A few weeks ago I was on the couch at home snuggling a sleeping, sickly Gretchen and watching the Today Show. Martha Stewart was part of a segment on how to make quick and easy food at home rather than ordering take out. Martha said that a good replacement for pizza delivery is tomato soup and a toasted baguette slice with fresh mozzarella. Meredith Viera quickly put Martha in her place by informing her that while the soup and side were delicious, they were no substitute for pizza. The look on Martha’s face was quite amusing.
Here is the tomato soup recipe, I really liked it and took it over to my in-laws and they really liked it. Gretchen is the only one that will eat tomato soup with me so I cut the recipe in half and post the half recipe here.
Tomato Soup
1 T. olive oil
¼ tsp. red pepper flakes (optional, but they did add a nice kick)
½ c. onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
14 ounce diced tomatoes and the juice
1 ¼ c. chicken broth (could use vegetable broth)
Heat the oil and red pepper flakes over medium-high heat in a medium sauce pan. Add the onion and garlic and cook for about 6 minutes, stirring once in awhile. Pulse the tomatoes in a blender or food processor 3-4 times. Add tomatoes and broth to the sauce pan and bring to a boil, then turn down to a simmer and let the soup simmer for 30 minutes. Allow soup to cool* then pour back into the blender or food processor to blend until mostly smooth or whatever consistency you prefer.
*A word to the wise, blending hot liquid is not a good idea unless you do it in small batches, about 1 cup at a time, and hold the lid on with a towel. If you choose to dump all the hot soup right into your blender, go ahead and turn it on and watch as the lid blows off and coats your entire kitchen in tomato soup.
The red pepper flakes add a nice spicy flavor and if you have non-spicy eaters, just leave it out and add hot sauce to your own bowl. The soup would work quite nicely with a toppings bar – small pieces of fresh mozzarella and basil, variety of crackers, croutons, good bread, cooked shrimp, or even partially cooked veggies.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Oh yes, he did.
The dog ate Katie's homework.
Her class just finished studying pioneers, including a field trip to Living History Farms. To finish up the unit, she needed to complete a final project. A list of suggestions was sent home and she chose diorama.
Katie takes classes in the summer from a certain retired teacher that resembles ET when sitting at her kidney bean shaped table. The big project she worked on for summer classes was on her favorite vacation - given that she's technically been on two vacations, she didn't have much to choose from. Katie made a shoebox diorama about our family vacation to Minnesota in 2009. We went kayaking in Lake Minnetonka and Katie took a bunch of pictures of the lake houses, boats, lily pads and sand. The pictures turned out to be perfect for covering the shoebox, she made a dock, added a boat and called it done. The diorama turned out to be really cute and I was thankful that she did not include any pictures of my hyperventilating. While kayaking looks like fun, I have this thing about not being able to touch the bottom of a body of water.
So, when Katie chose diorama for her final pioneer project she was really excited. She dug a shoebox out of the basement and looked around for a small box to craft a covered wagon. Turns out that a Jiffy corn muffin mix box is not only the perfect size for a mini-covered wagon, when we emptied out the package to make cornbread, we found that the inside white paper packaging was a perfect covering for the wagon. Katie covered the wagon with construction paper and we rubber banded the packaging paper to a large can of diced tomatoes to round out the shape.
The rounding out turned out beautifully and made for cute little covered wagon. We called it a night with homework, saying that we'll add wheels and a background tomorrow. That was Wednesday, the project was due on Friday. The next morning we went through our usual morning routine, Katie met the bus, I dropped Gretchen at school and headed to work. Erik had been working ridiculous hours for a few weeks and got home at about 8:30 in the morning. He called me at work to report that in the 45 minutes Rommel had been left alone in the house he had torn apart and eaten part of the covered wagon. Apparently the corn muffin smell was more than he could take and the only option was destruction. That's what we get for naming him after a genius of strategic warfare, he's always got something up his sleeve.
A replacement box of Jiffy corn muffin mix later, the second diorama turned out quite nicely and made it school in one piece.
Her class just finished studying pioneers, including a field trip to Living History Farms. To finish up the unit, she needed to complete a final project. A list of suggestions was sent home and she chose diorama.
Katie takes classes in the summer from a certain retired teacher that resembles ET when sitting at her kidney bean shaped table. The big project she worked on for summer classes was on her favorite vacation - given that she's technically been on two vacations, she didn't have much to choose from. Katie made a shoebox diorama about our family vacation to Minnesota in 2009. We went kayaking in Lake Minnetonka and Katie took a bunch of pictures of the lake houses, boats, lily pads and sand. The pictures turned out to be perfect for covering the shoebox, she made a dock, added a boat and called it done. The diorama turned out to be really cute and I was thankful that she did not include any pictures of my hyperventilating. While kayaking looks like fun, I have this thing about not being able to touch the bottom of a body of water.
So, when Katie chose diorama for her final pioneer project she was really excited. She dug a shoebox out of the basement and looked around for a small box to craft a covered wagon. Turns out that a Jiffy corn muffin mix box is not only the perfect size for a mini-covered wagon, when we emptied out the package to make cornbread, we found that the inside white paper packaging was a perfect covering for the wagon. Katie covered the wagon with construction paper and we rubber banded the packaging paper to a large can of diced tomatoes to round out the shape.
The rounding out turned out beautifully and made for cute little covered wagon. We called it a night with homework, saying that we'll add wheels and a background tomorrow. That was Wednesday, the project was due on Friday. The next morning we went through our usual morning routine, Katie met the bus, I dropped Gretchen at school and headed to work. Erik had been working ridiculous hours for a few weeks and got home at about 8:30 in the morning. He called me at work to report that in the 45 minutes Rommel had been left alone in the house he had torn apart and eaten part of the covered wagon. Apparently the corn muffin smell was more than he could take and the only option was destruction. That's what we get for naming him after a genius of strategic warfare, he's always got something up his sleeve.
A replacement box of Jiffy corn muffin mix later, the second diorama turned out quite nicely and made it school in one piece.
Monday, October 11, 2010
October = baseball. I love the wild card play off games, the league championship series. The sold out crowds are electric, you can hear it in the constant chants, cheers, fans standing up the entire game. The announcer booth chatter is reserved excitement. It doesn't matter who plays, though it is more fun when the Cardinals or Yankees are playing.
Things to look forward to over the next couple of months...
My sister and her family coming to town
A new nephew due any day now!
Pumpkin patch with the girls
DaVinci dinner date with my honey
Voting (don't forget!)
Things to look forward to over the next couple of months...
My sister and her family coming to town
A new nephew due any day now!
Pumpkin patch with the girls
DaVinci dinner date with my honey
Voting (don't forget!)
Monday, October 4, 2010
Over the course of 2010 I have gradually become more of a Locavore. My spell check says that is not a real word, I beg to differ. The term describes a person that eats locally grown food and such, likely a word rooted in some sort of hippy-liberal-vegan source. I kid, of course, who knows who thought that one up and I am the exact opposite as a boring-middle of the road-omnivore.
This has been a gradual process and yet one that is logical to me – it would have to be logical and economical or it just wouldn’t work. I love the Downtown Farmer’s Market for the locally grown produce, meat, bread and cheese. I love the produce section of Hy-Vee on Fleur Drive, they are pros at marketing what is locally or regionally grown. It’s not a political stance, I’m not going to hop up on a soapbox and proclaim it to the world, it just makes sense to me – kind of a ‘how did it take me so long to realize that buying local food is a such good thing’.
There really is no excuse for not buying locally available in-season vegetables. They are going to be fresher and taste better, buying them is supporting area growers and farmers and it is fun to talk to the vendor about how to cook the vegetables that they grow. Our girls love to go to the Farmer’s Market and pick out fruit and vegetables and I am happy to give in.
I’ll give you an example of something that I buy locally – I doubt that I will ever go back to store bought chicken. There are two vendors that I know of at the Farmer’s Market that have whole frozen chickens for sale. One is Fox Hollow Farms and the other is the one that I buy from and the name escapes me. They are expensive and they are delicious. If I spend $10 on a chicken, roast it, pull the meat and spread it out over 4 meals - the cooked meat freezes nicely – it is absolutely worth it. I prefer to roast the chicken whole but it could be cut up if you know how to do that. I do not know how and am perfectly happy with roasted chicken.
I recently learned about the Iowa Food Cooperative http://iowafood.org/shop/. It completely fascinates me. A lot of the same vendors are at the Downtown Farmer’s Market so I see no reason to join the coop when I can wander around the Farmer’s Market to shop and people watch at the same time. :-)
This has been a gradual process and yet one that is logical to me – it would have to be logical and economical or it just wouldn’t work. I love the Downtown Farmer’s Market for the locally grown produce, meat, bread and cheese. I love the produce section of Hy-Vee on Fleur Drive, they are pros at marketing what is locally or regionally grown. It’s not a political stance, I’m not going to hop up on a soapbox and proclaim it to the world, it just makes sense to me – kind of a ‘how did it take me so long to realize that buying local food is a such good thing’.
There really is no excuse for not buying locally available in-season vegetables. They are going to be fresher and taste better, buying them is supporting area growers and farmers and it is fun to talk to the vendor about how to cook the vegetables that they grow. Our girls love to go to the Farmer’s Market and pick out fruit and vegetables and I am happy to give in.
I’ll give you an example of something that I buy locally – I doubt that I will ever go back to store bought chicken. There are two vendors that I know of at the Farmer’s Market that have whole frozen chickens for sale. One is Fox Hollow Farms and the other is the one that I buy from and the name escapes me. They are expensive and they are delicious. If I spend $10 on a chicken, roast it, pull the meat and spread it out over 4 meals - the cooked meat freezes nicely – it is absolutely worth it. I prefer to roast the chicken whole but it could be cut up if you know how to do that. I do not know how and am perfectly happy with roasted chicken.
I recently learned about the Iowa Food Cooperative http://iowafood.org/shop/. It completely fascinates me. A lot of the same vendors are at the Downtown Farmer’s Market so I see no reason to join the coop when I can wander around the Farmer’s Market to shop and people watch at the same time. :-)
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