Souper Saturday and Hobby Lobby Bargains

Tonight Firstborn and Handsome are at a Boy Scout lock-in, so it was just three of us for supper. I decided to take the easy route with grilled cheese and tomato soup. However, I don't buy canned soup anymore...high fructose corn syrup, MSG, and all that. So I searched for a recipe, and decided to go with this one, from Angry Chicken (love the name!). As usual, I did a bit of my own thing, as follows:

Dice about 1/4 onion. Saute in olive oil with 1/2 tsp minced garlic (about 1 clove). Puree 1 14oz can diced tomatoes in blender and add to onion and garlic in saucepan. Add some water (1/2 to 3/4 cup, maybe), salt and pepper, and a little honey to taste. Bring to boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 15-20 mins. Put approx 1/2 c. milk in blender, pour tomato mixture in and puree again. Serve. This made about 4 servings. (Edited Mar. 23: the reason I put the milk in the blender and then the tomato is because I read that doing it the other way will curdle the milk. I tested that tonight and it is true. If you add the milk into the tomato, it will curdle. "Add red to white and you won't be blue")

For my own bowl, I added a dollop of pesto, as Angry Chicken suggests. I really liked this soup. It had a bright, tomato-y flavor far superior to canned soup. And it was super easy. Definitely a do-over.

Ratings:
Me 9
Skippy 4
Pinkerbelle 10 ("is there 100?")

And, yes, the grilled cheese is made with white bread. Oh, the horror!! Handsome went to the store the other night and I asked him to get bread. I showed him the bread bag, 100% Whole Wheat.


He brought home made with Whole Grain White. Not the same. And the thing is, he knows we have virtually never bought white bread for the last eight years. (Now he'll read this and he will think I'm really mad about it still.)

I was surprised at how much I didn't like it; it was too soft, too sweet, too bland. Like eating dough or something. At least it didn't have HFCS (neither kind does).

Now, on to Hobby Lobby. When I was there Thursday, all fall decor was 80% off. I resisted. But yesterday I went back and fall was 90% off! Screeech! (That's me slamming on the brakes.) The selection was understandably depleted, but I managed to get a few things. I put them in my china cabinet so I can show you how much better it looks without the paint on the glass.



Some of the green serving dishes were available in red on Thursday, and to tell the truth, I would have much preferred the red. But the red was gone Friday, and the green's not too bad. They'd make nice gifts, or maybe I could spray paint them white? Obviously I couldn't use them for food if I did that, but I probably won't anyway.

The silver gourds kinda made me think of mercury glass, or at least all the imitators that are out now, which I really like but don't have any of. Wait, that should be "but of which I have none". I added up all the regular prices for these items and it was $97, which means that I paid $9.70 for all five pieces! Pretty durn good, if you ask me!

Don't forget to enter my giveaway...it's open until noon on Monday!