Cheesy Potato Soup

With the weather getting colder, soup has sounded really good.  I found this recipe and it hit the spot.  It was so comforting and delicious.  The bacon crunch on top really made each bite.  It was a lot to prepare with the chopping and peeling, but we all loved it.  We even gave Nolan a little bowlful and he ate almost the whole thing! Perfect for a chilly day!

Recipe can be found here at Healthy Cooking Recipes 101.

Turning Page

With the last Twilight movie coming out in about two weeks, my sister Kim sent me a couple songs from the Breaking Dawn Part 1 soundtrack.  One of which I can't stop playing over and over and over again.  So pretty.

Why Carving Pumpkins is Just About the Worst Thing in the World

Our backyard tree changing colors. :)

I had a plan.  I wanted to paint pumpkins this year.  I had some cool ideas, but the thought of painting pumpkins was horrendous to Scott.  You carve pumpkins, you don't paint them.  Ok, fine.  We will carve them.  And I have to say that I can't remember the last time I carved a pumpkin.  Maybe two other times in my life?   And after this experience, I know I haven't missed out on anything.

If someone would have told us, don't buy three large pumpkins and those awesome Sesame Street character carvings for them cause it isn't going to turn out well for you, I would have listened to them.  And kissed them on the mouth.  Because random people who predict things are always correct and never creepy.

It all started at Target where we found some large punkins and cute carvings and we were so excited.  Cause it was Nolan's first year of being able to interact with the situation and we thought he would just love them.  And he loves Elmo, so this was just going to be some special memories for all.  Just the best moments ever.

Image courtesy of Amazon.com

It took us awhile to actually do anything with the pumpkins so they sat in our entryway for over a week.  We returned home from eating dinner last Friday night and our house smelled like dead fish.  DEAD FISH.  We attributed the leftovers we brought home to this smell, went to bed and woke up to the smell again of DEAD FISH.  Why are there dead fish in every room of our house?  It was concerning.  We were getting ready to leave for our family pictures when I looked in our entryway to only describe a scene of pumpkin horror (cue Psycho shower scene audio).  There was about a 3ft. (in length) pool of orange liquid in our entryway and I asked Scott, uhhh did something spill over here?  Only to see that it was coming out of one of the pumpkins.  Scott immediately picked that (not carved) pumpkin up and it immediately fell apart.  He got it together and threw it out and cleaned up the nasty on the floor before Nolan could take advantage of this new-fangled fall swimming pool.  We learned our lesson and put the remaining two pumpkins outside for them to do their business. We sprayed some Febreeze and came back to our house after pictures and the smell was almost gone.  Thank goodness.  And Then There Were Two.

We finally decided to carve the pumpkins this past Sunday night, and I wanted to do it outside to create less of a mess inside but we were losing daylight as the Raiders game was coming to an end.  We went out and I immediately got one of the tops and guts carved out.  Our little carving tool broke halfway cutting the top off. Awesome.  So we had to get a knife.  Even us watching it and Nolan like hawks, Nolan still managed to grab it twice.  Sneaky little guy.  After our hearts started beating again and the wind picked up, we decided to move the operation inside where it would be a bit safer having to place to put all these dangerous tools and Scott got to work on the first carving of Big Bird.  It didn't go well.  We tried tracing it with a dark marker but still couldn't do it especially without our carving tool.  I suggested PAINTING THE FREAKING THING.  He again resisted, but I insisted.  The only paint that we had on hand was washable but I thought I would at least try it.  It couldn't have been more transparent.  It looked not great.  I said lets just put it out there, but Scott didn't see it fit to sit on our porch.  So in the garbage it went.  What a waste of a diseased looking Big Bird traced pumpkin.  And Then There Was One.

Screw the carving helpers.  Too detailed and and with our janky knifes, just not gonna happen.  Nolan doesn't care anyway, I certainly don't care at this point anymore, so we settled with your typical Jack- O- Lantern.  Scott quickly cut out the pumpkin and it was just beautiful.

I saw somewhere where you can put glow sticks in them so you don't have to use candles and I tried 6 glow sticks and it looked so stupid.  Cause you can see the glow sticks sitting at the bottom and they barely illuminated anything.  Well, we got one pumpkin carved and it looks pretty Halloweeny, so it wasn't a complete failure.  Maybe he will take my advice next year and just paint the pumpkins.  Actually, he will take my advice cause that is what is going to happen for the rest of our lives.  All I have to say is remember the Pumpkin Disaster of 2012 and that Nolan picked up a knife TWICE?  That's what I thought.

Happy Halloween.

Almost Lover

Scott recently said he got a free download by an artist called A Fine Frenzy and I had quite the frenzy myself when he said those three words.  Har har.  I love A Fine Frenzy, but hadn't heard much of them for many years.  I immediately had to play one of my old favorite belt it out songs - Almost Lover- that I hadn't listened to in years and remembered every single lyric.  As we tend to do in this life.  I'm sure some of you have heard it but for those who haven't, here is a little bit of a treat for ya.

Creamy Caprese Pasta

I asked Scott to help me out with some ideas for dinners and he went on Snapguide.com and found this recipe.  He says it is like Pinterest but better.  He has never been on Pinterest, so he doesn't know what he is talking about.  But, it does look like a pretty cool site, so I will at least check it out.  Anywho, it looked really good so we gave her a try.  Very glad we did!  It was so good.  All the cheeses are so creamy and I added a bit more sauce to the recipe since a lot of the comments people said it was a bit too dry.  Thankfully, I think I added enough so that it wasn't dry at all.  We typically do not like tomatoes, but we both tried them in here and they were really good!  Nolan, I'm pretty sure, ate more than Scott and I combined.  We just kept putting more and more out there for him and he was a human disposal of it.  We were laughing at how much of it he actually ate.  Winner for everyone and it was so very easy, I will definitely be making it again.

Recipe can be found here at How Sweet It Is.

The Break-up

I know I know, enough with Glee.  But it is SO good and the music is awesome.  Two Thursdays ago, they had a great episode where 3 of the main couples broke up and Mr. Schuster and Emma had a fight.  Epic episode for Glee lovers not only in plot, but in music.  Here were a couple of my favorite songs.

I am not a fan of Taylor Swift, but I absolutely love Santana's voice singing this song of hers.  Taylor sings it too upbeat and I think that Glee brought the song to life in how it should sound.

Here is the actual scene:

Here is the full version if interested:

And then the final song- The Scientist by Coldplay sung at the end by all of the couples.  One of my favorite songs ever.  All the couples are now broken up except for Mr. Schu and Emma- they are still engaged, just in an argument.  Just wanted to clear that up. :)  Cause I'm a nerd.

Adele's Skyfall

Here is Adele's latest song that was just released in full last Thursday as the theme song for the new James Bond 007 movie.  It is a very Adele in that it is haunting and beautiful at the same time.  I don't think it will be one that will be on the radio as it is very theme songy like and not so much "I want to sing to this" type of song.  What do you guys think??

The Twilight Saga

Don't judge me.  Okay, judge me I don't care.  Recently my sister Kim was telling me I needed to start reading the Twilight books.  Since there was so many of them and I don't have time to read all of those, I said I didn't want to but that I would try out the movies.  I got them lined up on Netflix and got the first four that are out on DVD ready for my viewing.  I told Scott I was watching them and he rolled his eyes about as far as one could and blatantly stated he would not be joining me.  Fine by me!  I can get them watched faster if I don't have to wait for him and I have more than an hour together.  I can watch during Nolan's naps.  But of course, they will be stupid and I was going to give the first one a shot and if I didn't like it the rest would go off the queue.

Well, I loved them.  I hate to say that I did, but I did.  I'm not a big vampires/werewolfs fan or even remotely one so I thought it was going to be stupid but it wasn't at all.  It was so interesting.  And mysterious. And though some scenes throughout the four movies were highly unrealistic, so are vampires and werewolfs.  Although, Nolan did bite me really hard on the neck one day so the vampire thing might still be up for debate.  If his eye color turns red, we mind have some issues on our hands.  The movies get you very excited to see what happens next.  I rushed to the post office to get each movie back so I would get the next one quicker.  It took a few days to get each one though.

I just can't even explain how interesting and intense the movies are.  They do a good job of playing to the hearts of girls in having two men pine after one girl and they do a good job of trying to create a male base with the action part with the fighting and wolfs and vampire gore.  You never know how Bella is going to feel about each of them and you never know how Edward and Jacob will feel about each other cause one minute they are fighting and the next they are joining forces.  You get a good balance of action, romance, and mystery which I really enjoyed.  I don't feel as though I have missed out on anything by not reading the book except for one look Jacob gives Edward towards the end of the 4th movie.  I don't know what he is thinking at all so I'm going to wait for Kim to get that far in that book and ask her more about it. 

Also late to the game on this series, but at least I don't have to wait a year between them now like I will have to do with Hunger Games.  The fifth and final movie in the Twilight Saga comes out in a little over a month and I won't go to the theaters, but I know that it will be soon that I will get to watch it on DVD.

I would recommend these regardless of your views on them.  I went in with a bad attitude about them and still loved them!  Like a really bad attitude.  If you want to get a little taste of what each are about and have never read or seen the movies and never thought you would, these might help you see what its all about!

Here is a trailer for Twilight (The first movie)-

Here is a couple very different trailers for Twilight: New Moon-

 

 

Trailer for Twilight: Eclipse-

Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1-

Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 that comes out in theaters November 16th-

Image courtesy of here.

Mini Spinach and Feta Frittatas

Remember those Egg Muffins I made a little while back?  Well, I was flipping through the People mags that my sisters and I share and found a recipe for Mini Spinach and Feta Frittatas.  They looked exactly what I had made but had some different ingredients, including feta cheese.  Which, I could eat by the box.  I would have to say that I preferred these a little bit more since there was cheese in them, but I honestly think the first Egg Muffins that I made are a close second since they still had a lot of flavor.  Now this recipe also had Tomato Basil Frittatas and since that sounded gross, I just doubled everything of the feta and spinach ones to make 12 of those.  I will include both recipes though if you want to try both of them.

Recipe:
Spinach and Feta Frittatas
6 tsp feta cheese
1/3 cup of shredded fresh spinach
3 tsp chopped sun-dried tomatoes >>>>> I just doubled this part to make 12 of these
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Tomato Basil Frittatas
12 basil leaves
1 1/2 large fresh tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1 1/2 tsp. grated Parmesan cheese

12 eggs, beaten
Salt and pepper

1. Preheat ove to 350 degrees.  Spray a 12-cup muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray. Divide feta cheese, spinach and sun-dried tomatoes equally among 6 tins.  Divide basil, fresh tomatoes and Parmesan cheese equally in the other 6 tins.  (Again, I only made the first type of frittata so I divided all 12 tins with those ingredients)

2. Pour the eggs equally among the tins.  Season each one with salt and pepper and mix well.

3. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes.  Let cool for 5 minutes, then remove from tins.

Music Monday

The start of Music Monday!  Where I share music...on a Monday!  If you like music as much as I do, I think you will enjoy this as well.   I will stay away from songs on the radio as we hear enough of those.

The first song I am going to share is one from Glee last season.  It got in my head a couple days ago when Sarah and I were having a conversation and I forgot just how pretty it is.  It is "For Good" from "Wicked" sung by Lea Michele and Chris Colfer.  We got the privilege of seeing "Wicked" at the Orpheum a few years ago and it is one of my favorite songs from that musical.  Say what you want about Lea, but she has one of the most amazing voices I have ever heard.  And Chris has an amazingly high beautiful voice for a guy.  Great song!

And here is another song that is also equally as beautiful.  I don't know what it is about male/female duets that just really tug at my heart strings.  I think it is the blend of the masculine heavy voice with the light female voice that really just makes a song.  I was watching Shrek The Third and I heard this one and was instantly reminded of how much I love it.   It is "9 Crimes" by Damian Rice.