Discovered Delicious Taco Soup

Hey all, it's been a while since I've last written. It's been a few months actually, and there are some things that I should be catching everyone up on. For the most part, things have been going the way that I would like them to go. Richard and I are doing well, my job is excellent! Even better than the last time I wrote actually. We're in our apartment for a year now, we're getting our stride here now. It's been a wonderful six months since we've moved here, and we're loving our place more and more.

One of the best things that's been about my job is that I have been promoted. I'm no longer a library aide, which is kind of side. I did love seeing all the books and playing in the shelves and shelves of books. I am now a public computer specialist along with Susan. I going to be paid more now, and I'll be working with computers and the technology in my library. I also have to dress business casual as well. I no longer get to wear jeans all the time, but I get to dress better now.

Also with my new job, I will have three days off a week, in a row, and I have decided to not be so lazy in the cooking department. I have made it one of my New Year's Resolutions (as of right now), to start getting more recipes and making more homemade food. If I have three days a week off, I need to start making more food, homemade food, and just trying recipes to decide what it is that I like.

Starting off with this week then, I have found a taco soup recipe that I think is to die for. Richard actually helped me modify it to our tastes as well, and we love this dish. It's definitely one that we'll be using more often at least. So, here it is:

Quick, Easy, and Delicious Taco Soup

1/2 to 1 pound of hamburger

Onion powder

28 oz. tomato sauce

15 oz. can corn (undrained)

1 small can of kidney/black beans

1 envelope of taco seasoning (hot/original)

Season and brown hamburger with onion powder, garlic powder, celery salt, and lemon pepper. Once the hamburger has been browned, add the corn and let cook for a few minutes. In a separate pot, combine the tomato sauce, beans, and a little more onion powder. Then add the hamburger and the corn to the pot as well. Then add the taco seasoning envelope, and let the soup come to a boil. 

Once the soup has come to a boil, reduce heat, let simmer for a few more minutes to let the flavors meld and then enjoy!

I love this soup, Richard loves this soup, and if you add some corn tortillas you've baked in the oven, and it is DELICIOUS! 

I hope that you enjoy this soup, and if not, you go out there and find your own new recipe to try. You never know, you might find your new favorite recipe.

Talk to you later,

Ashley :)

Marriage and Dating...What Can I Say?

Yes, I doing marriage and dating as my blog topic today, but for a really good reason, I promise.

So, as you should all know by now, I'm in India. Without my husband no less. Now there are two more girls that are also without their husbands. For the last bit, there is a married couple here that are here. Now, so we have three single members, a girl with a boyfriend, and all the rest of us who are married. My research deals a lot with marriage, as I am studying marriage traditions of the castes here and so this will sometimes lead to my informants telling me about how they met their prospective husbands/wives. Something that you should know about the culture of India is that there is no socially sanctioned form of "dating" here. Like, you do not date. That is not what you do in order to decide if you want to marry someone. Your parents will arrange who you will marry, and for the most part, you will not know who that person until you are married.

So, Oliver, one of the single guys here, we've been teasing about having Rajalakshmi match him for a Hindu marriage while he is here. We only do this because we get such a great reaction out of him and he'll play along with it too, it's great! Anyway, as we were doing this today, the subject of dating came up and then Westen started asking Rajalakshmi about how love marriages came about, so I got called in to handle this part of the subject, due to my previous research as well as the few interviews that I got before I changed my subject. I'll have to say...no matter what I said, they were confused on how people got to know each other before they got married, especially with love marriages. But I explained to the best of my ability, and they seemed intrigued by the idea that there was no dating here in India. It's socially forbidden to do so.

Comparing this idea to what it is we do in America, it is two VERY different worlds of love. Here, in America, we date, we hang out, we do so many things! just to find the one person that we could find that we could picture ourselves living with the rest of the our lives. It's an interesting concept, when you think about it. We, as humans in America, do these strange activities with other members of our own species in order to figure out if we want to, basically, mate with them. In India, the parents choose who you will mate and then the deal is sealed. Done and done. There's not a big fuss made out of it, they agree to the marriage and the marriage is set and then they get married.

I know that this may seem like a strange topic for today, to reflect on marriage and dating. Forgive me though, with me missing Richard as well as talking about marriage and dating and then having several girls here without their husbands and then a married couple. All on one trip. Marriage and dating comes up a lot with us.

Talk to you soon,
Ashley