Tomato and Sweet Pepper Soup

This is a tomato soup base that I make all the time, this time I paired the tomato with an orange sweet pepper. It is delicious and 100 times better than any canned soup. 

Ingredients 

• 1 tbl extra virgin olive oil
• 4 large tomatoes, or 6 smaller ones
• 2 stalks of celery
• 1 sweet pepper
• handful of baby carrots
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 tsp garlic salt
• pepper to taste
• 2-3 cups of chicken broth
• pinch of creole seasoning
• 2 cups of cooked pasta (optional)
• parmesan cheese to garnish

Directions

Heat a large frying pan on medium heat with 1 tbl of olive oil.

 Coarsely chop your veggies. 

Add your veggies to your pan and season with garlic salt and pepper. 

Cover and turn your heat down to med-low. Let cook for 30-40 minutes. If you are going to add pasta cook it now in a separate pot to al dente and then set it aside.

Once your veggies are all cooked down and soft they should look a little like this. 


Add your veggies to a food processor or blender with a cup of  broth. Blend until smooth. 









Pour the contents into a pot and add the rest of your chicken broth to the consistency of soup that you would like. I live mine on the thicker side so I only use a couple cups of broth all together. 

Add your pinch of creole seasoning and salt and pepper to taste. If you cooked pasta to go in it add it now and let simmer for a 5 minutes. Serve with a little parm on top and enjoy!






*** On a side note***I don't use regular chicken stock I have now switched to Better than Bouillon  if you haven't tried it go out to Costco and get some now! It's great, it makes the best soups and gravies and lasts much longer than the cartons of chicken stock. 

Best Homemade Playdough with Silly Guy Fun!

I found this recipe for the "best ever playdough ever" from Adelyn Stone Blog and had to try it out. I have made homemade playdough before but found it was too dry or too sticky. I had to make an adjustment to the original recipe because I didn't have cream of tartar but it really did live up to it's name. 

Here is the recipe I used to make it:

The Best Ever Playdough Ever!!!

What you need:

1 cup flour

1/4 cup salt

1 cup water

2 tsp oil (I used olive oil)

1 tbl spoon vinegar (in replace of cream of tartar)

glitter

food coloring

Directions:

Mix all together in a saucepan, doesn't matter the order. Once most of the lumps are gone but it on the stove on medium heat and stir until it all clumps onto your spoon. Then put it on a lightly floured surface and knead it. It will be very sticky at first but as you knead it and it cools it will become playdough consistency. 

Even Charlie had to check them out!

While the kids were playing with the playdough (and getting bored of making shapes) I had the brilliant idea of getting our bucket of potato head pieces out so that the kids could make silly guys with their new playdough. That was a huge hit. They spent a couple hours mixing up eyes, arms, hats and noses. We had a contest boys vs. girls to see who could come up the silliest looking guys. 

Our contest creations.