Soup

I love experimenting with soups. You really can't go wrong unless you put to many mushrooms in a soup that's not meant to be a mushroom soup... ick! One soup that is definitely my go to is my vegetable soup. It's so easy, healthy and flavourful! I will never have soup out of a can again, nothing beats homemade anything. Try it out.

1 1/2 cups of cabbage shredded
2 cloves of garlic diced (prob only need one but I love garlic)
1 onion finely chopped
1 green bell pepper diced
4 potatoes diced
2 med carrots finely chopped
1 tomato chopped
2 celery chopped
a couple pinches of crushed red pepper
dash of salt and pepper
Chicken or Veg Broth. I find the chicken gives it more flavour.

Just put it all in one big pot and boil. As soon as it starts boiling turn it down to simmer. I have lost the juice many of times :p. Simmer until veggies soften, 45min-1hr.

Life is all what you make of it

Our first dress up date night was a success!!! This may seem really silly but come on, everyone enjoys getting dressed up and sharing a fabulous dinner with your loved ones, right? Our options are pretty limited out here. So we did the same thing we do every night, eat dinner on our tv stands ( we haven't bought a dining room table or bar stools yet) and instead of wearing sweats we were spiffied up a little. Just doing these small little things keep things fun!
 
A couple of weekends ago our friends made us this amazing maple curry chicken penne that we absolutely loved. This is probably not the exact same recipe she used but it tasted very similar. Regardless, it was amazing :)

All dressed up and nowhere to go

The girls had to get pretty too

Maples face is hilarious!!

Had to get the cheezy family self portrait in front of the fireplace.

J's not a very good picture taker

J didn't make it to work this morning because his hill billy snow plow couldn't compete with the snowfall we had last night. He borrowed the neighbours snowblower and cleared the road and driveway all morning long. The plow didn't come through until 11:00am.

Lily looked so peaceful seating out there on her snow mound, just like a little princess.

She caught me!! Look at how cute that snow covered face is.

I cooked. baked and cleaned all day today. Had my first go at making home made soup this afternoon, it is quite tasty, but turned out to be more like a stew. I am preparing for out night at Ski Tuonela and cleaning for our guests we are having over Saturday night... yippeee!!

J had more then a taste of the soup. That's a good sign!

I will put the recipes on after this weekend! I must go to bed as we are up and at em' at 6:00 am tomorrow.

Paint, Peace, and Peanut Butter Cups

Today was such a peaceful day for me. We were expecting a snow storm and so far it's just been snow, not much of a storm. It's been snowing steadily since about 1:00 today. I was in one of those moods where I was just feeling grateful. Grateful for where I live and grateful for all the fabulous people in my life. Every perfect dancing snowflake and Rachael Yamagata and Ray Lamontagne had a lot to do with these thoughts. These exceptional feeling masked the fact I am still priming these dreadful cupboards :p
MY DAY :

My helper

Put my other little helper to work as soon as he got home.

Lily got some paint on her ears while working so hard

We are in desperate need to make the hour and a half drive to go grocery shopping!!! A friend had given us haddock months ago so I decided to put it to use. I baked it in the oven along with some spinach, garlic, tomatoes, oregano, parsley,  pepper, onions and a little bit of  cheese. Then made some rice and tomato sauce to go with it and it was DELICIOUS! I imagine it smells pretty fishy in here though... YUCK

Lily and I relaxing after a hard days work. In the mug is some ice cream with a peanut butter cup. I made a batch of one of my fave treats today but the chocolate didn't set on top it sank right to the bottom of the cup.  Still delicious, just very messy.

Lily loves snow, but she  can't make it down the stairs because there is just too much.

Daddy fixed that!!

Lily watching J.....

Do the hillbilly snow plow. Our driveway is so long and he has to get to work tomorrow. So to avoid shoveling in the morning he is driving up and down our driveway/road hahaha What a guy