In The Moment

Stinkin' cute.

Crock Pot Sausage and White Bean Soup

Sometimes I like to just throw some stuff in a crock pot, have it do all the work, and come home to a sweet smelling house after a long day at work. Well, not just sometimes...practically all the time. It is just so dang hard for some reason to find good healthy crock pot recipes. But, I happened across a pretty cool cookbook with some pretty cook recipes. I have made this one several times and it is delish.

Sausage and White Bean Soup

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 lbs sweet Italian sausage, meat pushed out of casings (I use turkey)

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1 14.5 oz cannellini beans, drained (um, I actually use 3 15 oz cans, I like beans)

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 tablespoon quick-cooking tapioca (not sure why but I did it)

1 14.5 oz can of chicken broth

1 head escarole, washed and chopped (I couldn't find escarole so I used cabbage)

1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1. In a large skillet cook onions and sausage until meat is brown and onions are soft. Drain off fat (you won't get a lot of fat if you use turkey.

2. Add sausage and onion mixture to crock and then add all remaining ingredients except for the escarole and Parmesan. Mix gently until tomato paste dissolves.

3. Cover and cook on low for 7 hours. Chop escarole, stir well and cook 1 more hour. Scoop into individual bowls and top with Parmesan cheese.

Cheers! 

Late Night Lamp Recovering

So, the crafty bug bit me one evening which lead to an impromptu lamp covering. I have these 2 great milk glass lamps but they have the same old tired white lamp cover they have had probably since they were made. There were few stains on the shades here and there too. I just got tired of looking at them so I stuck both the lamps in the garage for a while. Then, eons later, I had a thought. Why not recover the darn things? Geeze, and it took me THAT long to come up with the idea to recover the shades? 

So, I went scavenging into my craft supplies and low and behold, I had all the supplies necessary to recover the lamp shades. While I can't say I followed a professional protocol for lamp shade covering, because I didn't. I do have to say I came up with my own creative way and they turned out pretty darn good. 

From my craft stash I used 2 different fabric prints, fabric scissors, craft clue, a craft sponge, newspaper and a sharpie to make the pattern.

Take your newspaper and lay the lamp shade on it. Use the sharpie to draw the outline of your shade to make your pattern.

Cut your pattern out.

Lay the pattern on your fabric with wrong side of the fabric facing up and trace and cut your fabric.

I don't know what the proper way is to fix the fabric on a lamp shade but I used glue and a craft sponge. It worked great! Just dab the glue on the lamp shade and lay the fabric on.

I used another pattern of fabric to make trim for for the bottom of the lampshade and glued that on as well.

There you have it, an old lamp looking good as new.

Happy little lamp shade.  

Cheers! 

Torchy's Tacos Is Tha Bizomb

I have been obsessed with Torchy's Tacos for years now. We eat there like a gazillion times when we take road trips to Austin. The. best. tacos. period. Now...the gods have listened and they built one here in little old Funky Town. Praise all the is merciful. When they first opened in December there was a line wrapped around the building so Jeff and I ordered online and he went to pick up. But, today, we headed on down there for lunch and it was delish! Our eyes are always bigger than our stomachs when we go. So, it was only fitting that we ordered a metric ton of food. So much food the guy that delivered it to our table said "here comes the party" and a party it was. A bit honkin' food party that left us with big  honkin' food comas. It was all so worth it.

The street corn is to die for. I cant describe it really other than freaking awesome. Yum.

I always have to get the green chile pork taco because I am a green chile eating fool. I also like to throw a breakfast taco in too so I went with the migas taco. Again, yum, thank you very much. 

The queso is the best every. I didn't get a picture of that because we ate it all. :) So, there you go. If you live close to a Torchy's, go. Now. 

Cheers! 

Homemade Maraschino Cherries

I am keeping up with the Christmas baking. Trying hard to get caught up because there has been so much going on this month! I was watching the food network...as usual...and Ted Allen had the greatest and most simple recipe for maraschino cherries so, I went with it. All you need are sour cherries and Maraschino Liquor. Come to find out, both are rather hard to come by. But, with several calls to several places I was able to collect my ingredients. All you do it bring to a simmer one cup of Maraschino Liquor. I used Luxardo. After your liquor is simmering, add your sour cherries. You can use fresh ones, which I will do next time but they are not in season, or you can use canned sour cherries that you have drained. Stir the cherries in and turn of the heat. Allow them to cool and put in jars. I actually added a tiny bit of sugar to sweeten them up just a little while the liquor and cherries were still warm. There you have it!

Marshmallow Madness!!

Making homemade marshmallows is so much fun. Not only are they delicious, you know exactly what goes in them...unlike some of the mysterious kind you can pick up at the store. Some time ago, my mother got me the greatest little marshmallow making book by Shauna Sever called Marshmallow Madness. Sorry Martha...but these marshmallows are better...and easier to prepare. I like to make them around Christmas and Valentine's day, however, there are so many brilliant recipes in this book, I just might make a different marshmallow once a month! I have a little something in mind for these that I can't post about until after Christmas. 

Happy Christmas! 

Happenings

I have fallen off the radar once again. I seem to have been doing that a lot lately when it comes to my blogging! I was getting back in the routine of it and then something happened that I did not really see coming which resulted in my lack of blogging. My sweet little Millie got sick unexpectedly right before Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, she died, which was devastating. I wasn't quite ready to let her go. I am very grateful that I had her for the past 11 years. She was one of the best dogs I have ever owned. She was loyal, laid back, and so quirky! I miss her rolling all over the couch and knocking the couch pillows on the floor. She loved when we sang to her too. We had all kinds of songs made up for her and she would get really excited to hear them. She was my roach killer too! All I had to go was scream and point and she was on it. She thought she was a person really. She was more than a dog, she was a loyal companion and a part of the family. Here she is in her finest form, when I made her wear a life jacket in the lake. 

This is just a few days before she died. I knew there was something not right and something told me to take a picture of her while she slept.

The house just seemed so empty without a dog. We are animal people and especially love dogs. Even though we have the cats who bring us just as much joy...but in a cat way...we were still kind of lonely. So, we decided it was time to get another. We found a boxer breeder who had a litter that was delivered in October and would be ready December 17th. Several weeks ago we made a trip to meet our new little pup, she was the last one available out of the litter and she was perfect. We got to bring her home today. She is fitting right in! Meet Penelope, in her many forms of sleep! 

She is tons of fun but also requires tons of attention since she is just only 8 weeks old. She is adjusting well though and when she is all grown up, she will be a great dog too.

Cheers!