Thursday, January 23, 2020

Have you ever..

Ok, so I have been craving soup for a couple of days. And of course the one day I finally have time to do it, I have a bad headache. UGH..

Not to be thwarted, I pressed forward and made the soup, of course with help from my little guy. This soup was everything I wanted, flavorful, satisfying, filling, healthy, delicious.. it was so good hubby went and got a second bowl that was fuller than the first!  I served this with homemade sourdough garlic parmesan bread.

I do make my own bone broth, and that is what I used in this soup. Here is the post for Bone Broth.

Ok, back to this soup. I was a little worried after I tossed in the chopped turnip, it smelled a little bitter. But then I added another herb and that fixed it.

Flower soup

2 crimini mushrooms, peeled, stem and gills removed, chopped
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup onion, diced
1 carrot, chopped fine
1/2 rib celery, chopped fine
1 turnip, peeled and chopped
1 head of cauliflower, chopped/diced small
2 tablespoons garlic, minced
1 teaspoon marjoram
1 teaspoon tarragon
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning (herbs)
2 teaspoons parsley
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon thyme
1 bay leaf
1 quart chicken stock
4 ounces cream cheese or neufchatel cheese*
1 beef kielbasa (12 - 16 oz), diced and browned

Saute' mushroom in butter until golden. Add onion, carrots and celery (mire poix), and saute'/ cook about 5 minutes. Add cauliflower and turmeric and saute another 5 minutes. Add herbs and stir, add bay leaf. Next add stock/broth and garlic. Give a good stir and cover and simmer until veggies are tender. Remove bay leaf, puree soup.  Add cream cheese and let warm, add warm browned kielbasa, stir well. Let rest about 5 minutes over extremely low heat until cream cheese has melted in.

This soup was great! We could not tell it was cauliflower, and my lil guy ate it right up, and he was very happy there were not any potatoes in it.  I can not get over how yummy it was; I had 2 large bowls and wanted more because it tasted so good, but I could not even try it was so filling!

*I made this a second time, but this time instead of using cream cheese I used some leftover rice. So I did this by adding about 1/2 cup cooked rice to the soup when I added the stock. I let this all cook for about an hour, then pulled out the bay leaf and used my immersion blender and blended until smooth. WOW the flavor was still amazing, the texture was silky.  I love using rice in place of dairy in soups to make them cream and smooth.

Friday, January 3, 2020

Snuggly soft and fast to make

I have many kids, and we try to make their birthdays special for them. This year my daughter picked out some fabric and asked  me to make her some pillow cases. These are easy to make, but I got busy.. Busy in my head, busy with stuff.. I finally sat down and got them made. 3 months later!!  I know it's terrible. 
They are so cute. I also made another one for my littlest guy.

This picture shows 6 different pillow cases, two of them have a duplicate underneath it. I did the french seam on these. It just makes for a cleaner pillowcase, and little fingers don't get into strings. This time I made them all with flannel for the main part and edge, but the trim is calico. They are so soft!

All red with a little trim work. This really pops and came out even cuter than I thought it would.


On this one, I decided not to put any trim on it. The main part is the green zigzag and the edge is the frogs.

Again, no trim. The main section is the zig zag and the polka dots are the trim.

I absolutely love the colors in the feathers! Actually I love the teal trim on the feathers with the orangy peach color. My daughter was also drawn to this fabric. I used a sweet blue rosebud calico for the trim.

The calico in this frog and zigzag pillow case is one of my favorites. It matched up perfectly and this is one of my favorites!  It is just so darling!  The frogs are the main part and the zigzag is the edging.

This lovebug pattern is so busy! I mean really loud busy pink! I found in my stash a cute doodle heart pink calico to use as the trim. This is one of my favorites because it is so cute, but I really love the one above it.

These were easy. I used a simple formula a lady mentioned on youtube. Remember this for pillow cases  27, 9, 3   I thought she was giving lotto numbers, but nah.. These are the measurements:
27" x WOF (width of fabric) for body, 9" x WOF (edge of pillow case), and 3" x WOF (trim).

Here is a YouTube video that shows you how, Magic Pillowcase.

I hope you try to make these. They are easy, and the color combos are endless. You can use flannel or calico or novelty prints. Whatever you like.