Tuesday, April 24, 2012

The big swelter

Where's Spring?  I just made this mini quilt and it's the wrong season apparently.  I refuse to turn on the air conditioning.  Am I just being stubborn??  Maybe.  But, it's April.  The air conditioning should not be on in April.  Even if it is almost 90 degrees outside.  I don't want to turn the ac on until June to be completely honest. 

So, because of the sweltering heat, I have started on my summer mini quilt by Jodie Warner called...What's Coming Up Summer.  It's along the same lines are What's coming Up Spring...only more summer...y.   I have the perfect border fabric which is where I stated with this one.  I'll show you it in a bit.  But, let's just say summer is going to be shades of hot pink and orange and turquoise accents.  So cute.


This is what I've got done so far...yeah, not much.  These are peony blossoms...which I find perfect as I have a peony shrub in my front yard that is about to burst forth with the most beautiful magenta blooms...I am trying to decide whether to change the larger circles and get rid of the light pink that's around the edge...I think the edge needs to be a darker pink all around with the light pink in the middle.   Settled.  I am going to have to change it.  I'm so glad we had this talk.


My seedlings.  They seem to be doing fine....except the flat that I let die from lack of water one day...ahem.  They didn't all die...just half.  I'm a beginner.  I can't be expected to have all my starts survive.  Casualties were expected.  I worry that maybe I didn't get them started soon enough indoors and that they won't be quite as thriving as I want when they get planted in a couple of weeks.  We'll see.  I have two weeks to go so....cross fingers.


Due to a bout of High Cholesterol in mi familia, I am now cooking much more low carb.  This is an experiment that went very very right!!  I wanted to slow cook.  I wanted soup.  Here's the shake down...


Low Carb Chicken Soup...Crock-Pot Style
5 chicken legs with thighs attached
25 oz or so chicken stock
A large pile of carrots, peeled and chopped into large pieces
1 onion diced
A largish handful of green beans, ends removed and chopped roughly
Fresh Thyme...several sprigs
Smoosh...yes that's a technical cooking term...ahem.  Smoosh a good size amount of tomato paste...I used the kind from the tube that way I won't waste the rest of the can.  I would say I probably used 2 Tbl. of tomato paste
Smoosh a good size amount of garlic paste...less than the tomato paste.  Maybe 2 tsp. or so.
Salt and pepper to taste

Cook on low for 7-8 hours.  Or be like me and cook on low for 5 hours and then bump it up to high for 1.5 hours.  I was running out of time.  Take out the cooked chicken and remove the meat from the bones.  Discard the bones and skin unless that's your style.  Place meat in a bowl, spoon a hearty amount of stock and veg over the chicken.  Serve.  Your family and you will be very happy you did.  For a recipe I made up on the spot, I am incredibly pleased with how this turned out. 

If you haven't seen the tomato paste and garlic past in a tube...here's a visual for you. 


It's really a convenience item, but to be honest when I'm cooking low-carb I need all the short cuts I can find.  Unfortunately I am not inspired by low-carb and consequently I want the easiest options possible.  I don't even want to chop garlic.  But really, in this soup, you don't want chunks of garlic.  The garlic paste is a perfect fit, it blends seamlessly.

The Mister ate it for 4 days straight thanks to the large amount of left overs it created.  My Young also ate this quite impressively even though I thought they would hate it at first sight.
Gratuitous I got a cute kid pic of the Day

That's right....6 teeth and counting.
Thanks for reading all!

Heather

3 comments:

  1. Those tubes look awesome. I need me some sweet tubes of paste to smoosh.

    ReplyDelete
  2. TOOOO stinkin cute!! LOVE her red hair!! ;)

    ReplyDelete

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