Chicken Tortilla Soup: Yumm-O!!

Ok, I have made some version of this soup many times before, just tossing in this and that spice here and there in various measurements, but this time it turned out so delish, I had to share! Try it out for a nice fall soup as the nights start to cool off a bit!

Ingredients:

• 3 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced
• 1/2 of a jalepeno, finely chopped
• 1/2 of a yellow onion, diced
• 1 Tbsp Cumin powder
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 Tbsp salt, plus more for seasoning to taste
• 1/4 Tsp Cheyenne pepper
• 1 Tsp Chili powder
• 1 15 oz. can chicken broth
• 4 Tbsp flour
• 3 cups milk
• 1 baking potato, peeled and diced
• 2 ears corn, shucked, and kernels cut off the cob
• 1/2 cup shredded mexican cheese mix, plus more for garnish
• Tortilla strips for garnish
• Diced tomato for garnish

What to do:

Place the oil, chicken, jalepeno, garlic, onion, and all spices in a large soup pot; cook the ingredients until chicken has turned white and cooked almost all the way through. Stir in about a 1/4 cup of the chicken broth; then stir in the flour to form a paste; stir in the rest of the chicken broth and then the milk; stir very well and bring to a boil, stirring constantly; then reduce heat to low. Stir in the potato and corn; simmer for about 10 minutes, then stir in the cheese. Cover and leave to simmer on very low heat for about 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are soft and easily break with the poke of a fork. Stir frequently as to not allow the soup to burn on the bottom. Taste before serving- if it's too bland, add salt until it tastes delicious. Serve with tortilla strips, diced tomato, and shredded cheese on top. Enjoy!

Dork Alert!

Ok, I know that it is completely not normal for a 28 year old gal to get this excited about something so mundane, but check this out, I just found the most amazing way to get furniture indentations out of carpet! Yep, that's right, that's actually what I'm sitting here typing this post about at 9:13 on a Saturday morning- furniture indentations!

So we're shuffling rooms in our house all around to make way for the baby- selling furniture, moving furniture, etc., etc.....needless to say, we have LOTS of furniture indentations left in the wake of all of this moving, and they drive me NUTS! So I was reading online about how to get rid of these pests, and the method that looked easiest to me was the one I tried first- putting an ice cube on the indentation and then let it melt and then fluff it up- NOPE, don't even bother, totally doesn't work. I figured heat needed to be involved somehow, so I thought about trying out the 'ol clothes steamer we got for our wedding- OH MY GOSH, I can't even tell you how delighted I am with the results- it's like brand new carpet. Our steamer has a flat attachment to use on garments, so I took that off so that the little spout would pour out more concentrated amounts of steam rather than spreading it out. Worked like a charm- you just hold the steamer over the indentation and I could literally see the fibers rising before my eyes! Unbelievable- super fast, super easy, and if you don't have a steamer, seriously come borrow ours- it'll be worth the trip!

Heidi, Tim, are you Paying Attention?

Ok, so this post has absolutely nothing to do with the purpose of this blog, so I'm sure I'm breaking the number one rule of blogging by putting it up here, but I can't help it. I'm just so proud and secretly hoping to get discovered- I couldn't resist showing you all this dress!

My friend Cami got married a couple weeks ago and a while back we were talking about dress making and what not, and she said, "oh my gosh, why don't you make me a dress for me to wear out after our wedding?" Well of course I was just so flattered that anyone would want to wear one of my creations, so I jumped at the opportunity. We went fabric shopping immediately and we were so thrilled with what we found (this Prada fabric) that Cami insisted that this be her rehearsal dinner dress instead! So we talked through the design together, and this is what came out of it. I say that it has nothing to do with the purpose of this blog because it wasn't inexpensive or easy to make, but again, I'm just too proud to keep it to myself! Hopefully the producers of Project Runway are crawling the Internet and find this post!
I learned so much making this dress- I have no formal training in sewing, and I mean, this thing is fully lined, has interfacing, and boning! I had no idea how to do any of that before I made this dress so I'm so excited to have the experience under my belt now! (Big thanks to Muna, who helped out extraordinarily!!) My favorite part of the dress is the bustle I put into the back (in this picture, it looks a bit messy, but in real life it's so cute!) Whew, think it turned out pretty great! Oh, and I made the little matching bow tie for her husband, Wes, too- how cute is that? Hope you all like it! And congrats to the happy couple!!!

Froof-er-ize Your Life

First off, I must apologize for neglecting my creative duties for so long....I'm sure I've lost most of my followers as a result, and I don't blame you- hopefully you'll all come back to me and I'll keep adding new posts!

Ok, now down to business.....so, I made this dress recently and am just OBSESSED with the one-shouldered froof I attached to give it some glam! As I was making it, I was thinking to myself, "wait a sec, I could add one of these cool froof things to any old washed up boring strapless dress and make it like new again." For instance, I have this old JCrew strapless black dress- it's cute, but boring, and old, so it needs something fresh to bring it back to life, and a froof like the one seen here would do just the trick! Making the froof is easy, and easy to work onto any strapless dress.

What you'll need to do is buy a big piece of fabric (preferably something sort of stiff and crunchy like the froof I made here, so that the ruffles will stand up on their own); fold it diagonally to make a triangle. The triangle, from tip to tip, needs to be at least twice as long as the distance from under one armpit, over the top of your other shoulder, and back around your back, ending at the same armpit. Then cut along the fold, cutting sort of a semi-circle shape so that the ends, which will attached under your one arm, are skinnier than the middle, which will sit on top of your other shoulder. Then sew up the open side, and then turn inside out. Then grab a needle and thread and loosely make stitches along the seem, so that once you get thread through the length of the seem, you'll pull it gently, bunching the fabric to make ruffles. Once you make the ruffles, make sure the froof is the right length to go from under one arm, up over your shoulder, around your back, and back to the first armpit. Then this next part is where your creative license comes in- just grab a needle and thread and start bunching the fabric together in random spots and making a stitch here and there and tying it off. This will make you one nice, long froof.

Then you simply attach the froof, beginning under the first armpit, securing it to your dress, also tack it on a few places on the front of the dress, only about right to between your cleeve, and then leave enough loose fabric that it will comfortably go up over your shoulder, and then start attaching again at about the middle of the back of the dress, and then a few more stitches, ending again under the first armpit.

This is a super simple and cheap way to completely reinvent an old strapless dress- the one shouldered stuff is really in these days, and this simple froof addition really adds MAJOR GLAM to an otherwise boring old dress! Good luck!

Baby Gifts!

Ok, so I have at least 3 baby gifts to give in the upcoming months (slash one is really past due- sorry Amanda!) and I wanted to make something super cute and practical for these friends....I have seen darling hooded baby towels online before, made by companies such as Dwell- they're all so cute, and well, so ridic expensive- honestly, what baby needs a $60 towel? So I thought I'd give it a go on my own. I am super happy with the outcome, and it seriously only took about an hour total to make- going to start mass-producing....here's how I did it:

First, pick out a fun cotton fabric and some terry cloth for the lining. Cut two rectangles with the fabric layered on top of the terry cloth so you have matching sized pieces. One rectangle will be the hood part, so it will be much smaller than the other rectangle, which will be the body of the towel. For the hood piece, layer the fabric and terry cloth with the correct sides together on the inside, and pin up 3 of the sides. Then you'll sew up all 3 sides, and then turn right-side-out. Repeat with bigger rectangle. Once you have the 3 sides all sewn up, tuck the edges of the 4th side of the hood piece inward, to make a clean closure, and pin up and sew together that final side. Don't close up the bigger rectangle yet.

Then, take your sewn-together hood piece and fold it in half inside out. Make a stitch along one of the sides coming off the fold to make the hood shape. Then take the remaining long side of the hood piece and tuck it into the 4th side of the bigger towel piece- tuck in the edges of the towel piece around the hood piece, and pin together- then sew up. And you're all finished! Now you have a designed-esq baby towel that didn't cost an arm and a leg!

Overly Domesticated

Ok, I almost hate to admit it, but yes, I just made a chicken pot pie from scratch (and yes, I can hear the derogatory 1950's "how to be a good housewife" quotes streaming through my head now), but I'm really proud of this one, and wanted to share. My hubby loves chicken pot pies, so to be nice, one day I just threw together what I thought would be in one, and I just went for it. It turned out pretty well, so I have made them a couple times since. Now the reason for this post is that I found myself without a key ingredient, and so I had to improvise. It might be jumping the gun a bit to brag about this solution already, since the pie has yet to be consumed, but I'm confident it will turn out great!

So I was missing a pie crust- an obvious essential of chicken pot PIE; and rather than being SEVERELY overly domesticated and making a pie crust from scratch, I scrapped the bottom layer crust (don't need the extra carbs anyway) and replaced the top crust with croutons! They're garlic cheddar flavor too, so I'm thinking they'll add a little pizazz to the dish.

So here's what you'll need to make the whole thing, start to finish:

• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 4 cloves minced garlic
• 1 1/4 cup chicken broth
• 2 tbs flour
• 2 tbs fresh chopped rosemary and thyme
• 1 cup frozen mixed veggies (carrots, green beans, corn- all come in the bag together)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 bag croutons

Heat a medium skillet over medium heat, add chicken, onion and garlic with about 1/4 cup of the chicken broth; saute until the chicken is cooked through; whisk in the flour to form a paste, then add the rest of the chicken broth, the herbs, the veggies, and then salt. Simmer for about 10 minutes until the mixture has thickened up (add a bit more broth if it gets too thick- it should be about the consistency of your favorite hearty chili).

Pour the mix into a pie dish, then sprinkle the croutons on top to form a crust. Cover and let sit for at least 2 hours- this will give the croutons a chance to soak up the moisture from the mix. Then bake, covered, at 375 for about 25 minutes- take off the foil for the last 5 minutes to give the croutons a chance to get crusty again. You can make this ahead and refrigerate after putting the croutons on- this will add to your cook time though, as the dish will be colder to begin with. Bottom line, just keep an eye on it- it should bubble up through the croutons a bit, letting you know it's nice and hot!

Parchment Meals

Ok, this is a trick I learned eating out at restaurants and reading cookbooks. Parchment paper meals are super easy and delish, and make for next-to-nothing clean up. You can cook pretty much anything this way, and the pouch you make out of the parchment paper allows the food inside to steam up very nicely- with all ingredients blending as they cook.

One idea is a type of Greek meal (seen above from Everyday Food Magazine)- lay out a large piece of parchment paper on the counter, and toss on a chicken breast, some artichoke hearts (chopped), some red onion, kalamata olives, and tomatoes- top it off with a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper and feta cheese, fold up the sides, and crimp them together so the pouch remains closed. Set the pouch in a baking dish with sides (so that if any of the juices run out, they'll be caught and not dirty up the oven), place in the oven- preheated to about 375, and let cook for about 25 minutes. Depending on your oven, it may take longer, but feel free to check it after about 20 minutes to see how the chicken is doing- you be the judge on time. Once the chicken is finished, just empty the pouch onto your plate and eat up!

Seriously, you can cook any meal you dream up this way; some other ideas are:

• Tuna steak with chopped jalapeno, soy sauce, chopped fresh ginger, garlic and snow peas;


• Any kind of white fish with julienne veggies (onions, carrots, celery)- maybe some rosemary and thyme sprinkled on top


• Mexican flare- chicken breast with sliced bell peppers and onions, chopped jalapeno, and sprinkle generously with garlic salt, chili powder, and cumin powder- top off with cilantro and sour cream when it's finished

Enjoy!