Two-fer Post: Spontaneous Soup; But First, Some Stitching! {Gail}

I’ll start with stitching progress lest you think we’ve become just a cooking blog! I am almost finished with the little crazy quilt block I started on my snow day at Sam’s. You might remember it here. I'm new to this CQ thing and a little hesitant as you might notice: no beads, ribbon embroidery, layered stitches… yet. I feel I am about 90% done with this block. I thought I was all the way done, but it seems to be missing something pink on the left. The ribbon across the top is held down by little *-shaped snowflakes to help keep late January perspective ;) This will become a card, possibly I will keep it for myself – there’s a surprise… I love that little birdie; it makes me smile!

Oops!  That ribbon on the right isn't supposed to be tucked under the mat.
Once the stitching is secured to the cardstock permanently, it will lay atop.
I can see all sorts of ways to assemble the bottom papercrafty section!

And next: I “souped” tonight, with no prior plan. As I was browsing The Cookbook during my menu planning process (yup, I have one) I realized three things. One, I didn’t know what to make for dinner (HAVING a plan doesn’t mean it always works :P); two, there were green beans that really needed using; and three, our 300 Sensational Soups book probably had a recipe that would solve both problems!

 Sure enough, I came across Garden Vegetable Soup, which uses green beans and corn as well as the expected carrots, onion, and tomato. What it didn’t use was celery which you will see anyway in my photos, as I was sure I saw it on the list originally. That means either it spontaneously disappeared from the ingredients (uh-huh) or reading all those soup recipes just had me a little distracted! Hmmm…  

In the plastic bag at the right:

frozen roasted corn from last summer's ears.

Please do not let me forget to do this every summer!

Didn't end up using the celery after all.



Red fingerling potatoes from
my Full Circle Produce box.
They have an interesting golden gleam.

Tonight I skipped the photos of onions frying in the bottom of my stockpot and the whole assembly process because it’s very simple and I’m sure you’ll see plenty of onions frying during the next 3 years of our project ;)  

For the soup, sauté said onions, add most of everything else, simmer, add the rest of everything, simmer, season, and you’re done!  

By the time I chopped and added, chopped and added, things were simmering along quite well, so I set the timer for the first simmering session and left the kitchen, where the beans and corn sat waiting.

Trim and cut the green beans to short lengths,
convenient for fitting on a soup spoon.

Once the timer went off, lucky for me my son was standing right there in the kitchen as teenage boys are likely to do near dinnertime. HE added the beans, corn and parsley, and turned the heat up. After I finished Pinning a few more things ;) I wandered back into the kitchen and it was soup! A bit more salt and we dished those tasty veggies up!



It smells so good and fresh!

The  roasted corn added a nice sweet summery flavor to each bite!



Have a bite!

Have another!

A word about the stock I use. Soup makers and chefs say it all the time – you have to have a good foundation of tasty full-flavored stock/broth. I really love these Kitchen Basics stocks! They are good enough to heat and sip from a mug by themselves. They’re packaged in aseptic containers so that you don’t get that metal flavor you sometimes do, and 4 cups in each package means you aren’t endlessly opening cans. Because their pour spout closes, if you only use a partial package you can just refrigerate it (I write the date it was opened, right on the pkg with Sharpie); use it up by cooking some rice in it if nothing else (freeze the rice if needed – that’s so handy!) Kitchen Basics stocks are either low or no salt added, so you can control the sodium content and saltiness yourself. We LOVE them! We keep 1-3 of each flavor on our pantry shelf at all times: beef, chicken, vegetable, and sometimes turkey or seafood, too. You can find Kitchen Basics a lot of places, including *shock* military commissaries.

Mmmmm!

This Garden Vegetable Soup gets five thumbs up, not just for flavor which was simple enough to let the veggies shine (that’s three of the thumbs-up, from the soup eaters), also an extra one from the cook for how easy it was to make – it doesn’t get much easier than veggies and broth, salt, pepper, and parsley! – and the last for being such a virtuous healthy January recipe.

Even if it is February today.

Garden Vegetable Soup from
300 Sensational Soups

Simple Details

In one week (if all goes well) you get me back to posting more often!!  Yay, because that means not only do I get to be more creative, but it means my house is officially re-sided!!  Thank goodness, because I’d like to enjoy just a bit of this warmer weather.  J  Speaking of warmer weather, I did actually get to go to a wedding reception potluck type of thing this weekend at our family cabin!  My creative contribution was the card that represented the present that came from my husband and I, my in-laws, and Aaron’s grandma and Aunt.  Because the house has taken over our lives, I only had an hour right before we left to both coach Aaron through making the pasta salad we were bringing and make the card.  You will probably be able to tell that the pictures I took are in the car on the way there!



The front of the card.  The little squares are stamped with 'love' stamps.



Details on the front: brads that matched the paper and added a hint of LOVE.  :)



Inside of the card, mimics the front just on the opposite side.

The part of the card that tells them we got them their Lime green pots and pans, and some Le Crueset pans.  I added those pictures on the green paper background once we got to the beach!  Used some stencils for the lettering.



Inside details.  All 6 of us signed in the 2 blank boxes.  And I stamped and wrote the bottom little message.  Also, if you hadn't noticed before you can see that I inked all the black edges of the card with some silver chalk ink that went well with the silver and black patterned accent paper.



This picture probably doesn't show it very well, but it is the back of the envelope I made. I used some of accent paper from the card just on the back of the envelope to give it a little pop, cover up some mismatched seams, and make the envelope a little sturdier.  I used my scoring board to make the envelope of course!

A fairly simple card, with some little details that brought it all together.  Hope you enjoyed it!  And see you again soon, I hope!!!

Sam

“Birthdays are good for you…

…Statistics show that people who have the most live the longest!”  I ran across this quote as I was researching some birthday card ideas, and it definitely made me laugh.  I started as a pure scrapbooker… but branched into making cards as another creative outlet and logical step when I already owned all the materials needed.  I tend to look through card magazines first and through my fave online scrapbook/card making FREE magazine…  http://www.scrapbookandcards.com/

After getting some inspiration I either go off on my own to create or sometimes I will follow a pattern or idea pretty closely, just using my own color scheme.  For the two birthday cards I made recently I followed a pattern pretty closely.  I honestly couldn’t tell you what magazine they came out of because I saw them at work in the break room and the cover was ripped off.   

The first card I made was for my sister-in-law’s birthday.  I loved this card idea because there was opportunity for lots and colors and patterns and yet they all tied together somehow. 

I used these really awesome handmade papers for the strips across the middle that came in a big pack from Michael’s for 10bucks.  The bottom strip I folded so that it looked like a ruffle and added some dimension.  The yellow paper was heavily textured and shiny so it looks great in the light.  And you can never go wrong with a flower and a button for the center!  J

The card base was black cardstock, and I really like how it offsets the bright spring colors.  I used white embroidery floss to hand stitch around some of the edges to frame it even more.  Some tool shout-outs for this card:

LOVE my corner punch/embosser.  It has four different designs that both punch and emboss the corners, I used it here around the Happy Birthday label.

LOVE my Martha Stewart Scoring Board.  Once I figured out how to use it well, it has been an invaluable tool for card and envelope making! (Pictured underneath the card)

My Sister-in-Law, Stephanie just moved to Hawaii where there are no big name craft stores.  Being that she is a fellow crafter, my present to her is a “Crafting Care Package” with some essentials and fun stuff once she gets settled into a house over there.  I just made a little tag to put on the inside of the card to tell her that.

The other card I made recently was for my Mother-in-Law.  Last minute she (and my father-in-law) ended up coming to help with some house projects the day before and on her birthday and I was totally un prepared for her birthday while she was here.  I did however make some amazing homemade biscuits and gravy for breakfast that morning!  J  I made her card later that week and gave it to her the other day.  I thought it was a cute little play on abbreviating Happy Birthday, and I added in the ‘late’ part since I was late in making her a card and she knew it.

These flag ideas have been pretty popular lately, and I think they turned out pretty cute.  I cut quite a few triangles before I found the dimensions I wanted for this card.  For the big lettering I used a stencil and my Le Pen felt tip pens.  Once the flags were on the card it didn’t look quite finished enough, so I added some very light white dots on the blue and chalk-inked the edges of the card.  It added just enough dimension and brought your eye toward those flags!

The inside wasn’t that exciting which is why it isn’t pictured, but overall I think these birthday cards turned out pretty cute!  J

Now, off to use my creative eye to finish editing 4^th of July pictures!

Sam