French Onion Soup

In my 2007 quest to master soup, here is another of the success stories and I must confess, it was kick ass. And, honestly, on a scale of 1-10, I think French Onion soup garners at best a 3. It’s not one of my favorites. But it is one of hubby’s favorites so I decided to seek out a great recipe I could make well. Tyler Florence’s recipe was the winner and I thought it tasted fantastic - pretty good considering it’s not one of my faves. The baguette croutons were the best part….yummy.

Pretty Witch Costume

Last year, I made Zach’s scarecrow costume. This year, it was Sammie’s pretty witch. I thought it turned out pretty cute and took less time than I thought it would, especially since I lost days working on it to take care of a barfing kid!

Look at My Clematis and Schtuff

Even though everything is dying now, I have to show you. I have two lantern poles, one in my front yard and one in the back. The one in the front yard I planted a bright purple clematis vine and this year it finally got bigger and leafier and produced multiple blooms. Up until this year, it never got very tall or had a lot of blooms going on. Is that purple gorgeous, or what?

In the back, I planted morning glory seeds and have only had mediocre luck. One time just when the vine was getting wound up to the top and starting to produce blooms, hubby whacked off the whole thing by the roots and that was the end of that. All that time and waiting…nuttin. This year, I waited, and waited. Finally, some activity started up the post and it got very green, no blooms even happened until almost September. But, wow, this sucker got really big and full. It was fun to watch. And, you can’t see the light under there anymore, it swallowed up that whole post.

Strawberry Shortcake

So yummy.

So easy.

So delicious.

The recipe is right here, I don’t even have to retype it! Woot!

Banana Crumb Muffins

I use All Recipes a lot. Anything that rates a 5 star rating on there with hundreds or even thousands of reviews is a darn solid recipe. So, I used one to hit out of the ballpark a couple weeks ago. Just try it, simple ingredients you already have around and the kids will scarf them down. But then again, they love bananas and they love carbs, it was the perfect muffin!


Recipe:

1 1/2 C. flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

3 bananas, mashed

3/4 C. white sugar

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/3 C. butter, melted

1/3 C. packed brown sugar

2 T. flour

1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 T. butter

Preaheat oven to 375. Lightly grease 10 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 C. flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 T. flour and cinnamon. Cut in 1 T. butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins. Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of muffin comes out clean.

Spicy Shrimp Soup

Say that 5 times fast. Yet another soup in my quest for world domination through stocks and stews. I got this recipe from All Recipes (one of my favorites for good home cooked, tried and true food) and the only change I made really was I think I added more garlic and I removed the shrimp tails as I don’t like slowing down to remove them while I’m eating.


Recipe:

2quarts chicken broth

2 T. rosemary

5 cloves garlic, minced (I used more, I’m a whore for garlic)

1 tsp. ground black pepper

1 tsp. celery seed

1/2 tsp. fennel seed

1 C. clam juice

1/2 (6 oz.) can tomato paste

1 C. butter

1 C. white wine

2 pounds shrimp ( tails removed)

1 loaf French bread

Pour broth into a large pot, and mix in rosemary, garlic, pepper, celery seed, fennel seed, clam juice, tomato paste, and butter. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Stir wine into the soup, and continue to simmer and occasionally stir 2 hours. Just before serving, stir in shrimp. Continue cooking 3 minutes, or until shrimp are opaque. Serve with break for soaking up the broth.

1950s Felted Bag for Gina

My friend Gina needed a pick-me-up. So, I attempted to make a felted bag, a bit bigger in size than my usual “purse”, more of a carpet bag size. As I was working on it, my MIL remarked that the colors and the buttons I had chosen reminded her of the 50s. I didn’t choose them that way on purpose, I was just very fond of the way it was coming together. My add-in yarn didn’t felt the way I had hoped even after two washings ,but Gina said she didn’t mind.

Pattern:

CO 50, knit 20 using double yarn to make the bottom more solid and sturdy.

When I started working in the round, I only used one yarn. Six rows of brown, six rows of blue, twelve rows of brown, then I used the entire skein of the Austermann novelty yarn with the pink Cascade. I repeated the pattern for the top of the bag and made I-cord handles.

Yarn used: Novelty yarn - Austermann Colada, color 5; Cascade 220 colors 8686, 7815, 9477.

Before felting, it was 18″ wide and 15″ tall.