Creamy Potato Vegetable Soup

It's a cold, snowy day in Colorado, the perfect weather for Creamy Potato Vegetable Soup. Though it has a rich flavor, it's heavy on vegetables and light on milk and cheese. It gets most of its creaminess from my not-so-secret ingredient: potato flakes.

White Chocolate Ginger Oatmeal Cookies

These soft, spiced cookies with white chocolate chips will have you coming back for another and another. They are slightly sweet and almost cakey in texture, but with a nice chewiness from the oats. They are the perfect mid-week cookie to add to your kid's school lunch box.

S'mores Bars

Layers of soft graham cookie crust, marshmallows, and chocolate ganache make these S'mores Bars rich, gooey, and irresistible.

Halloween Sugar Cookies

These soft sugar cookies are buttery, mildly sweet and the best thing about them is that

they hold their shape! 

Sweet Potato Mash

I just love the melt in you mouth texture and rich sweetness of a sweet potato that his been baked to perfection. That texture takes a good couple of hours to achieve and I don't always think far enough ahead to make my dinnertime sweet potato dreams a reality. So, this week I decided to experiment and see if I could get that melt in you mouth texture in just 30 minutes, start to finish. I am happy to say that while it wasn't the exact same texture and sweetness that you would get from baking, it was a close second! Satisfying enough for a busy weeknight when I'm short on time.

Click here for a video of the whole process!

Ginger Molasses Cookies with Citrus Glaze

 These chewy, buttery, ginger-spiced cookies with a bright citrus glaze are a perfect Fall treat. These little beauties are easy to make and perfect to take to a party or share with a neighbor. These have been a family favorite for the last few years. Click here to see how I make them. Enjoy! 

Mini Chocolate Layer Cake with Chocolate Mousse and Chocolate Ganache

This Mini Chocolate Layer Cake with Chocolate Mousse Filling and Chocolate Ganache is the perfect birthday surprise for a friend. It's super moist and full of rich chocolate flavor. Although it looks fancy, it's a simple recipe with simple ingredients that you probably have in your pantry right now. 

"What's For Dinner?" - Zucchini and Ground Beef Skillet with No Knead Bread

What's for dinner? Honestly, I am terrible at meal planning. It's just not how I roll. Sure, I plan if I am having people over and I might think of something a day ahead, but generally,  I am the kind of person who comes up with a dinner plan a couple of hours before it's time to serve dinner. So, I thought it would be fun to share some of the dinners I come up with from time to time.

Tonight, I had a craving for some homemade bread. And what better to go with bread than a veggie centered meal? It's nearing the end of our garden harvest and I happened to have two large zucchini and generous handful of cherry tomatoes to use. Whenever I have fresh zucchini from the garden, my go-to meal is Zucchini and Ground Beef Skillet. It's basically a zucchini boat, but less labor intensive and certainly faster to make. It's light, and summery, and delicious. 

Brown Butter Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

My grandma was a wonderful baker. Her house always smelled like fresh baked bread. When you visited grandma, you could count on her having a cookie jar full of a variety of her homemade cookies. You never knew what kind of cookie you would pull out of the cookie jar, but it didn't matter because they were all good. These brown butter oatmeal raisin remind me of Grandma's chewy oatmeal raisin cookies, I think that's why I like them so much. I hope you will too! 

Alex's Minion Birthday Party

My Nephew Alex turned six recently.  His family was busy preparing to move, so my mom and I thought we would help out by throwing him a minion birthday party. It was so much fun!  Here's what we did....(Fair warning, there are *a lot* of pictures)

This our main table

The Girlfriend Clutch

Here's what I've been slowly working on in my spare time over the last week. Thanks Blue Susan Makes for the pattern!!!

The 100 Year Flood

 

Well, it's finally here.  The 100 year flood, that has supposed to be coming through Boulder for several years now, arrived last night. There are roads that have washed away, hundreds have been evacuated and there's been a lot of damage. Being east of Boulder, it has not been as bad out here, but we did have some problems last night. We walked into one of the basement bedrooms and found that the carpet was wet. Ben came over and helped move all the furniture out of the room. Once that was out, we discovered that there is a crack in the wall that goes from the window to the floor that had water flowing out of it. It literally was like a little water fall running down the wall.

A Quilt for Nikki

My friend Wendy and I like to make quilts for people in our group of  friends. We have made at least 5 quilts together (that I can remember...there could be more) for our close friends.  Our latest was for our dear friend Nikki. Nikki is...well...in a word....AWESOME!  She is a compassionate, kind, funny, smart, and wonderful person.  And, she happens to like yellow - which we all know is a super happy color...how can you not like yellow?  Anyway, I picked up an assortment of Jelly rolls and fat quarter bundles a couple of years ago to make this happy quilt for Nikki. So, I thought I should document it. Wendy and I started working on the quilt back in February.  We worked on it here and there and then the quilt top went missing in my house for about a month (which was not a proud moment over here, but thankfully, much to Wendy's relief, it turned up!) And then....and I am embarrassed to admit it, as we were trimming the quilt top in preparation to spray baste and machine quilt it, I did the unthinkable....I accidentally cut into the finished quilt top! Yes! That's right, for the first time in my life, I totally chopped in to a finished quilt top! Not the edge....of course not! No, I cut into the black border! It was awful and required some seriously tricky patching, but it all worked out in the end. Thank you Wendy for being patient and for working with me to make this beautiful quilt. 

Ode to the Kindle Fire HD

Dear Kindle Fire HD.....how I love thee. My brother and sister-in-law and my parents pooled their resources and gave me a this little piece of heaven for Christmas. I recently discovered that my Kindle fits perfectly on the little lip on me treadmill.....doesn't she look pretty perched their? She makes walking so fun....Netflix is just a couple of clicks away.

Travel Bag

So I am going on two.....yes, two......vacations over the next 2 weeks. I think that is a little crazy, but I'm doing it and I am sure that it is going to be awesome. I am going to the International Quilt Market in Houston, followed by a trip to Disneyland. 

96th Birthday!!!

Sunday we celebrated a 96th birthday - that is when you add 70 and 26 together.  Happy Birthdays Mom and Breanne!!! We had our requisite family birthday dinner which was rounded out by two birthday desserts. Mom has been wanting to try making this Coconut Cake recipe, so we did. We made chocolate frosting instead of coconut, but if we make again, I think we will make the coconut frosting instead. Here's how it turned out. 

It's a very dense cake and took a long time to bake.....unfortunately, it fell and so there was an large amount of frosting added to make it look a little less wonky..... :) It was super yummy though. 

Breanne wanted something that involved chocolate and caramel.  She didn't have anything specific in mind, so she let me just come up with something. So, being the baked goods inventor that I am, I decided to take an old recipe and reinvent it into what I am going to call the Salty Carmel Chocolate Bars. A chocolate oatmeal cookie crust filled with Dulce de Leche and caramel filling.....mmmmmmm. Here are a couple of pictures.  

Sweet is always good with a little salty, so I added some crumbled potato chips to the filling. Ever dipped a potato chip in caramel? You should try it....it's delicious.

Here's what they look like right out of the oven

And here's the inside. Want the recipe? Scroll down to the bottom of this post. 

Of course, I had to make something crafty for my mom's birthday gift. She's been needing a new ironing board cover, so thanks to my sister's tutorial on Blue Susan Makes I made her one. 

It was super fast to make. Once I got it cinched tight around the board, It was still a little loose (I probably cut it too big), so I took a piece of embroidery floss and sewed a quick zigzag from side to side and now it is perfectly snug. 

Becky, super patient Becky, made this cork board wall hanging for Breanne.....it's amazing! She cut it all out and traced all of the states with a Sharpie. It's awesome.

Happy Birthday Mom and Breanne! I love you both!

Carmel Fudge Bars

Ingredients

Combine the following:

1 cup butter (melted)

½ cup Cocoa

2 cups brown sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

Add:

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 ½ cups quick-cooking oats

Filling

¼ cup Salted Butter

1 14 oz can Dulce de Leche

1 bag carmels (unwrapped)

1 cup crushed potato chips (or more if you want more saltiness)

Preheat oven to 350°.  Grease or spray a 9x13x2 inch glass pan.  

Melt butter, then add cocoa and stir until smooth. Add sugar, eggs and vanilla. Sift together flour, soda, salt and oats and then combine with the butter/sugar mixture.  Set aside about ½  cup of the dough for topping. Pat the remaining dough into the bottom of the pan and 1/4” up the sides.  Set aside. 

To prepare filling: 

In a heavy bottom sauce pan, melt butter over low heat.  Add Dulce de Leche and caramels. Stir continually over low heat until smooth. Remove from heat. Stir in potato chips.

Pour filling over the dough.  Spread evenly over dough, not quite all the way to the edges. 

Break remaining dough into small pieces and drop evenly onto the filling. It will not cover the filling completely.   . 

Bake for 30 - 35 minutes or until filling looks set and cookie topping is slightly browned. Let cool completely before cutting into 2” squares (approximately 2 hours in refrigerator or 3 – 4 hours on counter top.)

TOAD SAVING!

It's 11:00 pm and I just saved this TOAD! He was trapped in the basement window well.  I have to admit, there was a glove and a spatula involved...and I almost made my mom do it.....but when it really came down to it, I just had to pick him up and send him hopping on his way.....there was squealing involved on my part....and a minor freak out, but I did it.. It's a proud moment for me, so I had to blog it.  Markos kids, if your germ-a-phobe Aunt Rachel can pick up a frog, you can too! Go catch a couple this week.....it's okay if you squeal a little when it's squirming in your hand :) You can do it!  

Purses, Purses, Purses

So, my sister Sarah is a very creative person. She is super talented and makes awesome purses.  She was here for a visit and taught me how to make this purse. I love it! I took it to Utah with me this past week and it was the perfect size for everything that I needed. 

I spent time with my brother Jeremy and his family. My Sister-in-law Heidi and my nieces Hannah and Aimee decided that they wanted one of these, so we had a whirlwind weekend of sewing. We picked out our fabrics at Hobby Lobby on Saturday, cut everything out on Sunday, and then sewed it all up on Monday and Tuesday. 

Aimee liked the idea of having a pocket on the front of her purse, so she added it and embellished it with a lot of buttons. She is a good little hand sewer! Didn't she do a great job?  

She wanted to make sure she had pockets for everything she needed so she added a couple of narrow pockets for pens and ones that would hold her cell phone, etc. 

Hannah learned how to make cloth flowers at Young Women's, so she made a flower and embellished her front pocket with the flower, a retro button, and a little brooch she found.  Isn't it cute? 

I liked the combination of fabrics she picked. 

Heidi wanted a bigger purse, so we enlarged the pattern for hers and gave her plenty of depth and an extra long strap.

Here they all are. 

 Thanks for teaching me how to make these Sarah! Next time I see you, you will have to teach me to take better photographs! 

 Good job Heidi, Hannah and Aimee! Thanks for a fun weekend!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US!!!

We celebrated 3 Birthdays last night! Jess, Becky and I all have birthdays within an 8 day window, so this year we decided to have a triple birthday dinner. We had steak, garlic mashed potatoes, broccoli, veggie plate, fruit salad and rolls....and then we topped it off with 3 different desserts. Becky requested Cheesecake, Jesse wanted Apple Pie Ice Cream  and  I, of course wanted Chocolate Cake. 

This cake is AWESOME. Ever heard of "Wacky Cake"? This is the Dark Chocolate version made with Dark Cocoa. It's heavenly...not too sweet and oh so good. 

We opened presents and here is a sampling of what we go. I requested a waving iron for my hair....what do you think? I kind of like it....Jesse pointed out that the ends need to be curled so they blend in and don't just look straight. I agree....

Jesse got a hammock....he's been looking for one for a couple of weeks now and I a think he likes this one. Alex and Breanne were having fun with it! 

Jesse gave Becky a Samsung Galaxy tablet for her birthday. She loves it! She is teaching Jacob how to play chess....

We finished out the night staying up late and playing Shanghai and Settlers. It was really fun!

Spudnuts

I have often heard my parents talk about "Spudnuts" and how good they were.....what are they? A raised doughnut that has mashed potato in it....hence the "spud".  So, after church yesterday I decided, on a whim, to try to make some.  I found this Spudnut recipe online, made up the dough, and then enlisted my brother Jesse to fry them up. They were surprisingly good! The potato makes them light and airy and they tasted very similar to a crispy cream. 

The recipe said it made 4 dozen....and truly, it does...we got tired of frying doughnuts after a few dozen and decided to make the rest of the dough into cinnamon rolls.  We had way too many sweets in the house after that baking escapade, so I took doughnuts and cinnamon rolls around to some to friends and neighbors last night, which left us with only a few more doughnuts to eat today. I have to say that they are not as good when they are a day old.  The cinnamon rolls, however are still delicious. 

I've decided that I really like what potato does to the texture of bread. I recently added potato flakes to whole wheat rolls and the result was an nice, airy texture that you wouldn't expect from whole wheat.  Next time you make bread dough, you should throw in some potato flakes and see what happens! You might like what you get...