Soup and Bread, Bread and Soup

Last night for dinner I made a cheeseburger soup. I have made it before but I found a new recipe. I like this recipe a lot better. My husband likes to have something with soups and stews like crackers or bread. I picked up some delicious baguettes and sliced one into 4 pieces and put them in the freezer for times like this. I think I started to get more excited about the bread than the delicious soup.

Recipe:

1 lbs ground beef
1/2 sweet onion chopped
3 cups of warmed beef stock
4 tablespoon butter, divided
4 cups peeled and diced golden potatoes, about 6-8
3 tablespoon of flour
2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese
1 1/2 cup milk
Salt and pepper to taste

Brown ground beef in 3 quart sauce pan, drain, take out and set aside. In same pan melt 1 tablespoon of butter add onion. Cook until translucent, add warmed stock, cooked beef, and potatoes. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Meanwhile melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a small sauce pan over low heat, add flour and stir, cook for 3-6 minutes. Add to the soup, while stirring bring to a simmer and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from heat season with salt and pepper and in small handfuls add cheese. Serve warm!

Enjoy!

Handles, Sliders and Hinges..Oh My!

As you might have guessed, I don't really have anything fun to talk about today.  I have been pretty busy trying to find all of the things we will need to start moving forward on the kitchen as soon as we are done with the closet.  And while the closet has been moving along - it doesn't really look any different than it did before unless you like looking at things like outlet cutouts (which just aren't that interesting). 

So, what have I been looking for...I'm sure the title says it all lol.  I need sliders for the pullouts on either side of the oven - we have to attach them before we build the boxes because 3" is not enough room to screw them in afterwards.  I need hinges for the 6 mini-cabinets on the islands, and since we want them to be soft closing like the other cabinets I have been trying to find them for a price that doesn't make me cringe (The cabinets came with the hinges, so it's included in the price, but when you look for them by themselves there is a little sticker shock).  Finally, I have been obsessively looking at pulls/handles for our cabinet doors.  I have looked at tons of them, but I think we have settled on the one above - 4" Liberty Step Edge Pull.  Now we just have to make sure we like it enough to buy - because pulls are not cheap and I need 60 of them.  Yes, I have 60 doors in my kitchen - crazy town!  I have to admit that when I was designing my cabinets, I never thought to worry about how many pulls I would need.  I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have changed my plans but...

Anyone else have to look for handles lately?  It's not for everyone, but I spent at least 10 hours looking at them online over the last week.

Have a great weekend!!
Beth

Quick Sewing Craft

The weather is cooling down. I have a super quick sewing craft for you today to help keep you warm.  I made a pocket warmer. What's great is you can make any shape! I made a simple circle. You can make it easy on yourself and make a square, I will definitely be doing this! You can make a triangle, I think they would look so cute! Around Valentines day you can make a heart and put their favorite essential oil in the rice.

I picked out some cherry fabric, it's 100% cotton, I think you will want to stick with cotton since it will be going into the microwave. I wish I could use a super soft fabric but it could melt.

I grabbed a small bowl for the nice circle size. I used a fabric pen and traced the bowl on the fabric. You can have a different backing, I just doubled up on the cherry fabric. Sew right sides out, leave an inch opening. Mix 1/4-1/3 cup of rice and 2-4 drops of essential oils. Pour rice into opening and sew up the opening. Cut 1/4 inch around the sewn edge, clean up any threads.

To use, microwave 15-30 seconds depending on your microwave. You can also throw it the freezer to use on bumps, headaches or puffy eyes.

You can check out where I got the idea from here.

I hope you have a great day!

New Cabinet Plan

If you read my post on Monday, you already know that I had to redesign a whole section of cabinets recently (meaning in the last few days lol).  It is actually a pretty large area that needs to be redone, so I have spent a lot of time looking at pictures and figuring out what the best use of the space would be - I am trying to find a good balance between useful and pretty lol.  This is also the most challenging section of cabinets in the kitchen.  The major issue is the section on the left - the walls are an even depth, but there is a vaulted ceiling above the last wall section.  This happened because we removed a wall that seperated the old kitchen and dining room, which is now the entire kitchen.  Then we built a new wall to seperate the new dining room and kitchen which was built higher.  So where and how do we end the crown molding on this wall?!  I have gone through tons of different options (even before the change in cabinets) - frustrated hair pulling and all - and this is the one that I think will work the best...I hope!     

We are going to build a soffit to 'fill in' the area between the top of the wall and the ceiling of the kitchen.  I can't put a cabinet all the way to the top because the crown molding from the lower section would overlap, and if I put a cabinet below it looks funny with the two layers of crown molding.  Well, it looks funny in my line drawing :)

The middle section of cabinets is going to be 16" deep instead of 12" - this will allow me to use them for appliances.  So my microwave, blender, juicer, dehydrator and bread machine will have a home - and it wont include me having to move them to use them!!  You can see the difference in the depth of the lower and upper cabinets in the picture above on the right.  I was a little worried about 'losing' the counter space, but then I realised that not only do I have tons of counter space but when I open the doors to use the appliances the counter will be twice as big.

So, now I just have to find a range hood that we want to see all the time :)

Have a great day!!

Beth 

New Daily Grind

Yesterday was my son's first day of preschool. Poor guy was not too happy to be leaving me. He was fine though. We live in Cul-de-sac, by the time the bus was turned around he was slightly smiling and waving to us. He was a little nervous again today and only needed two hugs, good improvement.

My husband is a geek and is online late into the nights working so for awhile we got on board with his schedule. Wake up later, couldn't go too late, like 9. Now we get up at 7 am. Which isn't considered early for most households, for us it is. I'm really liking this new schedule. It has pushed me into making meals on a set schedule. He has too eat breakfast at a certain time so that he will eat lunch before he gets on the bus just before noon.

Earlier wake up times mean earlier bed times. This also lead to some bonding times with my husband. We have been on a crazy roller coaster ride with our son. I have a feeling we're nearing the end of our ride on. Of course there will still be roller coaster's in our future but hopefully not too long next time.

I have nearly 5 hours while my kiddo is at school. My projects right now are a bit boring. I have to declutter our house. We have a small house, in my opinion, so I have to make some hard decisions about what needs to go. Don't worry my books are safe! Once I declutter my husband is going to build me workspace for my crafts up in our loft. When that happens I will be working on my craft things durning those 5 hour free time.

I hope you have a great day, I'm off to clean!