Pioneer Woman (Ree Drummond) inspired Minestrone...

There are a few blogs that really inspire me...one of them being Ree Drummond's Confessions of a Pioneer Woman. Wow, that woman has humor, talent in writing, photography skills, and she cooks like no other. She is the real deal. I look forward to getting her e-mails in my in-box each morning.  

Well this morning, I especially needed inspiration after a hard night with my oldest son waking up with night terrors, then getting sick. Between staying up and working until 1:00 am, then getting up with him for the remainder of the night, I didn't get much sleep. So when I opened up my e-mail this morning, and saw this recipe for a gorgeous roasted vegetable minestrone soup my heart skipped a beat or two. Oh sigh...it looked to die for!  

But knowing how my Wednesdays go, I knew that shopping for the ingredients wasn't in my future. I took the van out no less than 9 times between busing kids to school, to playgroup, to preschool, to birthday parties, to friends houses to play, to tumbling lessons. Oh wait...I didn't drive my oldest two school, so scratch one of those round trips. Either way, I wore out my bus driver cap for sure today.

Somewhere in between, I decided to fill a pot with tomatoes from my Mother in Law's garden to start cooking them down into some spaghetti sauce. My garden tomatoes are just now starting to turn red.  I'm praying for no frost over the next few weeks as I hope to get a late harvest. Thank goodness for over-zealous in laws planting a huge garden just for the two of them. Some peoples' entire backyards are as big as their garden plot! And their produce, is amazing!

The smell of cooking tomatoes wafting through the air, kept reminding me of Ree's soup.  I could almost taste it as I looked at her tantalizing photos again and again as I squeezed a little computer design time into my day.  

Then, I got a marvelous idea! I was going to stop making spaghetti sauce out of my tomatoes and do a mocked up (hopefully not too mucked up) version of Ree's soup with whatever ingredients I had on hand. I can't tell you how many times I start making one thing in my kitchen, then make a U-turn and morph it into something else. Usually, it's a lack of ingredients that forces it...but I can tell you, spaghetti sauce has way less ingredients than Ree's fabulous soup.  I was setting myself up for trouble for sure!

Speaking of tantalizing photos...this isn't one of them...but it serves a purpose! These are some of the ingredients I keep on hand. I love freezers. I never let a batch of celery wilt, an onion go bad, or a green pepper get brown spots...that's because I chop and freeze them before they get a chance. Of course I love to use fresh...and I do often...but I keep a stash in my freezer for emergencies like these. Seriously... Ree's soup was haunting me by this point. If you haven't checked out her blog yet, just go now and look at those roasted zucchini, and yellow squash. You will understand as soon as you peek. Oh my!  

I got a wave of excitement because I remembered I had an over abundance of yellow squash in my fridge...couldn't eat them fast enough with my Mother in Law's garden exploding. To my horror, I let them get soft, and mushy (dare I even say slimey)...way beyond anything I could work with. Why didn't I freeze those? Squash just doesn't freeze well unless you are intending upon putting it in sweet bread.  If you put frozen squash in soup, it becomes part of the broth. So no roasted squash in my soup. Sniff sniff.  

By now I had boiled down my tomatoes only to add water and broth for soup. That was a lot of tomatoes...so I had to add a lot of water. Did I mention I was only cooking for 3 tonight. Me, my 8 year old, my 4 year old, and my 3 year old. Since my oldest son's hunger was at bay from being ill, and Sydney got a peanut butter and honey sandwich on her way out the door to tumbling, and Colin is so picky...this actually amounted to me, making a big pot of soup for me. Did I mention that, Ree takes great pictures...that is my only explanation why I would do something so ludicrous. 

Ree said not to skimp on salt, so I didn't. I love salt...not shy to say that at all. I especially love Kosher salt. Not all salts are the same...so I used my favorite tablespoon and dumped some in...tasted it, then dumped some more. By this time, I had added frozen celery, frozen onions, and frozen green beans to the pot. I also added 2 cans of kidney beans, 3 cans of Costco canned beef chunks, Italian seasoning, pepper, beef bullion cubes, and then decided to add something to make my kids like it.

My secret ingredient...Wacky Mac!  Great stuff...colored with real vegetable dies too...almost a hint of a vegetable serving here, guys...well almost.

So I started cooking those in a separate pot...after adding all those ingredients above, I now had pot one and pot two going on the stove.  The noodles ended up in pot two 

This is pot one.  Starting to look like minestrone isn't it!

Here are pot one and pot two. Yup, cooking for me and who ever else might not eat it. I better eat up!

Here's what the final product ended up looking like:

 Not bad.  Ree recommended shaving off thin slices of Parmesan cheese to garnish the soup. Doesn't that sound gooooood? I had the next best thing (at least in my kids eyes.)

Here's one happy boy! He liked it when I put the little bullion cubes into the soup...he thought I was unwrapping square candy and putting it in our dinner.  I didn't let him know any different because he kept saying, "I wike it Mama."

Okay...notice the Koolaid stained upper lip...I'm not too proud to say, I just got through pouring the kids a round of Koolaid. Oh, I know...all those good veggies in the soup would now be cancelled out by a glass of sugar. Well if you look closer at the photo...you will see a trio of ice cubes on the table.  Colin is actually smiling because he is saying, "I spilled it Mama."

Murphy's Law of Young Families says that if you mop the floors...Koolaid or Applejuice will land on them within 24 hours. Ay yi yi!

Here's Murphy's law in full effect! I do have to say this wasn't the worst thing I cleaned up today. Sticky, Yes...But do you see that sweet little boy with the huge grin right there? Well...he's potty training. I won't go into further detail, and I most certainly did not take pictures...but I've been down on the floor (and carpet) scrubbing at least 3 times today.

That's my bowl of soup next to the Koolaid and ice cubes.  I hadn't even gotten a chance to get a saucer for my bowl, let alone a first bite, when all this spillage happened.

Don't you love tile and grout floors? It's like little irrigation ditches spreading out into oblivion. Even after cleaning it up really well, I'm sure I'll be walking in the kitchen in my socks at some point tomorrow and get stuck somewhere and collect a few sticky grains of rice from our meal the previous night.

Well, the good news...kids liked the soup. I liked the soup...it was more than edible, it was delicious, but not incredible. I'm sure it pales next to Ree's roasted vegetable Minestrone...but I fit the bill for tonight. I can't wait for another night with less chaos to make the real thing.

I bet you are all wondering what came of the remaining two pots of soup...

12 quart size freezer bags later...and we have soup for the next few months.

Recipe for Sam's Mocked-up verison of Ree's Roasted Vegetable Minestrone (long name, needs no other explanation.)  I recommend trying the real thing, but if you have to, you can try mine. You don't even need all of the ingredients to make it...that's the beauty of it. Improve and go!

24 large tomatoes blanched and cooked down
lots of water broth bullion cubes...enough to fill two pots with the cooked down tomatoes
frozen onions (about a whole chopped onion)
frozen celery (about 5 stalks of celery)
frozen green peppers (about 1 peppers worth)
1 large bag frozen green beans (I didn't cut them...no time...had to run Sydney to tumbling class during this step.)
2 cans kidney beans
3 cans Costco beef chunks (broth and all)

a good palmful or shaking of italian seasoning

a couple of palms of salt (remember, we are salting two pots here)

Simmer ingredients together for as long as you have, then add the important secret ingredient to make kids like it: Wacky Mac. 

Once Wacky Mac is Al Dente, serve with drink of choice.  I don't recommend Koolaid. 

Guest Designer, Eva Dobilas...WOW!

I am thrilled to be featuring guest artist, Eva Dobilas.  She is actually the reason why I am designing stamps for Unity Stamp Company.  Eva was the one who introduced me to Angela the owner of Unity.  Eva's designs caught my eye when she used my birdhouse Silhouette die to create a beautiful project I featured her on my blog a few months back.  It is a truly amazing project, and worth looking at again if you haven't had a chance to see it.  What I like about Eva's designs is that she has such a knack for creating such beautiful color combinations, and adding cute little details.  I'm sure you will see what I mean after you look at these WOW cards.  Eva used a combination of Stamps from my collections at Unity, and digital die downloads from the Silhouette machine store.  Thanks, Eva for being the featured artist on my blog...you are incredible!

What got you into paper artistry?

The first time I bought a stamp was about 18 years ago, as a stay at home mom trying to make a little cash and selling cards at school shows.  I sold Christmas cards and bookmarks and I was hooked on embossing, stamping, and coloring.  13 years ago a friend invited me to a scrapbook party, and I started working with pretty papers and layouts, and till today I blame her for all the hoarding I do…hehehe

What is your favorite technique?

I don’t really have a favorite technique; instead I am a lover of all different techniques and love to try anything new that attracts me.  I love Splitcoaststampers for all their challenges for the techniques.

What do you think makes your work unique?

That is a hard question to answer, but I will try my best.  I love the pretty feminine look, semi distressed more with inks.  But I also love the grungy look, although I tend to pretty that up, too..hehehe.  Somehow I manage to add feminine touches to most everything.  Love ribbons, still on the crinkled ribbon craze as you can see from my cards.

What inspires you?

I get inspiration from other artists, blogs I visit, and Etsy is a great site, their daily e-mails sometime trigger the best work out of me.  But really I am mostly inspired by colors and sketches.

Besides crafting...tell a little about yourself... and anything else that might interest readers.

Other than the love of stamping/crafting, I also have 4 boys in my life, my wonderful partner, Michael, who loves me almost unconditionally and I just love him for that, my amazing son, who I am totally crazy about even though he is 20 already and 2 sweet kitties, Fuzzy and Louis, who make me laugh and feel loved every day I spend with them.  I love my life with all the curves and ups and downs it provides me and try to carry my own sunshine wherever I go, at least most of the time and love to help and inspire others to do the same.

House Sandwiches...unfortunately don't solve everything...Sigh...

I used to think that house sandwiches solved all my lunch-time woes.  In fact, I was all set to write my blog post today about the "Miracle of House Sandwiches." But that would have been a candy coated lie.  The truth is, that only sometimes do house sandwiches create miracles. I'm starting to learn that kids are fickle--okay...maybe not starting to learn, it just gets reinforced on a daily basis. Some things just can't be solved by changing the shape of your bread. Kids are smart! They know that just because a bagel has a hole in it, doesn't make it a super frosted doughnut.

Here's how my lunchtime went yesterday...

"Sydney, you want grilled cheese today?"

"Sure, Mom!" enthusiastically.

"What about you, Colin?"

Grumble grumble.

"Colin?"

In a totally sour tone, "No, Mama."

"What's up, Colin?"

Then, for no apparent reason, Colin decides now would be a great time to throw a torrential fit on the grandest of scales.

So I thought, "Self, let's make these grilled cheese special...let's make house sandwiches." Surely that would make everything all better...it's worked in the past!  I smiled and mentally patted myself on the back with pride, and thought, "I'm such a good mom, everything will be better in an instant."

And in the beginning, things were off to a great start! Sydney totally got into it, she was thrilled!  "We haven't had those in sooooo long, Mom! Can I help you cut the bread?"

Together we split one sandwich in rectangles and one in triangles and swapped shapes. I set the plates on the table with perfectly toasted, nearly symmetrical house sandwiches equipped with a chimney and a door, bonus! They were cute if I do say so myself, and reminded me of splitting house sandwiches with my sister when we were younger, and having to agree on the same kind of sandwich.  We usually chose chopped olive sandwiches or PB&J--but never mixed together of course.

Did I mention that Colin was still on the floor screaming and crying the whole time? Ever since I started giving him treats for potty training, he thinks he can just have sweets all the time--it's so frustrating! So if food isn't sweet or candy, he thows a fit. Of course I explain the importance of eating food that's good for him.  He often replies, "it's not good for me, Mama."

He used to eat everything.  But then one night someone flipped a switch, and now he doesn't like it if it's slippery, if it's too hot (even when it's already cooled off,) he won't touch any food that is black (except Oreos.)  Truthfully, he doesn't like a lot of anything right now.

The standard response at dinner time has become, "I don't wike it, Mama."
"But You haven't even tried it, Colin."

Oh, and you better not make his toast too brown because that will set him off too. If I serve him French cut green beans he freaks, but yet he gobbles up the "normal" ones..

In fact, the word "normal" is one of his favorites right now.
"I just want "normal" water, Mama."   (meaning no ice.)
"I just want "normal" cereal." (meaning no milk.)
"I just want "normal"shoes." (meaning sneakers not sandals.)
and so on and so forth.

So his fit continues...kicking the floor, dramatic screams, pounding fists...a total classic.  While Sydney sits at the table in 7th heaven with her grilled cheese house.  She even made some adjustments and added a big "picture window" to her sandwich.  She was being so sweet!

Colin would perk up his head every now and then as I snapped a few pictures, and chatted with Sydney.  Slowly he started to come to the table.  

But Sydney said, "Look, Mom, he's coming."

Unfortunately, she spoke too loud and too soon.  He didn't want us to know he was coming. Do your kids do this? So the next time he started to get up and approach the table, I made sign language signs at Sydney instructing her not to notice or say anything. Eventually, Colin made it to the table as if nothing was wrong. He started eating his sandwich...while Sydney and I only dared to watch out of the corner of our eyes.

Once I could see that he was really into his sandwich, I asked him if he wanted me to take some pictures.  "Yes, Mama." he said with a great big smile. I guess, that is the reason why he came to the table, he saw all the extra attention I was giving Sydney with the camera, and he wanted in on the action. After a few snapshots, he was totally cured of his random fit.

Isn't that a sweet picture...almost erases the memories of the fit he was throwing in the living room...

Sigh of relief swept over me.  But it didn't last long...my kids flip flopped on me as I glanced at the clock...

Oh shoot, it's time to get Sydney out the door to preschool!

"Sydney, go get your shoes, sweetie."

"No, you get them, Mom."

"No, Sydney, you are old enough to do this yourself, they are up in your closet."

This went back and forth with the same responses between the two of us four or ten times....then....

"Fine, I'm not going to preschool!"

This was a totally absurd comment coming from her because she LOOOOOOVES preschool. She only said it because she wanted an upper hand in the power struggle about the shoes.  And boy howdy, she stuck to her guns! I tell you what, she is one smart cookie, because her refusal to go, really got to me.

After much reasoning, then frustration, then bribes, then retracted bribes, then saying that I would send Colin in her stead, then starting up the car without her, then faking that I forgot something and running back into the house right in front of her to get it...she still would not get into the van.  So I carried her out to the car kicking and screaming (without her shoes on of course.)

We pulled up to the school and she refused to get out.  I tried coaxing her out, then being firm with her, encouraging her to stop crying because her friends would see, pleading, and begging to no avail. So I finally resorted to carrying her up to the school and handing her off to one of the preschool teachers. Sure, it looked mean doing this, but both the teacher and I agreed that if we let her stay home for throwing a fit, that it might create a pattern. Preschool is expensive and I want to make sure that I get my money's worth...I think I got it yesterday.

So back into the minivan I went wiping the sweat from my brow wondering what I was going to fix myself for lunch...because I'm sick of grilled cheese.  The house sandwiches didn't work on me...now I sound as picky as my kids.

So here's the reality of house sandwiches...
they may make your kids smile and be cute and cooperative, or may make things worse because today they wanted their sandwich cut into rectangles. You will never know unless you try it...go on...see what happens! You might find that everything is just "normal" after their first bite.  And "normal" is good most of the time.

PS... 
I totally love my kids...despite fits and power struggles...and it's a darn good thing that we have good moments in between the tough ones.  So I'm posting my happiest memory from this week, Colin's birthday party...I think I actually captured all my kids smiling! That's because I chose not to show the picture of them scrambling for pinata candy.

Scratch-book'n...

Here's what I walked into this morning after my shower...my kids at the kitchen table, crafting.  Isn't that a sweet picture of pure bliss?

"What-cha doing," I asked...

My little son replied, "Scratch-book'n, Mama."

I thought it was so cute...and it was...until they realized that they only had one glue-stick between the two of them.  Two pair of scissors, but one glue-stick...I riffled through the junk drawer trying to find another one, but came up dry.  Literally.  I found three dried up ones with the caps off.  Ugh...I'm constantly reminding them to put the caps back on the glue, and the caps back on the markers too, and to clean up when they are done...and and and...

Their argument got a little heated...

I explained sharing...(as if this were a foreign concept, this is my favorite topic to talk about with them lately.)

"Take turns." I said.  "When she cuts with scissors, you use the glue stick, and vice versa." Everyone will be happy.

They chose not to understand the lecture...

So out of desperation (because I can't stand my kids fighting..) I got out my dot n' roller adhesive.

Okay...in my mind, they both have glue, everyone's happy now, right?

WRONG!  Oh soooooo wrong.  I felt so stupid.  Why didn't I see it coming.

Of course.

One glue is obviously better than the other, and it's not too hard for anyone to figure out which one is superior.

Doh!  I guess I mean dot!

Back to square one...

"Okay, Sydney, when you are cutting, let Colin use the dot n' roller."  "Colin when you are looking through the magazine, you let Sydney use it."  Hmmmm....didn't I just hear that repeated in my head nearly seconds ago?

Here's the solution I came up with...

Okay, so if I were a perfect Mom...I would have probably said, "okay, then we will put it all away if you can't share." Then dealt with the aftermath.

However with insurmountable mounds of laundry piling up in my laundry room, deadlines for work, and just needing a moment of sanity...I gave in to two rollers.  I hope they don't enjoy them as much as I do...I'm a glue freak too, and I want some left for me.