Food on Friday: Easy Crock Pot Potato Soup

The other day I posted this on Instagram.

And then I had multiple requests for the recipe.

Wow. (I'm flattered!)

Well, okay then--I can't argue with my friends and followers when they ask for it. I always thought potato soup recipes were a dime a dozen, but if you want mine, here. I'll add it to the online collection.

Sorry I didn't take more pictures. I wasn't planning on posting this because I didn't use a recipe (real big surprise there, huh...) and these measurements are estimates of what I actually used. But it is really good and the simple flavor goes perfectly with that strong savor of sourdough bread. It's a perfect comfort food meal and it was exactly what I wanted last Sunday evening. It took all of 10 minutes to throw in the crock pot, put on the lid, and turn it on to high. Prepare it in the morning and enjoy it later.

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Easy, Cheesy, Basic Potato Soup
Makes 6-8 servings. (Hooray for leftovers!)

1 can cream of mushroom soup
milk (use 2 cans-worth after soup can is empty)
water (use 1 1/2 cans-worth after soup can is empty)
1/4 cup all purpose flour
3 large potatoes, diced (1/2 inch thick)
carrots sliced (1/4 inch thick)
1-2 cups chopped broccoli (frozen or fresh)
1/3 cup sliced green onions
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
3 tbsp butter
1 tsp salt (+/- as you want it flavored)
2 tsp ground black pepper
shredded cheddar or colby-jack cheese

Pour cream of mushroom soup, milk, water, and flour into crock pot. Stir, dissolving flour and mixing liquids. Add potatoes, carrots, broccoli, green onions, garlic, butter, salt, and pepper. Stir and evenly mix seasonings and vegetables. Cook on high for 6-7 hours (depending on how well you like your potatoes and carrots cooked; I like mine cooked but not mushy, so I went with 6 hours).

Top with shredded cheese after scooping into bowls. Serve with hot, buttery sourdough bread (slice, butter, wrap in foil and bake at 300 F for an hour--do this during the last hour of cooking soup).

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I just made this one up depending on what I had in my pantry and fridge. It's a pretty easy and basic potato soup base, so feel free to modify it to your own needs/wants.

Try adding bacon or ham, different kinds of cheese (Parmesan sounds good to me), yellow instead of green onions, a couple teaspoons of garlic salt or powder instead of fresh garlic, add fresh mushrooms, use cream of chicken soup if you don't like mushroom, etc. The possibilities are pretty endless.

Enjoy!

Kelly!

Meet Kelly from Diego Girl.

She's pretty rad. I met her because she actually found me. She sent me an email about swapping blog buttons, and after taking a gander at her blog, I was in. She's fun, happy, and pretty chill. It comes across on her blog.

She and I both reside in beautiful San Diego. She may not have a weekly  posting schedule, but it doesn't bother me because she writes about local stuff, and I'm a big advocate of living somewhere as great as here. She does usually have 5+ posts a month though.

I love to see what living in San Diego lets her do and experience, because then I get inspired to take advantage of the perks of living here too. Maybe one day we'll meet up. If we do it will probably be to do something fun/healthy, because we're both active and sort-of health nuts.

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 What's your favorite place you've ever lived?

Of course, I love living in San Diego.  I’ve always been lucky enough to live by the ocean (with the exception of a short stint in Vermont) and I’ve always lived in beautiful places.  In San Diego, I love that the weather is beautiful year round and that there’s so many ways to enjoy the outdoors.  I’ve also lived in Maine where I loved the trees and rocky coast; Edinburgh, Scotland where I actually grew quite fond of the rain and the castles; and Melbourne, Australia where I just remember having lots of fun! 

Name 3 things you like about yourself.

I like my creative side, I love that I can make people laugh (I’m best at this in person – unfortunately it doesn’t really come across in my blog), and I like that I challenge myself.

What's your favorite dessert?

I love chocolate and I’m also a big ice cream fan. 

What's your go-to recipe/food when you don't know what to do for dinner?

Stir-fry.  It’s easy to have everything on hand – I keep chicken, steak and veggies frozen and have rice and all the ingredients for the sauce in my pantry or fridge.

What are the last 3 things you pinned on Pinterest?

Actually, I’ve never pinned anything!  I hear good things though, so maybe I’ll start one of these days. 


What is something you've always wanted to learn and why haven't you learned it yet?

I’d love to be fluent in Spanish.  I’ve studied it for a while and I do ok, but I think I need to spend some real time immersed in the language to become fluent.  I haven’t yet been able to carve out that opportunity for myself, but it’s on my bucket list. 


Sum up your blog in one sentence.

Diego Girl is about living an adventurous, active, confident life.


Where do you draw your inspiration from?

Most of my inspiration comes from nature and from my family. 

Is there anything else you want others to know about you?
As much as I’d love to be as fit, athletic and healthy as Gabby Reece, I have yet to find the willpower or drive to make it happen.  I love being physically active, having fun and eating healthy foods, but I also love lounging around the house eating a bowl of ice cream and watching romantic comedies.  Like many people, I struggle to find the time and energy to stay fit and eat healthy, but I try, and I get a lot of satisfaction and confidence from doing so.  

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Now go read through her posts and get motivated to do something healthy and active! 

Thanks, Kelly!

My Favorite Pencil Skirt

A few years ago I took a sewing class while I was still attending college. I didn't really need it, considering my caliber of experience with sewing, but I had been self taught. I wanted to make sure I didn't miss any nugget of wisdom or technique in all of my self-teaching.

It was a really good class. I did learn a few things, and was able to feel more confident in my title as a "professional" seamstress because of it. Plus, it was fun.

Anyway, my favorite thing I made in that class is now my favorite pencil skirt. One thing that bothers me about pencil skirts is the slit in the back. They can get pretty high, and then sometimes they rip higher due to strain put on the seam from walking, and before you know it everyone can see what color underwear you have on and you never know it until you get home, or a kind person tells you...not that I have any experience with that or anything...

This is my favorite because not only did I make it myself and I matched up the plaid design perfectly on the back seam, but more importantly it has no slit in it! Plus, it's brown. I love brown, especially in autumn with all of the oranges, reds, and yellows that welcome the season. They're my favorite colors to wear.

I paired this skirt with orange here. Orange is my all-time favorite color. It was my main wedding color. And coincidentally, these cute wedge heels are the ones I wore with my wedding dress.

I'm so excited for the coming fall months. I'm looking forward to for Halloween, Thanksgiving, my 3-year wedding anniversary, and my husband's birthday. Fall is kind of a busy season for us, but that's what helps me love it even more! There's so much for us to celebrate and reflect on.

And in case you're wondering, because I had to teach this tidbit to my husband during this particular photo shoot, don't have the person you're photographing face into the setting sun.

Well, not unless you want to photograph an expression like this.

Hot. I know.

Thursday's Thoughts: A Little Space

Things have been really.... bipolar lately. I'm not sure how else to put it.

One day is great and I'm really productive and life feels great. The next I'm exhausted and get nearly nothing done and I feel like I'm at my wit's end. And sometimes I feel all of that in a single day.

Welcome to motherhood, right?

This week has been tough. Between living with my in-laws and trying to control my head-strong domestic instincts (since this isn't my house and I can't just reorganize everything and get rid of half of the stuff that I think is useless). I miss cooking. I honestly don't do it much now since I can't use the kitchen most days because the counter is perpetually cluttered with who-knows-what kind of plumbing materials, papers, old dirty dishes, and cold food that's been sitting out for too long.

*sigh*

I want to eat healthy foods. I miss healthy food. I miss having the space to cook most days. I miss having an organized kitchen so that cooking is easy and enjoyable. It's such a chore now-days. I still love to do it, so I still do occasionally. But it's frustrating and difficult beyond what is necessary.

My food on Friday posts may be posted a little later some days. That goes for all of my posts, actually. They'll still be posted, they just might be done in the afternoon... or evening... or around 10pm.

My family and my sanity come first. So if that means posts published later, then that's what will happen.

Check That off My Bucket List!

I have a bucket list. I've already done quite a few items on it, and every time I do something else I feel so much more accomplished.

So what's the latest thing I've done on it?

Oh, just something I've been wanting to try for my entire life.


I took a glassblowing class! And I personally made my very own blown glass tumbler.

It was so much fun! And definitely worth it. A while back my sweet husband found a Groupon deal for an intro class to glassblowing for two. He put it on my Facebook wall, telling me that my good friend Lyssa (who is a high school art teacher) and I should get it. Oh, we were all over that! Like me, Lyssa had wanted to learn the art of glassblowing for years and years. My only holdup had been how expensive it is. But with that Groupon deal, it was only about $75 each! That is such a great price compared to everything else I'd seen!

So we finally scheduled our class and went on September 8th. The place is called Stone and Glass.
(And thank you, Lyssa, for taking pictures for me!)

The owner, James Stone, is a really great fellow. He's an artist who is passionate about both ocean conservation and creating beautiful works of art using glass, stone, and other mediums.

He has a few employees who assist him in teaching these classes and in making items to sell. Seven students, including ourselves, showed up for the class. We observed one of them make an simple tumbler, and then split up into two groups to work on our own pieces. I really like how hands-on this skill is to learn. If you're a little nervous about it, they'll so most of the work for you. If you want to do most of it yourself, they'll simply guide you through the process while you decide color, shape, and design. I wanted to do a lot of it myself, so Mariah, the girl who was helping me, just guided my hands through the process at first and then let me to a lot of the work.

Safety is important, so we were required to wear glasses, long pants, a cotton shirt, and closed toed shoes.

It gets really hot in the workroom. The furnace that holds the clear melted glass in the bottom is kept at about 2100 degrees Fahrenheit.

And there were two kilns for each group to work with. The heat didn't bother me very much, mostly because I was just so excited to learn and make my own.

There's a lot of back and forth between shaping and working the glass and then reheating it in the kiln to keep it malleable.

To get color into the glass, you roll it in colored bits that melt and swirl into the piece as it's worked.

It's important to keep a pointed tip on the hot glass as it's worked. so that it blows out correctly.

Blowing air into it wasn't quite as tough as I thought it might be, but then again I wasn't making anything huge, so I didn't have to blow too much air into my piece. I'm sure something bigger would be trickier.

What's really amazing is that putting a couple of drops of water on certain places, it weakens the glass so that it breaks. This is used to remove the piece from the pole or set it in the oven to cool. Mariah put a couple of drops in specific spots, and when the tumbler was set in place to cool, she tapped on the pole with this tool once or twice and it came right off. 

The glass has to cool down really slowly, otherwise it gets weak and will break. So our pieces weren't ready to be picked up until the following day. They sit in a 925 degree oven and the temperature is lowered by 50 degrees Fahrenheit each hour.

The whole process is really beautiful and some-what intense. I want to do more now! I've definitely been bitten by the glassblowing bug. It's addicting. They were talking about starting up an intermediate class. I think I'll start saving up my money so that I can take it when/if it becomes available!

The green has glitter in it. 

So, if you're interested in learning the art of glassblowing, I highly recommend this place if you're from the San Diego area. You won't be disappointed if you go with an open mind and heart, excited to learn this beautiful skill. If you do, tell James you read about him and his classes on my blog here.

Photography

I've always been interested photography. One of my brothers got an SLR camera when I was in middle school (before DSLRs existed) and I have been jealous ever since. I never really let anyone know how truly interested I was in it. If I had I probably would have gotten into it sooner.

I finally bought my first DSLR from a friend of mine who is not only a lovely lady, but shes also a fabulous photographer. She took some maternity photos for me and I love how they turned out!

A shot from that photo shoot.

I also really love the camera I bought. It's a Canon Rebel XS. It's a really great first DSLR for a beginner like me.

I've been teaching myself how to use it. I've tried to avoid using the auto mode as much as possible and it's paying off. I'm getting the hang of shooting in RAW format, adjusting the aperture timing and the ISO, along with the white balance, and occasionally learning how to manually focus the lens. It's a lot of fun!

I offered to guest post on Jennifer's blog recently, and when I asked what she'd like me to post about she requested food photography. I was honored and flattered that she thought so highly of my photos! I did, however, think it was an ironic coincidence that the day before my guest post went up my camera stopped working.

:(

I took it in to a repair shop to have it maintenanced because I think I know what the problem is. Hopefully it's just a simple procedure and won't cost me too much. I'll find out today or tomorrow when they call me after having a look inside.

Anyway, it looks like I'll be using my husband's old point-and-shoot camera for a couple of weeks until that one hopefully gets fixed. By the way, his camera's display screen doesn't work because I cracked it when I wrecked on my snowboard  But I'll try to take quality photos anyway. It just makes me kind of sad that I have to downgrade since I've steadily been getting so proficient at using my Canon Rebel. Just a heads-up for you.

Go and check out my guest post on Jennifer's blog. I wrote and demonstrated some tips about photographing food. I'm pretty pleased with it.

Also, I did take family portraits for a friend a couple of months ago. I think it turned out great for my first one! Have a look at my Facebook page if you'd like to see it. It was a lot of fun. I could definitely get used to being a professional photographer.

I hope you don't hate me for not having anything crafty for today. I just got back in town from a 10-day road trip a couple of days ago, and what with my camera, Graham's now haywire sleeping patterns, unpacking, and getting ready for a ridiculously busy week ahead of us, this is the best I could muster up for today.

Plus, I really am proud of that guest post. I'll basically make it my own post for today (because I love myself enough to take it a little easy since I both need and deserve it right now). But you'll need to go and read it on Jennifer's blog.

I hope you have a great week. Mine will be exhausting and my sleep deprivation will continue on due to this kid.

It's a good thing I love him and he's ridiculously adorable, otherwise I wouldn't put up with it.

Food on Friday: See Tomorrow...

I'm guest posting tomorrow at Margot's blog, Newfoundlander at Heart. It's one of the easiest recipes you'll ever see. And it's tasty, hearty, and pretty versatile too.

Have a sneak peak.

Now go here to take a look. Enjoy!