Thursday, April 24, 2014

Creamy Tomato Soup

Today seemed like a great day to make some homemade soup for lunch.  It's in the 60s and very windy.  I have been working hard to make more things homemade for our meals and this one has been on my list to try.  My hubby works close to home and my kids aren't in school yet, so we eat all three meals at home together.  It can be very difficult to please everyone's tastes, but everyone loved lunch today!  Tomato soup and grilled cheese!



Mix all ingredients (except the cream) in a saucepan and simmer for 30 minutes.  Heat cream cream separately and add to soup when you are ready to serve it!  So simple!

Note:  I did puree my tomatoes to make this a smoother soup.  Also, the original recipe called for 2 cups cream and I found that one was plenty.  Feel free to add more or less!


Don't forget the grilled cheese sandwiches!  I made a cheese quesadilla for me!  So yummy!



Enjoy!

Creamy Tomato Soup
adapted from:  Gooseberry Patch "Hometown Favorites"

28 oz. can diced tomatoes, undrained (preferably organic) (I pureed mine.)
1 c. chicken broth
3 T. butter
2 T. sugar (I used about 1 1/2)
2 T. onion flakes
1/8 t. baking soda
1 c. whipping cream
salt and pepper to taste

In saucepan, mix tomatoes, broth, butter, sugar, onion, baking soda, salt and pepper together.  Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.  Heat cream separately and add to tomato mixture just before serving.  Makes 6-8 servings.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Recycled Crayons {Valentine's Day}

At the beginning of my daughter's first year of preschool, I was eager to sign up to help out with the holiday parties in her classroom and to be able to send treats on those special days!  As the year has progressed and I've discovered just how much candy and junk food comes home after these parties, I really changed my tune.  I decided I really wanted to find a non-candy Valentine for her to share with her classmates.  I couldn't be more thrilled with how these turned out and I know the kids will enjoy these!  Although some of it had to be done by me, there were steps that even at age 3, she was able to help with!  She is so excited to share these with her school friends!

You will need lots of old crayons in a variety of colors, a sharp knife for cutting through the papers on the crayons and a silicon baking mold.  I wish I could be more specific on how many crayons.  I can tell you that what you see pictured in the muffin tin did about 12 crayons. . .



Start by removing the wrappers from the crayons.  I used a knife to cut down the length of the wrapper (be very careful).  In most cases, it peeled right off.  Others took a little more time to get that wrapper off.  Break the crayons into smaller pieces.  I used a muffin tin and we sorted the colors.  This was very helpful so that my daughter could take it one color at a time and we knew each crayon would have all the colors.  


 Bake in an oven proof mold.  This is a silicon mold that I purchased at Hobby Lobby for about $4.


 Place the broken crayons in the mold.  We filled the cups level with the top of the mold.

 Preheat oven to 250 degrees.


 Place mold on cookie sheet- IMPORTANT!  Place in oven for about 20-30 minutes or until crayons are melted.  Mine took about 30 minutes, but I started watching them at 20 minutes.


 When crayons are melted, remove from oven (carefully) and allow to cool.  When the crayons have started turning solid and your pan is warm and not hot, you can set them in the refrigerator to cool.  When the bottoms of the cups are completely cool, you can remove the crayons from the molds.  I had expected that these would just pop out, but they didn't.  I had to pry them out a bit.  The silicon is flexible and I had to peel the mold away from the crayon.  I did three batches of these and it was that way with every batch.  (Note:  I tried cooling the first batch in the freezer.  I wouldn't recommend this as it may result in cracked crayons!)  Cracked crayons can be remelted, but I wish I had just used the fridge to cool!


 Tip:  Be sure to put some of those bright colors (pink, yellow, orange, white) at the bottoms of the cups as that will be the front of your crayon.  I found those colors really popped against the darker colors!


 Finished product!  Fun little project!



 I put our crayons in clear treat bags with a card I made using Word on my computer- nothing fancy!



Shared on:  Clean and Scentsible:  The Inspiration Exchange

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Chocolate-Cinnamon Sundae Cake

Earlier this week, I mixed up my own homemade baking mix.  I'm trying little by little to make more things from scratch and to rely less on prepackaged/processed food.  This mix will be a great time-saver for me in the kitchen.  The first thing I tried were biscuits because typically that is what I use baking mix for.  I have a Bisquick cookbook, though, and decided to peek through it and see if I could find something sweet to whip up.  This chocolate cake looked so good so I had to try it!  In the cookbook, it is suggested to serve this with ice cream and a chocolate cinnamon sauce,  (hence the name "sundae" cake), but I wasn't prepared for that.  Instead, I whipped up a batch of my favorite chocolate cinnamon frosting to go on top!  You can find the frosting recipe HERE.  Chocolate-cinnamon perfection!



Chocolate-Cinnamon Sundae Cake

adapted from:  Betty Crocker's Bisquick Cookbook

1 1/3 cups baking mix (find the recipe HERE)
1/2 c. sugar
1/3 c. baking cocoa
1 t. ground cinnamon
1 egg
2/3 c. milk
3 T. butter, softened

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease an 8x8 square pan.  Beat all ingredients in mixing bowl until well-blended.  (I mixed by hand, but will try the mixer next time in order to incorporate the baking mix a little more.)  Pour into pan.  Bake 25-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. 

NOTE:  I used a 9x9 pan and it only needed to bake for 15 minutes.  



Thursday, January 23, 2014

Homemade Baking Mix

Over the past year, I've tried little by little to make our meals and snacks from scratch as often as I can and to purchase fewer prepackaged or convenience items.  One of the things that I've been wanting to eliminate is the use of Bisquick.  I use it for biscuits, pancakes, shortcakes and we love this cheeseburger pie too!  There are lots of versions of the homemade mix out there, but I finally found one I thought would be good and so far I've had good results.  It was super easy to make and is easily stored in the fridge.  The biscuits I made were way better than the Bisquick version and today I even made a chocolate cake with this mix.  


 Just mix all the ingredients with a pastry blender until you have coarse crumbs.  I am storing my mix in a Zip-loc bag in the fridge.  I will be on the lookout for a container with a lid to store this in, because I know this is the mix I'll be using from now on!


The biscuits were fabulous!


Can't wait to try to this chocolate-cinnamon sundae cake tonight!  If it tastes as good as it smells, I'll be sharing that recipe soon!

Homemade Baking Mix
Source:   Food Fanatic

6 cups all-purpose flour
3 T. baking powder
1 1/2 t. baking soda
1 T. salt
3 T. sugar
1 1/2 sticks butter, unsalted cut into small cubes (I used salted because that's what I had on hand- worked fine.)

Whisk dry ingredients in mixing bowl.  Cut butter into flour mixture using a pastry blender until you have coarse crumbs.  Be sure there are no big pieces of butter remaining.  Store mixture in airtight container in the refrigerator for up to two months.

Sunday, January 5, 2014

Rosemary Roasted Cashews

We are snowed in this weekend and what's a girl to but try out new recipes!  This started with a recipe that a friend shared and then I just happened to discover something a little different on Pinterest.  What I came up with is a combination of the two- my own little creation!  These cashews smelled so good while they were roasting and they tasted even better! 




 
Rosemary Roasted Cashews
 
2 1/2 cups unsalted cashews
1 T. extra virgin olive oil
2 t. dried rosemary
a couple of dashes of ground (cayenne) red pepper
3/4 t. salt
 
In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients and blend until cashews are well-coated.  Spread mixture evenly onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  Bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes.