Creamy Cheesy Bacony Potato Soup

Monday, September 29, 2008

Bloggers, forgive me, it has been one week since my previous blog. A friend of mine e-mailed me today asking for my potato soup recipe. I love this recipe, it is creamy and cheesy and bacony (<--made up word). The recipe is not mine, it comes from a lady that I teach with. It is very easy to make and reheats even better than the first time. It would be great with some of Christiana's rolls.

Potato Cheese Soup

6-8 large baking potatoes
2 c. milk
4 c. chicken broth
2/3 c. flour
2/3 c. butter
8-12 strips of bacon, cooked ( I use the precooked hormel crumbles they keep forever and I buy in bulk at Sam's Club)
1 c. sour cream
8 oz shredded Cheddar cheese
salt and pepper to taste

****You can use lighter versions of any of the dairy products, I almost always do****

Bake potatoes untill soft and then peel. Mash or cube the potatoes depending on the desired consistency for the soup. You can also do a combination of both.

In a large soup pot, combine butter and flour to make a roux. (This sounds more difficult than it is, basically you are just using the flour and butter to make a thicker sause to start off your soup with. To do this keep the heat low and keep stirring. After 1 minute slowly whisk in the liquids.

Add salt and pepper, potatoes, cooked bacon, and cheese. At the last minute (about 10 min before serving) add in the sour cream.

When reheating the soup will be thick. Add milk to reheat, it keeps getting better and better. Enjoy with some rolls for a warm fall meal.

In a cloud of paint

Sunday, September 21, 2008

This table was graciously given to me by Victoria as a birthday gift. I absolutely love the color, but it would take a massive overhaul to make it work in my kitchen. Therefore, since I am not moving any time soon, I had to paint this beautiful blue table.

Meg came over (she loves painting) and we got to work on several projects. It is always more fun to project with a friend. If you look closely you can see the pumpkins that she painted on the floor.

We wasted no time and made a total mess all over the grass and the garage. We are both a little sloppy when it comes to painting. I am so impatient and just want to get it done so I can see the finished project. We worked constantly applying one coat here and there while another dried.

So here is the finished project. I wanted to have a chair in an odd color. As you can see from above there is a lot of antique white going on in my house. I decided to go a little different direction with my sewing room chair.

And here is my beautiful finished table. I resisted the temptation to paint these cute little pumpkins. I thought that would be entirely too much. The orange makes a great contrast with the green (curtain) runner I found. I look forward to having family over and no one having to sit on camp chairs!

Now the only thing remaining is to get the paint out of my hair!

Top Ten Favorite Things in my House

Thursday, September 18, 2008

I love to look at everyone else's homes and what they do with their stuff. So when Laurie over at Tip Junkie asked the question I wanted to be a part of it and see everyone else's stuff. Here is the post if you would like to join in. I think it closes on Saturday at midnight. So, here goes. Sarah Kate's top 10 in no particular order:

My husband loves penguins and I have to admit they are adorable the way they waddle around, but I never thought there would be any that I would actually decorate with. My mother in law gave these to us from Target and we both love them.

I get made fun of all of the time for this stick. It is the only one left. I gave in to peer pressure and mother(who is my real estate agent) pressure. I took them all down except for this one. Who knows maybe after the next storm I will have another one to match it.

I am a bath tub girl. When life gets hard I hit the bubbles. When I have school paper work to do, I pull up a chair and my lappy and get to it. The only thing this one is missing is jets!

I have a very formal looking home with all of the trim. I love the outdoors and wanted to bring it in in order to tone down how formal it looks.
I made the framed art from a very ugly bird picture. I spray painted the mat and then added this fabric swatch that I got at a rummage sale. It is one of those things that I just bought and had no idea what I would do with it, I just knew that I liked it. I may put a big letter on it...yeah that sounds great.
This is one of several mini chairs in my house, but it is not the thing I wanted to highlight. I love all of my plants. I have had this ficus tree since college and it is finally growing! I am definitely a P.O.O.P.I.E. but I try to bring in real plants wherever I can.

I found this Ironing board at a huge garage sale. They were closing up for the day and the man that sold it to me had no Idea what it was. It is real wood and I didn't even have to paint it for my sewing room. I like all of the boards comming across.
This cookie jar was the thing in my grandmothers house that I knew I wanted when I was older and had my own house. My whole kitchen is designed around this piece.

This little dude is one of my favorite things. If you can't tell he is a hedge hog and is made up of all of these nesting little cups. I am not sure what it was made for initially, but right now he just sits there looking cute and making me smile. I think he is bronze under there, but I kinda like the worn look he is sporting right now.



Corney I know, but this is part of my closet. My dad built our house and made my closet just for me. I love jewelry and boxes. I used to get too busy and forget to accessorize, but now I have an earring hanger, an bracelet tree. All of my necklaces hung up and pins and miscellaneous stuff in the largest box. In the frame there is a letter from my husband when we were dating and some of the flowers he gave me. It is one of my favorite places with all of the shiny things and a little reminder of how much I am loved.

Resetteling Garage Sale Finds

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

So, I have been pretty busy over this little break of ours. I have situated all of my garage sale finds and have been working on the sewing room. I will post that later, it is still a work in progress. Meg is coming over Friday because she loves to paint. I will have more then to post. I am painting this beautiful table. I just wish I could keep it that color. I think I may distress it so some of the pretty blue comes through. Meg loves doing stuff like that. I am getting excited just thinking about it!

And last but not least are some very wonderful finds at your neighborhood goodwill. As soon as I began reading everyone's blogs I saw immediately how many clear glass containers I would need to put things like pine cones, pumpkins, potpourri and who knows what else in. I had had to go out and get some for myself. You can see my cat Pippen really wanted to be in this shot. What you don't know is how many pictures on my blog that he has ALMOST been in. I decided to let him stay in this once and maybe he will get it out of his system...NOT!

Garage Sailing

Saturday, September 13, 2008

This morning I woke up itching to go garage sailing. I am a huge fan of getting thing situated when I bring them home right away so they don't just sit around. I have already put te pumpkin out (without all of that crazy stuff on the top of it. The bird has a new home, the watering can has some ivey planted in it and the glass topper has a cute little plate that it works perfectly with. I will post pictures later of all of thier new homes. I have a week off of school and I plan on getting some projects done. Thanks everyone for the great ideas for the sewing room. I like the ideas of clustering the hoops with letters to create words. Thanks Joy. The blue frames are for Vic I think they will go great with her kitchen. And if not she can always spray paint them. Stay tuned to see what, if anything I get done this week off from school. I have a table and chairs to paint and I have already begun dismantling the topiary. Now to get on with "manteling" it. I am also going to go through the house and try to declutter and re-situate some items. I am going to paint one chair for the sewing room...any ideas about color? I love what Beckie did with her splash of pink in her workspace.

Sewing Room

Thursday, September 11, 2008

This is my sewing room. I love the colors chartreuse and periwinkle, I used them in my wedding and therefore had lots of left over topiarys and my bouquet. I wanted a place where I could craft with friends. I bought the shelf and the desk at Ikea. I love their Expedit series. I wish I could paint the walls in there, but alas, the house is up for sale and not everyone loves the green as much as I. I would love to paint it something like Timoty Straw (I absolutely adore this color, thanks Kimba). I should have cleaned it you a little first. Now that I look at it I think it may be a little busy and have too much going on, any ideas? The photo below is one of my favorite finds. I found the old wooden ironing board at a garage sale. It was already this color. How perfect. The sewing hoops were bought at the United Methodist Childrens Home sale last year, I am sure the woman in the craft room thought I was crazy. I have several more but I didn't want to do them all with the same green fabric. I keep on looking for some other fabric everywhere I go, but I havn't found the right one yet. I thought about stenciling on some of them. Any ideas here. At first I just wanted to put something in the room so I didn't look empty to potential buyers, now it seems that we will have to wait a while and I might as well make the room mine. With the exception of painting, I am up for anything to make this room look better.

A wee bit of fall

Sunday, September 7, 2008

And I do mean a wee bit. I have not collected very many fall materials. I definitely want more pumpkins. Alas, I am afraid I will have to wait for some nice ones to go on clearance for next year. I love all of the ivory painted ones that I am seeing. I may continue to try to find places to put these lovely pine cones I keep on finding.

A fathers Love

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Victoria over at As Time Goes By keeps telling me that I should post my trim on my blog. I hesitated to because it is nothing that I have done. But, as I have been struggling to just get dinner on the table before bed time and therefore have not done anything creative, I thought I would showcase some of my dad's fine work on my house. My house was built by my father, for the most part. We bought it as just a foundation and a frame. Dad has been a carpenter since he was 17 years old and he and mom found a house for us that would be a great opportunity. It definitely ended up being more difficult than we ever could have imagined. Here is a bit of the process and some of the trim along the way. At first I didn't' like the grapes on the mantle but they do add a little something. The built-in here(at the bottom) is my favorite part of the house. When I look at I cannot help but think of the lengths that my dad goes to for me. I cannot tell you the days that we all spent digging rock out of the yard, scraping paint off of windows, and hauling TONS of trash.

As you can see my kitchen is definately pink. I will show more of it later. But this was a cool place to show off some of my cute salvation army finds. These are in the same set as the ones that are featured on the wired plant holder thingy.This is the trim in the front entry way. If you look closely you can see the dirt dobber in the right corner. It would be a serious ladder chore to get it off, sorry guys!

Have a great weekend!

Pray for our open house!