Obligatory First Post of the Year (and bonus recipe)

It's 2am and I'm still up... which would be great, but my guests left two hours ago and I have to work in the morning!!

My little party was nice. Sally and Lael came over and Emilie and Derek were in town. I have known all of them for a long-assed time. (Emilie and I will be celebrating our 20th anniversary as friends this year). There is a certain comfort in that. Not just that they know my stories and we have a lot of shared history, but for me it is comforting that they have all known me for a long time and still want to hang out at my house for five hours!!
Of course, I had all of my usual party anxieties, but I think things went well. The husband did not participate, which I think was fine with everyone involved.

I made a version of Andie's soup (recipe to follow) and served garlic dip, crackers, cheese, grapes, and melba toast with cream cheese and cucumber slices. Emilie and Derek brought dessert and Sally and Lael brought two kinds of bread.

Andie's Soup
sliced mushrooms (2 cups or so)
olive oil
garlic (4 or 5 cloves)
canned tomatoes
chicken broth (2 cans)
2-3 cups shredded chicken (I put 3-4 chicken breasts in the crock pot with a can of broth and let it cook all day - it shreds easily and requires very little effort. Andie uses this recipe with leftover turkey from Thanksgiving)
a cup of sliced carrots
a cup of chopped celery
a cup of lentils
a cup of pasta (macaroni or shells)
12 ounces (or so) of V-8 juice
Parmesan cheese

saute the garlic and mushrooms in olive oil until the mushrooms are very tender
put mushrooms and V-8 in the blender and puree (this works for any veggies that your family typically won't eat)
pour into a stock pot
add all other ingredients (except cheese and pasta)
add more water as necessary

From here it can cook until the veggies and lentils are ready or you can leave it on the stove on low for three hours while you run around like a crazy person making sure your house is fit for company. Ask me how I know.
You could probably do this in a crock pot too... if you had one that was big enough.

About 20 minutes before serving:
Add at least 2 more cups of water and pasta, cook until pasta is tender.
Serve with cheese on top.

Happy New Year... let's hope this one is better than last year!