Vegetable Soup

It was gloomy on Sunday so I decided to make soup and homemade bread. The bread is easy since I have a bread maker. Usually the soup of choice around my house is chili but I was really hungry for vegetable soup so I made it instead. Years ago a girl I worked with made the best vegetable soup. It wasn’t anything like my mothers in that she always made hers with stew meat. I have always made mine like my friend’s. It is simple and very good.

In a large pot cook 2 # of ground beef. Pour off fat. Add:
2 cans of V-8 juice
2 large bags of frozen mixed vegetables
1 small head of chopped cabbage
Any other vegetables you would like to add.
Cook until vegetables are done.

And in honor of fall I hung this maple leaf quilt I made back in the 90’s outside my back porch door to welcome those who visit!

Pumpkins!

I have this crazy addiction for pumpkins! I am so happy that it is pumpkin season again and that I am already seeing them for sale along the roadside. A few years ago I had the mother load of all pumpkin seasons. I work in ag with soybeans. A couple years back our corn group did a test field for some form of rootworm but instead of growing corn they grew pumpkins. Now I am talking acres and acres of pumpkins that were not going to be harvested. In early September they told our group that they were headed over there to mow them down. The pumpkins had been planted early and were at full maturity already. I couldn’t stand the thought of all those lovely pumpkins coming to an early death before they were fully appreciated. With that in mind I coerced one of my fellow employees to go over there with me. We took the big dually and filled it up with all those beautiful orange orbs. I was so excited. That evening I filled the back end of my station wagon up and headed home. I had the largest pile of pumpkins right in my front yard and I had no clue with what I was going to do with them. The next morning he and I headed back over for another fill up. We were generous with all the other employees and then hauled the remaining ones to my house. I was in pumpkin heaven. I had them everywhere, on the lawn, in the house with my large wooden dough bowls full. The best surprise came the following year. I had to dispose of all that orange after Thanksgiving so we hauled them all back to an area we call the burn pit. The following summer I had a large plot of volunteer pumpkins. I was able to enjoy 2 full years of pumpkins from that one research project! This year I hope to find some really nice blue and white gourds to add to my mix that I have already purchased and of course some bittersweet and yellow and green gourds, and nice big mums and well you get the picture!

Scrappy Star Quilt Done

It is nice to finally be able to show something I have accomplished in quilting! It seems like it has been forever since I actually finished a quilt. This is a wallhanging, I believe around 48 x 48 that is a Lynda Hall pattern. Last Christmas I decided this was going to be the year to use scraps. This quilt top used the smallest of scraps that I had and was a lot of fun. That is until I got to the part where you added the triangles. She had included both rotary cutting instructions which I used for the squares and templates which I used for the triangles so I could cut them from different fabrics. The two did not match up, not even close. I spent a frustrating afternoon figuring out the correct math, ripping out and re-cutting. But I persevered and finished the top! (Lynda now has a correction on her website!) My good friend and excellent longarmer Carol did the quilting for me.

We had a really gorgeous weekend and I had a hard time staying inside and sewing. I did get the binding on this quilt done and that was about it. We went to our local pumpkin farm and I bought 10 pumpkins to decorate with, my husband had brought home some big beautiful mums on Friday so my porch is looking especially nice right now. I enjoyed just sitting on my rocker on the porch and watching them harvest the corn across the road from us. To bad the weather has changed to rain today and the forecast shows cooler temps all week. It will truly be football weather for the game tonight.

Salsa

I am pretty sure I have written before about how I am soooo not a cook. I just have no enjoyment with it. Well this summer I have been making homemade salsa and it is so good I just knew I would have to share this simple and easy recipe with all of you. My whole family loves it and it takes about 15 minutes to make. I don’t have time for a garden in the summer so this year we planted a tomato plant right outside our entryway in a large urn my grandpa had made. I usually have it full of colorful blooms, instead we filled it with miracle grow soil and planted one small tomato plant in it. It took off and with no work at all I have had a nice crop of tomatoes.
For the salsa I take as many tomatoes as I have available and cut into wedges and place in a roasting pan, I add a sweet onion cut in to wedges also and sliced jalapenos right from the jar. Now if you have the real thing that would be even more wonderful. I roast them under the broiler until they are soft and then just food process them into the salsa and it is ready to eat. We like our salsa nice and hot so we add quite a few jalapenos. The onions add just enough sweetness to make it perfect.
For a different snack soften 2 packages of cream cheese in the microwave, mix with the salsa and have with chips or crackers. Enjoy!