
Cold:
Cheddar shreds
Sour cream
Half and half or milk
Finishing:
Butter to taste
TYPE 1: Beef
Warm:
Beef bouillon, or some other type of beef soup base; we have a thing that's basically Syrup of Beef in a squeeze bottle in the fridge. Enough to make about two cups of reconstituted broth.
TYPE 2: Chicken-Broccoli
Warm:
Chicken bouillon, etc; we have one of the giant food service containers. Use enough to make about two cups of reconstituted broth.
Cayenne pepper: a sprinkle
Paprika: a slightly more generous sprinkle
Finishing: steamed broccoli -- remember to leave extra room!
Assembly:
Begin with a large soup bowl; I use the 18 oz Corelle soup/cereal bowl (in Winter White, if I had an affiliate link, lol)
Add all the warm ingredients to the bowl.
Pour in about 2 cups of water, just off the boil. (I use an electric kettle. It's fantastic, even though it's a US one and therefore less instant and powerful.)
Ready with the potato? Pour in instant mashed potato, stirring vigorously, until the texture is just slightly more soupy than you want. Stir more, and carefully add enough to get it exactly right. Don't overflow!!!!
Start adding the cold ingredients, cheddar shreds first. Once those are mixed to your satisfaction, add sour cream until it tastes like there's more cheddar in there than you actually put.
Dilute with your milk ingredient.
Stir in the broccoli, reserving some florets for the top if you're feeling fancy.
Add your finishers: sometimes a little more bacon and cheddar is called for on top.
Serve immediately but sip cautiously: the cold ingredients will have cooled the dish substantially but it will still be fairly warm.