Update

Finally, it’s December. I am so glad it is no longer November! Life becomes barely manageable in November. Professors love to pile on the work in November; that’s when all the papers are due. It’s also the month of my birthday, Meredith’s birthday, the beginning of Sinterklaas and Thanksgiving. There have been times that I have wanted to blog but the thought of having to bring it up to date was just too daunting.

Here are some highlights:

I got this in the mail and it made my day week. I got a card last year too, how does he remember birthdays without facebook? How did anyone remember birthdays without facebook?

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. We ate delicious food, took naps, went to the park, and then Meredith, Jack, Jenn and I piled in Mom and Dad’s king sized bed to watch a Pumpkin chunkin’ show.

Zach, Jack and I got to celebrate a night of Hanukkah with Jack’s Aunt, Uncle, and cousins. We had originally only intended to drop off Hanukkah gifts at the doorstep anonymously and run away. Jack was super excited about it and it was a great lesson on selfless giving…until we got caught! Jack and his older cousin Silas played with Nerf guns most the time and I got to hold baby Josiah. It was also strange doing something with Zach, Jack, and I together, but it was a good strange and Zach and I didn’t argue or get on each others nerves.

I finally organized my craft/FS closet and I’m working on the room as a whole. There is no before picture…it’s just too embarrassing.

I found the bookshelf at wal-mart and it fit the space perfectly. In an attempt to make it look more Elizabeth and less Wal-mart I covered the back part with wrapping paper. Choosing which paper to use was the hardest part, but it doesn’t really make a difference anyway since you can’t see it. Oh, well.

 

I found out that the hardest things about organizing my craft stuff is not getting off track. As I go through my stuff a million and a half ideas for new projects pop into my head and it takes a lot of self control to not start a new project. Sometimes I don’t have that much control and I took a break to make this:

And two of these:

And then I crocheted a scarf for Jack's bear:

It did finally get organized though and I'm so glad it did... just please don't ask me about my fabric stash.

A cold front decided to come in Thursday and it got really cold! There is an ice storm north of us and the weather channel was saying that power could be knocked out for days (in the dallas region). I guess that Picnic Katie and I were planning for Today is going to be indoors! I hope the power doesn’t get knocked out here though (although we are prepared to hunker down if necessary) The cold front did give me an excuse to make it a Wassail and Soup night (as if I needed an excuse).

I actually first heard of wassail a few weeks ago at a Relief Society function and since then I've made it more times than I'm willing to admit. 

Thursday was also pakjesavond, the last night of Sinterklaas. Jack got this Smurf mushroom and we ate kruid noten. No more putting a shoe out at night, no more singing Sinterklaas Kapoentje (and Jack finally has all the words down). Jack seems to be taking it better than I am though.

Lekker!

I decided that Jack could stay home from school yesterday because it was so cold and I just wanted to hunker down with him and have a snuggle day.

How could I resist more of this?

Slightly Evil Acorn Squash and Pumpkin Soup.

It's been an exceedingly stressful week and it's taken a while getting this up but here it is.

 It's soup season! Today I combine these recipes (because I don't actually have the right ingredients to make anything.)

http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/pumpkin-acorn-squash-soup-10000001924739/

and

http://www.asweetpeachef.com/entrees/roasted-acorn-squash-soup/

 Ingrediants:
1 pie pumpkin
1 acorn squash
carrots
apple
butter
honey
sage
marjoram
ginger
nutmeg
pepper
salt
onion
bouillion or consommé
evaporated milk

Cut in half the Pumpkin and Acorn Squash and gut them. brush with melted butter and some honey and roast @ 400 degrees Celcius for about 40 minutes.

Now, take it out of the oven and let it cool for about 15 minutes. **TIP: don't turn the oven off, just turn it down to 250.

Ok, now peel and chop the carrots, onion, apple. (As I was peeling and cutting the apple on the cutting board that I had just used to cut up the onion, I discovered that onion and apple are an AMAZING combo!! I started small, then graduated to this)

Sautee the onion, carrots, apple, and spices in butter. I pretty much just eyeball my spices, throw in pinches of this and dashes of that, dance around my cauldron, and pretend like I'm a witch making a potion. If you're not comfortable with black magic, you can use this as a guide: 1/8 tsp ginger, 1/8 tsp nutmeg, 1/4 tsp. sage, a faerie's portion of salt, and a pixie handful of pepper.

I have a confession to make, while I was scraping all the loveliness out of the acorn squash and pumpkin my shoulder devil popped up and was like, "You're not really going to put that whole pumpkin in the soup right? You could make a whole batch of pumpkin cookies with that! The soup will still taste good without it, besides that's way too much soup anyway, it would be a waste."

My shoulder devil is a very convincing gal and since my shoulder angel was ignoring me for some reason. (she's apparently against my overstepping of the line between cooking and the occult. In my defense, it's a pretty thin line.) Whatever, more for me and shoulder devil. Plus, I was going to have evaporated milk left over too which is really good for icing.


Make your bouillon or consommé  as per instructions. In other news, my consommé is extremely kosher. I don't know how something can be more kosher than other things, I'm not quite sure how that whole things works but but this consommé mentions it's kosherness 8 times. I used it because it doesn't contain beef fat, chicken meat, chicken fat, soy or hydrolyzed corn protein like knorr chicken flavor bouillon does and I feel like it's kosherness counteracts the witchcraft thing. You know like how the apple and apple cider vinegar counteracts the sweetness of the squash and pumpkin, the kosherness balances out the evil. The number one rule in soup making is to always maintain a balanced chi (chi as in life force energy, not as in the tea, do not add tea to this soup, 'cus that kind of evil can't be balanced out.)


Wow, anywho, add 4 cups consommé, 1/2 tsp cider vinegar (had I not been using evaporated milk or had a more tart apple like a granny smith, I probably would have opted out of the vinegar) and the pumpkin and squash to the dutch oven and bring just to a boil.

See, that looks way less evil. Now, put a lid on it and stick it in the oven. (250 F for 3 hours)

**Fun fact, In Dutch a "Dutch Oven" is called a "braadpan" which just means a roast pan. (ok, that wasn't so fun, but it was a fact.)

Wait 3 hours (you can clean up the gigantic mess you made in the kitchen now)

 Who needs scentsy or fabreeze when you have this cooking in your oven for 3 hours? Now, add some evaporated milk (cream would be best, but I didn't have cream) and puree it (A stick blender works best, but you can also just transfer it to a regular blender or food processor)

One of the best things about making soup is that when it's ready you get to yell, "Soups on!" I'm also looking into buying a triangle to ring as I say it.

I added some more evaporated milk at the end and tried to make it swirly and pretty, that didn't really work too well. If I had a restaurant I would serve this in a roasted pumpkin shell (cut across the middle so it's like a bowl) and I would use heavy cream and do fancy cream swirls. But I don't have a restaurant, I have this:

 Oh, and thanks shoulder devil. You were totally right, cookies and soup were made for each other like Challah and Meringue.