Turnt Up

Just kidding...I did cook with turnips for the firs time though! I used them as a replacement for white potatoes in my homemade vegetable soup. I have to say, I was very closed minded to the experience. I was 100% sure that I was not going to enjoy it, but to my surprise, I loved it! Here's what the finished veggie soup looked like:

 

 

I love to make vegetable soup when it's cold out and I have a lot of unused vegetables in my fridge. This past week has been extremely cold in Texas and I've been very busy. Without a lot of time to cook my vegetables were starting to go bad. Here is what I used in this batch:

 

• 2 boxes of vegetable broth (2 quarts total)
• Turnips
• Carrots
• Bell Peppers
• Onions

Other times, I've used things like:

• Tomatoes
• Potatoes
• Noodles
• Green Beans

You can nearly put any vegetable in your soup and it's very easy to cook. Here's the simple recipe that I followed:

1. Pour both quarts of the vegetable broth in a large pot and start warming on medium
2. Add a bag of miniature carrots (or anything small that doesn't need any chopping)
3. Chop the Onions and Bell Peppers into long strips then add them to the pot
4. Chop the Turnips into small pieces/chunks and add them to the pot
5. Add a few dashes of tobasco if you like it hot and crushed black pepper for flavor
6. Put the lid on the pot and let it cook for roughly 30 minutes; stir occasionally
7. Poke all of your veggies with a fork to make sure they're thoroughly cooked. If cooked after 30 minutes then enjoy! Otherwise, let it continue to cook on medium/medium-low.

This vegetable taste wonderful reheated. I usually make a large batch and freeze several tubberware since it reheats easily. Stay warm, friends!

DIY Holiday Hit

I just returned to Texas from Vermont last night. We visited my boyfriend's family for Christmas and was able to stay a full week with them. Since I was on vacation, I spent little time on the computer aka no blogging. Now that I'm home and slowly getting back in to my routine I wanted to share this awesome holiday party hit!  I'm a big fan of DIY, but don't always think the projects are worth the time. If they don't seem time consuming, then often I think they look cheap; or, my favorite, they're a total flop! You know, the Martha Stewart expert project that looks like a 1st grader did it. Well, here's a quick (under 30 minutes) project that my boyfriend's parents did and EVERYONE loved:

 

These cute little penguins were made with only three ingedients:

• Black Olives (One Can or Small Jar)
• Cream Cheese (One Small Container or Package)
• Carrots (One Carrot)

You will also need toothpicks (less than 30). All they did was split two black olives and stuff one with the cream cheese and the other with the carrot nose. Here's step by step instructions with more pointers:

1. They assembled the carrot feet on the toothpick first by cutting circles then removing one pie slice. (Read step three prior to discarding removed pie slice).
2. Next, they added the cream cheese stuffed black olive.
3. Last, they added the carrot stuffed black olive. This carrot nose was the pie piece they removed from the circle in the first step.

Thought I'd share this fun and easy DIY holiday hit that is both easy to make and quite tasty. Enjoy and Happy Holidays!