I desperately want Chinese food for dinner. It would be super yummy in my tummy. Actually I just want to be naked with a plate of 600 egg rolls and a bib. However, because I'm trying (like a good girl) to not spend money where I don't need to, I am going to cook dinner at home tonight.

The Collective has wipe off boards all over it. In the living room, on peoples bedroom doors. Two of them are in the kitchen. One is a 'Buy Me' board (which usually has clever things like cabana boys and puppies written on it) and the other is the 'Sam N' Ella's Diner Menu' which lists the next three days dinners. I do this so:

A) The roommates know what I'm cooking for dinner if I'm cooking.

B) We have some sort of plan and we know if we need to put stuff on the 'Buy Me' board.

C) People can plan on cooking and can let everyone know they're cooking, what and when.

Sometimes we follow the menu, sometimes we move them around, sometimes they vanish forever (potato soup, anyone?). Usually though, if I have the stuff to make something and I feel up to it, I'll make it. Secretly I like to cook, please don't tell anyone, it'll ruin my street cred.

Today's menu has absolutely no ingredients in the house for it. So I'm going to move stuff around and make Chicken and Vegetable Soup for dinner. As you know, Figs, my idea of cooking is pretty much throwing stuff in a pot and hoping it doesn't taste like the sole of a pig farmers shoe. Usually it doesn't, and even if it does, they'll eat it and they'll like it.

I've got a ton of veggies that need to be used up - carrots, celery, potatoes, corn, green beans, mushrooms, broccoli. So what's a better way to use them then to make a huge pot of soup on a rainy cold day? I mean, other then letting them rot and throwing them at passing cars.