Soup - French Onion Soup

This is a really easy soup and so wonderful on these cold winter days. A good loaf of crunchy, crusty bread is great for dipping!

I use red onions, but you can use Spanish or any other that you prefer.

Peel and thinly slice a quart or more of onions. I toss them with a couple of tablespoons of all purpose flour as it thickens the stock a little bit. Heat 5 or 6 tablespoons butter in a heavy pan until bubble then put in the onions, stirring them to get them covered with the butter. If the flour dries it too much, add some extra butter. On medium heat, cook the onions until they are nice and browned and carmelized -- not burned! If you cook them slowly they will brown ever so nicely! Now add beef stock, vegetable stock, or beef consomme -- I use the reusable containers of stock or cans of consomme ... you might need two of the containers (add enough water so that you have plenty to cover the onions by about 2") and if using consomme 2 cans plus some water will work. Add some parsley -- a tablespoon is good -- and salt and freshly ground pepper. Simmer your soup for about a half hour.

Slice french bread thickly and toast lightly. This helps keep it from getting too soggy on top of the soup. Spoon onions and broth into soup bowls or little ramekins if you have them. Add a slice of the toast and pile on some shredded mozzarella cheese.

Place under the broiler for a minute or two until the cheese is melted and browned.

Serve to rave reviews!

Enjoy!

Life Changes

I chose the quote for the day, "The one way to get thin is to re-establish a purpose in life," very deliberately as this is a big month of change for me. My new purpose in life is to live it to the fullest! In order to do that, I've decided to get a major grip on my weight issues and I'm scheduled for gastric bypass surgery next week. This has not been a quick or easy decision, but it is a good one in my mind and with the various doctors whom I've consulted. So, before my 60th birthday I'll be on a healthier road. I don't mind the getting older part of living -- I'd just like to enjoy it more and be as active with my body as with my mind. And I wouldn't be adverse to wearing smaller clothes again!! ... Tomorrow I go for all day education classes and Wednesday is for physical fitness assessments. The rest of the week I'll probably get some projects ready to do while sitting as the first week or so is rather sedentary. I'll keep you posted!!

Soup - Baked Potato Soup

It's National Soup Month! Have a recipe to share? Add it to the comments! I love winter and winter soups are so tummy warming! Practice making some great breads to go with your soups and you'll be the hit of the neighborhood!

Today's soup has many variations ... here's just one version. Lots of folks make this in a crock pot.

Start out by baking 2 large potatoes. Peel and cube them to have about 2 cups potatoes.
3 (or more) strips bacon diced and sauteed until crisp. Drain bacon and reserve 1 T of the drippings.
1 small onion and 1 clove garlic, chopped. Saute in the same pan with remaining drippings until translucent and tender.
3 T flour, 1 t salt, 1 t dried basil, 1/2 t pepper added to cooked onion and garlic.
Add 3 c chicken or vegetable broth and boil for 2 minutes
Add potatoes.
Stir in 1 cup half and half or table cream.
Grate 1 cup cheddar cheese and add to soup.
Heat through but do not bring to another boil.
Garnish with additional 1/2 cup grated cheddar and some fresh parsley.

Let's defat this a little bit!!

1. Use turkey bacon.
2. Saute onion and garlic in a bit of olive oil instead of drippings.
3. Use low sodium chicken or vegetable broth.
4. Use fat free half and half or fat free canned evaporated milk instead of cream.
5. Reduced fat cheddar cheese will work really well here!
Enjoy!

Happy New Year

Once I slip away from doing something, I really do lose track of how long it's been that I've been missing, so I was, of course, surprised to find that it's really been quite a bit longer since I posted here. For that I apologize .... to you as well as to myself because this is something that I really do enjoy doing! I can use an excuse that we travel a lot and there isn't always a computer available, but that got taken care of at Christmas when Santa brought me a shiny new wireless laptop :) Now I have no excuse but laziness left and I hope that won't be used!

Wishing you and yours a wonderful year ahead. I'm always so excited by the end of one year and the start of another ... not because the year was so bad (well, sometimes it has been), but more because one never knows what adventures are coming in the weeks and months ahead! It's sort of like opening a brand new journal (and it's time to do that, too!!) with all those lovely blank pages just waiting to be filled! I hope that you look forward to what this year holds in store for you, and that everything is sparkly and wonderful!

Is it Men?

We had a water problem the other night, and as Howard knelt in front of the bathtub checking to see if the water was still rusty, I realized that both of his socks had the heels out of them! Now, I'm handy with a needle and thread, but I'm a QUILTER, not a sock darner! and certainly not these white athletic socks that come in packs of a hundred! I quickly slipped them off his feet (yes he was protesting vehemently!) and tossed them in the trash. I won :)

Not 24 hours had passed before I looked down and realized that both of Howard's socks had the heels out of them! Thinking that he had retrieved them from the trash, I dashed upstairs only to discover that the previous day's socks were still in the trash. With horror I realized that he had multiple sets socks with huge gaps in the heels!

By this time Howard was relaxing out on the patio, oblivious to my distress over the sock situation. I grabbed up my very best pair of Gingher cutting shears and flew out to the patio. Lifting his pant leg, I began chopping the offending sock right off his foot! Before he could even realize what I was doing, I had it halfway cut off! When the ensuing struggle was over, it was a draw -- I had one sock and he had the other.

Yesterday I snuck into his sock drawer and removed the remaining offending pieces, replacing them with a new package of athletic socks -- I wonder if he'll notice that he doesn't have any more air-conditioned socks?

Mail Day!

Will you look at this glorious pattern??!!!! Did you ever see anything like it? No??!! Me either! That's why I had to buy it the minute I saw it!! This is the first applique design by Australian quiltmaker Kim McLean and it is stunning!!! You can see this and her other designs at Glorious Color website. Scroll down the left side menu to find her link.

The individual blocks are really large so a novice applique person like me believes all things here are possible! I've got one block separated from the pattern package and 2 of the little border blocks to try. I'm so excited!!!

And, if you know me well, you know that I could not stop at just one! So several of her patterns now live at my house :) Have to go choose fabric ... wooohoooo!!!

I'm not really creative ...

When I was in 5th grade, or maybe 6th grade, I painted a picture of one of the California Missions ... and I felt really really good about it! The next time I felt really good about a painting was more than 20 years later when I decided I wanted to try my hand at "creating". I went to the art supply store and bought a canvas, some charcoal, a book on how to do it, and a supply of paints and brushes. I painted like that for a year or so and then took some lessons. And even though I know lots of the "rules" of painting, my favorite thing is still to just get a canvas and paints and put down the colors of my mind.

Ten years after my painting, a very "non-crafty" friend of mine introduced me to cross-stitch. Ooooo painting with thread! I can do this! And the second thing I ever stitched was a pattern that I designed. I went on to win a dozen blue ribbons for my stitching, and my house as well as my friends and family have evidence that I stitched. I still love pulling out a fine piece of linen and taking that first telling stitch that says something great is being born. I still love getting out graph paper and designing little pieces for my own enjoyment -- another way to put down the colors of my mind.

I used to make clothing in my younger years (teens) through my poorer years (young adult) and then one day I woke up and I had enough money to buy clothes off the rack. So I stopped hanging out in fabric stores, but that was all going to change ...

Another ten years go by and I was introduced to quilting. Fabric. Color. Textiles. Tactile. My introduction to quilting came in a small town in Virginia with a woman who had been quilting for over 60 years. We cut cardboard templates, stitched little seams, and strove to get our quilting down to 10 stitches per inch (never have accomplished that). At the end of that 6 or 8 weeks I had stitched curved seams, inset seams, straight seams ... cut big pieces, little pieces, appliqued, and practiced a good quilting stitch. I was totally hooked. I went off to the fabric store again and bought enough fabric for the 5 quilts that were in my mind. Fifteen years later some of that fabric is still sitting in my stash, so I guess I still like it!!

Quilting became the way for me to record the colors of my mind.

But I've never thought I was creative ... I just sort of go along for the ride. I see a great pattern that someone really creative has designed and immediately that rainbow appears in my head and I know how to color it. Fortunately, this happens more and more to me these days -- maybe I'm becoming friends with my muse.

I'm starting to believe in my ability to create something -- a beautiful quilt that pleases me. I'm buying fabric because I fall in love with the colors. My brain is exploding with fabrics that I want to cut into -- there's not enough time to make all these quilts!

I love color.
I love fabric.
I love quilting.
I love my quilting friends.

But I'm not really creative ...