Souper Saturday--Cheesy Potato

Tonight I had to change my soup plans due to another shopping error by Handsome. You would think a grown man...oh, never mind. But I'm just sayin'. So, I had to come up with something using what was already in the house, and decided on Cheesy Potato Soup II by Joan Zaffary, from www.allrecipes.com .

Original recipe:

INGREDIENTS

• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cups chopped onions
• 1 1/2 cups chopped celery
• 4 cups water
• 8 potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 15 slices American cheese - broken into pieces
• 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 1/3 cups milk
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

DIRECTIONS

1. Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Saute the onions and celery in the butter for 5 to 10 minutes, or until tender.
2. Stir in the water and potatoes, bring to a boil and then simmer until the potatoes are tender. Add the cheese and stir until melted.
3. In a separate small bowl, combine the flour and the milk and stir well until the flour is mostly dissolved. Pour this into the soup slowly, stirring constantly, until soup has thickened, about 5 minutes. Garnish with the parsley.

My changes:

1. I used chicken broth instead of water
2. When the potatoes were tender, I pureed that whole mixture with a hand blender (kids=no chunks).
3. I prefer not to use processed cheese (American), so I melted 2 Tbsp of butter in a pan, stirred in the flour to make a roux, poured in the milk and whisked until bubbly and thickened (your basic white sauce), then stirred in shredded cheddar (about 1 1/2 cups, maybe) until melted. Then I stirred that into the soup.

If I had thought ahead, I would have reserved the two Tbsp butter for the roux out of the 6 Tbsp used to saute the onions and celery, but since I didn't think of that, I ended up using a whole stick of butter in this soup!

I garnished it with a little cheese and parsley for the photo, but bacon and/or chopped green onions or chives would have been ideal toppings.

Ratings:
Handsome 7 would've like some potato chunks
Me 7
Firstborn 6
Skippy 5
Pinkerbelle 9

Average 6.8

This soup was pretty good; the aforementioned toppings, which I did not have, would have improved it. I actually have a potato soup recipe that I prefer, but have not been able to find my cookbooks since we moved into this house. Handsome is in the basement right now trying to do some organizing, so maybe they'll turn up.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Pinkerbelle made these Pilgrim hats for us at school. She made sure to point out that she gave me rainbow-colored yarn. I'm not sure why it always looks like I'm not wearing any make-up in photos. Actually, in real life I look a little like Angelina Jolie, but it never comes through photographically.

Enjoy your day with friends and family!

Curb Appeal

One of the things I am most thankful for this year is my home (above). There's a big long story about that, but I don't think I'll go into it right now. Let's just say that we rented, and moved a lot, for a very long time. I spent a lot of that time wishing and dreaming for my own house. I spent hours on local real estate sites, searching and longing.

Last January that is exactly how I found this neighborhood. The builder had a home listed on the MLS; Handsome was (sort of) in the area and I asked him to drive by it. He stopped into the sales office, and somehow by the end of January we were under contract for a to-be-built house. I'm not exactly sure how it happened, because we weren't planning to buy at that time, and I never dreamed that when the time came I would get a brand new house!

It was considered an inventory house, because the builder had it all planned, so we didn't get to pick the model or lot, though we did get to choose between two (it was the incentives on inventory homes that made it possible for us to buy). I was able to change some of the planned finishes/colors, and we did make some other changes that we had to pay for.

On the exterior, we chose the brick and siding color, and I chose to have the porch columns only half brick instead of entirely brick (had to pay for that one). We haven't done anything in the way of landscaping yet, but I am so pleased with the curb appeal of the house itself. I'm very happy with my choices, and so grateful to have a pretty, new house.

We did not pick the elevation of our model, but of the available choices, there's only one that I like as well as ours. Yesterday I drove around the neighborhood snapping photos of different elevations of our model. Some of pictures aren't the greatest, because I was trying not to look like some, you know, weird stalker or something, so they're just drive-by shots, so to speak.

This one (above) is directly across the street from us. It is the 'Classic' elevation. I prefer our gabled roofline.

One street over is the 'Prairie'. A little plain; I'm just not a huge fan of this one.

This is the 'Revival' elevation, which is the same as ours. See the all-brick columns? I don't care for those, especially in person. It just looks and feels too closed in when you walk up the steps, kind of unwelcoming or something. Also, when they were building our house, they decided that this elevation now comes with shutters on the upper windows. Lucky us! I really think the shutters improve it.

This is the 'Tudor'. No porch. 'Nuff said.

This is the other one I like, the 'Craftsman'. I love the stone. I don't particularly like the color choices on this one, though.

We moved in on Handsome's birthday last April. The interior is still largely undecorated. We asked about picking out paint colors since they were going to have to paint anyway. Oh, naive children. Custom colors, it turns out, would add $4000! What? Does that sound ridiculous to anybody else? Merely putting a color in the paint sprayer other than builder white costs four. thousand. dollars. Builder white it is, then, until we get around to painting.

It was kind of funny; while it was being built, I had some kind of idea that I was going to move into my new house and it would be perfect. Of course, it is not perfect, as quickly became evident. There are things I would have done differently had I known. But I got all the biggies that were on my list...4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, walkout basement w/ rough-in for future bath, fireplace, laundry upstairs with bedrooms (paid for that), and because of moving the laundry, one of my favorite features, a mudroom!

This Thanksgiving, and in this time when so many are losing theirs, I'm thankful for my house!

And the winner is....

Jeanne@InspiringIdeas! Thanks for entering, everybody! It was fun. Jeanne, I will email you so you can send me your address.

Thanks!

Okay, everybody, the giveaway is closed.  Thanks for entering, and good luck!  We'll tally it up, do a drawing, and announce the winner tomorrow morning!

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!

The Big Five-Oh (Giveaway!)

Giveaway is closed!  Thanks!

This, dear readers, is my fiftieth post! As with most things, time has really flown. But here's the thing. If it weren't for Google Analytics, I would think I was all alone in the blogosphere, based on the one comment per day that I average (thanks, Dixie). However, with the magic of Big Brother (that is, Analytics) I know that I average about 50 visits a day (I know, I'm no Nester). Yes, I think it's kind of creepy that you can find out practically everything about everybody that flits across your website, and that wherever you go they can do the same to you. But it's also kind of interesting, if you're anal[lytical] like me.

I'd like to hear from you, so today I'm going to bribe you, in the guise of a giveaway. I don't have any bigwig sponsors, so don't get too excited. But it's easy,it's free, and look at it this way: your odds of winning are pretty good. For the last several years, I have been getting a little frame ornament for the Christmas tree and putting that year's photo of the kids in it. Yesterday I was at Hobby Lobby picking out this year's, and I got an extra for one lucky reader.

For those of you who came over from The Inspired Room, this is my Christmas tradition offering. By hanging a new photo ornament on the tree every year, I will always be able to see how much everybody has grown and changed each year.


I put our initial in it for now because we haven't taken the photo yet. If you win, I will put in the initial of your choice, and then when you get it you can change it to a photo if you like. All you need to do to enter is leave a comment on this post, and tell me which initial you would like. But wait, there's more!

Bonus: if you would like to be entered twice, you can do one of two additional things. You can either mention my blog and this giveaway (and link to it) on your blog, or you can put me on your blogroll. I'm shameless, I know. If you do that, mention it in your comment and be sure I can find your blog to verify.

Don't be shy, and don't be embarrassed if you've never commented before. That's the point! In general, there are fewer visitors over the weekend, so I will leave the giveaway open until, ummm, Monday at noon. Winner will be announced Tuesday morning. (Yes, Dixie, you can enter. In fact, considered yourself entered. If I get no other comments, you win!)

P.S. When you're done leaving a comment, check out the other ideas at The Inspired Room.