tennis date and quickest meal ever (not counting take-out)

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the other day, after work, my sweet husband called me with the news that he was "working on a surprise for me" and would be home late.

This isn't that odd of a request, so I thought nothing of it.

An hour later, he walks through the door carrying the surprise he had been working on.

He had searched on Craigslist all day, met a guy and haggled with him, and came away with two tennis rackets he got for a spanking deal, because I had promised I'd teach him how to play tennis if we got ahold of rackets.

Of course, since he'd never played tennis before, there was no way for him to know:

 

That's totally a racketball racket.

Close enough! You can sure bet we used them anyway. For two hours, Tim got the "stuff I can remember" tennis lesson (it's been about 5 years since I've actually played) in the drizzling rain, and it was a blast.

Since we'd lost track of time, we had to throw together something quick for dinner. We got  home and made the best I'm-starving-right-NOW-and-it's-sort-of-rainy meal: Tortilla soup.

This "recipe" is the easiest and one of the quickest things to whip up, aside from cereal I guess.

1 can black beans, drained
1 can diced tomatoes with juice
1/2 bag frozen vegetable medley (or whatever you've got)
1/2 container chicken broth (I use Trader Joes' and just kind of glug it in)
1TB cornstarch
Hot sauce/Cayenne pepper to taste
Salt to taste
as much shredded chicken as you want
Shredded cheese and crumbled tortilla chips to garnish

It's seriously that easy. Toss everything but the garnishes and the chicken in a pot and let it boil for a couple minutes, spoon in a bowl, add chicken, cheese, and tortilla chips, and eat it.

It takes like five minutes, no lie. And it's so worth it.