Creamy Potato Soup

Due to popular demand...

Here is the original recipe:

CROCKPOT CREAMY POTATO CHEESE SOUP

1/4 c. butter
1/2 white onion, chopped
1/4 c. flour
2 c. water
2 large carrots, diced
4 stalks celery, diced
1 tbsp. dried minced garlic
Salt & pepper to taste
1 c. milk
2 tbsp. chicken boullion
1 c. warm water
5 lb. russet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 bay leaf
1 c. shredded Cheddar cheese
6 slices crisp cooked bacon, crumbled

Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Cook onion in butter until translucent. Stir in flour until smooth, then gradually stir in 2 c. water, carrots, celery, garlic, salt and pepper. Heat through, then stir in milk. Dissolve chicken boullion in 1 c. warm water and pour into vegetable mixture. Place potatoes in slow cooker, and pour heated vegetable mixture into potatoes. Place bay leaf in pot. Cover and cook 5 hours on High or 8 hours on Low. Remove bay leaf; puree about 4 c. of the soup in a blender or food processor, then stir pureed soup into contents of slow cooker. Stir in cheese and bacon until cheese is melted.


My Comments: When I think of crockpot, I think of EASY. Throw the stuff in and let it go for several hours. Then serve and eat. EASY. Now since the above recipe called for a lot of cooking, I did not think that was EASY. I have my own stovetop creamy potato recipe, if I wanted to do the extra cooking. So here’s what I did with the above recipe to make it EASY.

Chopped the onion, carrots, and celery. Put them in the crockpot. Omitted milk and chicken boullion. Peeled and chopped up potatoes. Put them in the crockpot. Mixed together two cans of cream of mushroom soup, a can of chicken broth, garlic, salt and pepper. Pour into crockpot and stir. Put in bay leaf. Cook on high for 6 hours or so. Added crumbled bacon and cheese. It seemed a little too thick so I added water. Next time, I think I’ll add milk. Serve it up!

Have I said that I think crockpot cooking should be fast and EASY?? LOL

Yum-Yums, High Speeds, and A Finish

On your mark! Get set! Go!

Friday afternoon, enter IT tech from the local ISP to install... what? High speed internet! ~Woo Hoo~ Hello faster downloads, hello faster uploads, hello faster emails, hello faster surfing... and hello $12 extra a month. Goodbye slow internet, goodbye dial-up and goodbye landline!

As you can guess, I made the jump to high speed internet and did away with my telephone service completely. The only thing I ever used the landline for anyway was internet. My calls are always make from and to my cell phone. Plus I save $12. Can't beat that!!

I finished the Love scissor fob kit today. It's by Shepherds Bush (by the way, their customer service is excellent!!). I must say that the colors turned out darker than I envisioned and darker than what the photograph shows on the front of the chart. It's still nice, though. It's stitched on 32ct Savannah Rose Linen with DMC and Weeks Dye Works floss. The kit also included the scissors in the pic. I had a few firsts with this project:

• First try at linen -- not bad, not bad at all

• First try at making cording -- used the cording drill I bought a month ago on one of my stash hunting trips. A bit tricky, but not bad.

• First try at using invisible thread -- thought I'd pull my hair out! I did manage to get the cording sewed on and it DOES look nice. Need lots 'o patience to use invisible thread and be sure to anchor it to the needle. Reminds me of fishing line. Prolly is... they just package it differently because they know us stitchers will buy anything! LOL!!

Any Mayberry fans out there? Did you hear about the passing of Don Knotts? I can see his expression and bugged out eyes even now. LOL He'll be missed, I'm sure.

Found out I have new neighbors: a single lady with her 8yr grandson. I hope they work out better than the two gay (Oh, excuse me... "homosexual") guys that use to live there. For those of you who aren't aware -- I live in a 2-family townhouse, which is basically a two story house with a wall to separate us. Anyway, at least I know she likes kids (The gay guys didn't.) . Plus the grandson is the same age as my nephews... playmates!! They should fit in since there are a lot of kids in this neighborhood. Time will tell.

Now I bet you're wondering what this "Yum-Yum" stuff is all about? I've been on a 'cooking with crockpot' kick the last few months. After reading it over and the receipe calling for 'saute this, cook that,' I thought "What's the point of cooking it in the crockpot if you have to cook everything first?" Too much work! So I did my own version of the recipe by throwing everything in the crockpot and altering the ingredients. It turned out sooooo good! "What is it?" you ask? Creamy Potato Soup! It has carrots, onion, celery, bacon and cheese in it. I've never made a potato soup with carrots and celery before, but it's really good! Easy and so filling! Yum-Yum!!!

Well, I'm off to watch the closing ceremonies of Olympics. Go USA!

Lorri Birmingham Designs

When I was out shopping with my niece on Saturday, I found some things I just *had* to have. I didn’t realize it until today... I like Lorri Birmingham Designs! Between the LNS and Hobby Lobby, I bought 4 kits by Lorri Birmingham. When I bought them, I didn’t look at the designer’s name, just the project photo. Here’s what I came home with:







Bees & Clover Scissor Fob Kit











Stitchers Scissor Fob Kit











Simply Elegant Scissor Case & Fob Kit











Joy of My Heart Flat-Fold Kit







I got a couple other things as well:






Love Chart by Calico Crossroads









Love Scissor Fob by Shepherds Bush








Now the question is... Which one do I make first?!?


P.S. Did I mention ALL of these were on clearance?!!

Have I Created A Monster?

My sister says I’ve created a stash monster. Who? Me? My niece spent another weekend with me and boy did we have fun on Sat! We spent the entire day shopping. I was *such* an enabler! We started out at the LNS – My niece had never been to one before. She made lots of comments such as “Oh, look at this!” “This is cool!” “Is that blue part stitched, too?” She was asking all sorts of questions as to what things were and trying on magnifying glasses until she found a pair she could see out of. LOL She even asked the clerk if they had any “easy sports kits or charts”. She found one that was right up her alley – A leaflet with lots of basketball motifs.

Then we were off to Michaels, JoAnn Fabrics, and Hobby Lobby. The whole time, my niece was planning her sampler basketball project in her head -- what was going to go where and what color changes she wanted to make. She is going to give it to her coach as a present. She even thought about how she was going to frame it – a frame from the thrift store decorated with 3D basketball stickers.

I asked her how she wanted to store her floss – on bobbins like mine, or in baggies (and showed her the floss baggies). Guess what she opted for? The baggies!! She thought it was cool how they fit on the little rings and flipped around. When it was all said and done, she had her own little stash bag (A suede and leather cow spotted bag, which she thinks is the coolest thing), a hoop, floss bags, chart, needle threaders, scissors, highlighter, sleeve protector for her chart, and needles.

When we got home she and I went through my stash of extra floss and matched up colors she needed. She labeled all the baggies and put her floss in them. I helped her get started on stitching – taught her the “loop” method, how to end off, and running the floss under the stitches on the back to keep it neat. She also had her first frogging experience which she was not happy about. She was very proud of the progress she made!
My sister’s little stash monster…. LOL

The IRS

Ever notice that the words “The” and “IRS” put together spells “Theirs”? LOL Did you know the IRS is trying to simplify the tax forms?




I thought that’d be a good opening line for this... Have you filed your income tax returns yet? Prior to this year, I always filed mine over the telephone. The IRS discontinued it this year, so I did them online. It was so easy and free, of course. I got my refund deposited into my bank account within 7-10 days, both for the state and federal. I used TurboTax online and one tricky thing they do that I did not like was: It’s free to file your federal tax return, but if you want to use their system to file the state return it’s $24.95! So what did I do? I filed my federal return and then went to my state’s website and filed my state return there for free! I don’t know if every state has a website that allows state return filings, though. Anyway, I just thought I’d share my experience in case anyone wanted to do it for themselves.

OK, keep in mind too that I have a strong background in accounting and I am very computer literate. So if you don’t know what you’re doing please take it to a professional!