Going to the Dogs!

 Today is my Abraham's birthday. Yes, he shares a birthday with another famous Abraham.  Yes, that's where he got his name. It helped that his "brother" we already had was named Eisenhower. Yes, I love politics, great presidents and sweet, sweet puppies. 

 So last night when I got home from teaching school all day---plus an evening of parent/teacher conferences, I wanted to make Abe (and Ike) a little treat. After all, it was almost Abe's birthday and the pair had been home alone for over 12 hours! 

 I had a couple of cute little dog bone cookie cutters I had bought in Target's dollar section at Christmas time, so I got them out and made the dogs some treats. The cookie cutters came with a recipe, so I just used that. I had everything but the whole wheat flour, but I did not mind getting back out to buy that for the pups. 

 The bone cookie cutter was just an average size and the recipe made 64 of these bones! That is a lot of treats. 

 I made the recipe exactly as the was called for, except the cooking time. The recipe said 40 minutes so the treats would be good and hard. I found that my treats were relatively hard much sooner. Like at about the 20-25 minute mark!  Maybe it is my oven. But if you make these, keep that in mind. Twenty minutes was all we needed. 

 The treats are made with canned pumpkin and a little cinnamon.  When they were cooking, our house smelled like pumpkin pies were cooking. 

 Let me assure you, the treats were big hits. Abe is the type of dog that will eat anything. He will scarf it down. Ike is a little more of a gentleman. He will examine his food first, smell it, then eat with manners. Both of the presidents approved though, no matter how they downed the treats! I text pictures of the treats in the oven to my children. None of them rolled their eyes (or emoticons) at me. One of my daughters suggested I make a batch and take them to the local dog shelter in honor of my pups. That's a great idea. I text my parents the same pic, and they did think I was a little crazy! ha! Hey, I even thought (later) that a heart cookie cutter would have been cute for Valentine's Day....

Abe's Birthday Treats

2 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

2 eggs

1 cup canned pumpkin

3 Tbs. peanut butter

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

4 Tbs. water

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl, mix (with an electric mixer) all the ingredients except the water. After the other ingredients are all mixed, add the water. You may add more water as needed/if needed, but the dough should be fairly dry and stiff and workable. Roll the dough out, use the cookie cutter of your choice and bake. Bake until hard. Mine took 25 minutes, (although the recipe said it could be 40 minutes).  Then give your dog a bone treat! 

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Window Peeping

 Clear back in September, I had traveled back to Hiawatha, Kansas, for the wedding of some friends. We only get back to Kansas (it is over 360 miles from where we now live)twice a year...at the most. Literally, on our drive back home after being there for two days, I saw on Facebook where one of my former students (now grown) was getting rid of all the old wooden windows from his house. 

He and his wife had bought one of the beautiful old homes in town, and they had updated all the old windows. His wife, bless her, knew better than to just dump all the windows and put a call out on FB for someone to come and get them. And there I was, headed AWAY from where those windows were! Just my luck. 

 But luck actually was on my side. Another friend lived just two doors away from my former student and I sent him up to his neighbor to retrieve a window. I told him exactly which window type I wanted (they had posted several kinds on FB). I specifically  wanted one that was 8 big panes, white on one side and brown on the other. I have such good friends. They gave me the exact window I wanted and my other friend stored it in his garage until Christmas when one of my sons went to Kansas for a visit and brought it back. 

 This window is huge and heavy. I plan to use it with the white facing out at times and of course change it around some and have the brown side facing out sometimes. For the time being, I have it propped on a chest in the living room, layered with an antique framed map. 

 When I originally staked claim to a window, I imagined it replacing the gold frame over the mantel on the gianormous mirror. But the window is so tall, that it actually extended about 3/4 of a pane beyond the giant mirror. So when looking at the mirror and window, it looked kind of weird when the mirror suddenly stopped at the top. Too bad it didn't work out though, because the mirror was creating a great reflection on the brown side of the window. Who knows, I might try it again sometime. 

 In the meantime, I love where it is and how it looks. I had the 1930's map framed about six years ago. Then about three years ago I hung the PEACE banner on it for Christmas. I started to take down the banner after Christmas that year, then decided that I liked it up there. After all, we truly do need PEACE all the time, not just Christmas. 

The window represents what I love about my home. It makes me think of that sweet student (now grown) that was one of my all-time favorites. It makes me think of his wise wife that knew the windows didn't belong in the landfill. It makes me think of one of my other favorite friends that walked up and got the window for me and stored it for four months. It makes me think of our wonderful years in Kansas. It makes me think of my son who hauled it all the way back for me and another son who moved it around for me every time I was trying it somewhere new. You can't get those memories from department store merchandise. ....Now I just need to get the giant wardrobe back down to Oklahoma that I bought (online) at a Hiawatha auction...in October!! (Yep, you guessed it...another friend is storing that for me!) 
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Cheeseburger Soup for the Souper Bowl!

 Last night I shared the Creamy Tomato Florentine Soup I made over the weekend. Well I also made Cheeseburger Soup for the first time. While the family all agreed that the Tomato Florentine Soup was great, my boys and the Hubs loved the Cheeseburger Soup. I'm sure it has nothing to do with all the cheese and hamburger versus tomatoes, spinach and cream. No, huh uh. 

 Both of the soups made big hearty pots. Both would be delicious served to a big hungry crowd. It took me probably an hour (or less) to make both pots of soup from scratch. Plus, I made the croutons and brownies during that time as well. My point being, while both soups look like a lot of ingredients, they both could not be easier! 

 I have no idea why I plated it up and stage it on a LOVE towel. I should have put it on a big 'ole football towel! 

 I realize this is a little blurry, but these are the vegies as they sauted.  In the words of my youngest son, who came in to check on me periodically, "Mom, what do carrots have to do with cheeseburgers anyway?  I think you could have left those out!"  This recipe, I followed exactly like it said to do.....And you KNOW I never do that! So yes, there are carrots in my Cheeseburger Soup! 

 Although the recipe did say to peel and cube potatoes, I opted to just use frozen hash browns in the cube size. They seemed to work just fine too. 

 CHEESEBURGER SOUP

1 pound ground beef, cooked and drained
1/2 cup chopped onion
3/4 cup shredded carrots (or in the words of Luke, "WHY?")
3/4 cup diced celery (Luke did not see that go in)
1 Tsp. dried basil
3 TBS. chopped parsley
4 TBS. butter, divided
4 cups chicken broth
4 cups cubed potatoes
1/4 cup all-purpose flour ( I use Wondra)
2 cups Velveeta, cubed
1 1/2 cups milk
1 Tsp. salt
1 Tsp. pepper
1/4 cup sour cream

In large pot add 1 TBS butter. Add onion, celery, carrots, parsley, and basil. Saute till tender. 
Add the broth, potatoes and beef and bring to a boil. Reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked and tender. (Hint: I left my bag of hash-brown cubes in the fridge (vs. the freezer) the night and day before so they would not be frozen and not take so long to cook).  
In small skillet melt remaining butter and add the flour. Cook and stir for 3 minutes or so until bubbly. Add to the soup and bring to a boil. Cook and stir for 2 minutes. Reduce heat. Stir in the cheese, milk, salt, pepper and sour cream. Cook and stir until the cheese melts. Let heat thoroughly.  I served this with homemade croutons and shredded cheese. 

 The boys gave this soup a perfect score. 

 The recipe said the soup can be frozen. I had to laugh at that. We don't freeze many leftovers at our house. There are always (grown) children here to cart any (rare!!) leftovers away. If all the boys are home, there is no such thing as leftovers! 

 Which has always made this mama's heart very happy! 

 And just in case you missed the homemade croutons on yesterday's soup, here they are again. Since it was Cheeseburger Soup, I felt it only fitting that we should use a bun for the croutons. I had stale hot dog buns and chopped them up. I put them in a baking pan, added pats of butter and put them in a 350 degree oven to cook. 

 Buttered croutons.  You could add garlic and/or onion salt to them before they cooked too. 

I don't know about where you live, but here in usually mild-in-the-winter-Oklahoma, they are saying we are in for a big bad week of cold weather. I assure you that both of the soup recipes will be pulled back out. They are quick and easy and make enough for a family. OR they would be SOUPER at a SUPER Bowl party! Enjoy. 

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SOUPer Bowl Creamy Tomato Florentine

 Last week, one of my fellow teachers was eating lunch in my room with me. She had with her a Tomato Florentine soup that she had bought at a local eatery. 

She had shared a bite with me, and we sat there trying to figure out what all was in the soup.  Finally we Googled it up and decided  we each must make a batch on our own.  She has yet to make hers, but she reassured me that hers would be fabulous. And I have no doubt. But in the meantime, I gathered all the ingredients for my version and proceeded to make several soups over the weekend. Since I loved this one so, it is the first to be posted! 

 My friend's soup was the basic Tomato Florentine.  I looked at the different recipes I had Googled and combined several of them. THEN I proceeded to make my version creamy by adding in whipping cream. I just wanted you to be aware that there are MANY recipes out there for regular Tomato Florentine.  In fact you could probably take my recipe and just not add the whipping cream. It is delicious both ways. I have included the directions for both varieties.  

 Creamy Tomato Florentine Soup

3 TBS Butter

3 TBS flour 

3 TBS Butter

1 clove garlic

1 batch green onions, chopped. (I use all the green part too)

1 TBS dried basil

1 can chicken broth

1  28 oz can crushed tomatoes

1 TBS ketchup

2/3 cup vegetable juice (I used V8)

1  14.5 oz can Italian style tomatoes

Several dashes of hot pepper sauce

2 TBS sugar

Handful of chopped parsley (optional)

Black pepper to taste

1 cup macaroni noodle

2 cups Whipping cream or Half and Half

1/2 cup frozen spinach

**************In a small skillet, melt 3 TBS butter and add the flour. (I happen to use Wondra, because it is wonderful to use for gravies and bases. Flour works fine too.) Stir this together until it boils and makes your base. It will be kind of pasty. If it gets too lumpy, don't be afraid to add a little chicken broth or milk. 

When I cook, there is no exactness. Ever. 

After you have done that, let it sit to the side for a few minutes. 

In a big stock pan/dutch oven or whatever you want to call it, add the other 3 TBS butter. Let this melt and add the chopped onions.  Add the garlic and basil as well. Saute until the onion is tender.  This will smell heavenly.  

Add to this the chicken broth (I actually ended up using about 1 1/2 cans, because I had some left over from the other soup I made, so I just added it. It was not a problem. )  Add the crushed tomatoes, the canned tomatoes, vegetable juice and the ketchup.  Stir well. Let simmer. (I tasted it at his point and realized why you needed to add the sugar. The sugar helps tame some of that acidic tomato taste.) 

Add the sugar. (Add more if you think it needs it.) 

Add the parsley, black pepper and hot sauce all to taste. 

Stir. Simmer. Taste.

****************At this point, if you are going to make the regular Tomato Florentine, you would just add your macaroni and spinach and let cook for about 25 minutes.  You would not need to make the base.  Eat it up and enjoy.  

IF you are going to make it like the picture, keep cooking! 

It is at this point that you take your base in that small skillet and put it into the soup.  Whisk it up, so there are no lumps.  Stir and let simmer a few minutes.  Add the whipping cream now.  Stir well. Let it thicken up. By now your soup should look delicious and just like the picture. Let it simmer and absorb all the flavors. I served mine with homemade croutons and grated parmesan.  

 I used half of a box (see picture) of the frozen spinach.  I just cut the package in half and put the frozen spinach right into the hot soup.  I stirred it as it was breaking up, so that it would be completely cooked. Florentine means cooked with spinach, so I figured that was a key ingredient! 

 Also, it calls for macaroni noodles, which is just fine. But I always have to play around with recipes. I used the little corkscrew looking noodles (Radiatore) instead. Plus, because I cannot leave well enough alone, I added half a package of the 4-cheese Tortellini noodles. 

 I ate this the night I made it, as well as the next two days for lunch. It is one of those soups that keeps getting better each time. I just warmed it up in the microwave the following two days, but it could be warmed on the stove as well. It could always be thinned down with more broth or cream.  

 It would also be a great soup to make for Super Bowl Sunday.  It would be Souper!!  

 Those homemade croutons....They couldn't be easier. I had some stale hot dog buns. I literally just cut them up, put them in a baking pan and added several blobs of butter. I put them in the oven at 350 degrees and kept them in there until they were toasty.  You can also sprinkle the bread with garlic and/or onion salt. 

 Sprinkle the croutons on top with some grated cheese and you have a great winter meal. 

Come back tomorrow and I will share the Cheeseburger Soup that I made.  It was a man-pleaser for sure! 

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A Shelf Life

 We still have a few things left to do in the 'new' old kitchen for Phase 1 of the remodel. There is an outside door that needs walled up and cabinets put up over the new wall. I also still have a little painting to do. 

 I still need to putty and paint the railing in the picture above. I need to just buckle down and spend a day during the weekend getting it all done. In the meantime, I am loving one of my favorite presents the Hubs got me for my birthday a few weeks ago. 

 He got this cute little galvanized shelf in the plant part of Target. It works perfectly in our new kitchen. The wall light right above the shelf is also galvanized. I will need to put my cow pictures somewhere else.....Or else move the shelf. 

There are several places in the kitchen where the shelf would work, so I will probably play around and see which works best. I need to style the shelf as well. In the meantime, I'm just enjoying it's cuteness. These can also be ordered online from Target.

What about you? Plans for the weekend?