Tuesday, April 26, 2011

How to Make Italian Tomato Soup

I'm not sure what makes this "Italian," but it makes it sound sophisticated, at least. :)

I'll confess, I really hate chopping vegetables for soup. Lately I've been making use of the frozen, pre-chopped ones. But here's a recipe that uses just a few ingredients. It has the potential to be made completely from scratch, if you like to avoid canned ingredients. Or you can use some short-cuts, like I did.

Ingredients:
2 cans chicken broth (or chicken pieces for making broth)
1 can peeled, diced tomatoes
1 can white kidney beans
1 medium-sized onion
2 cloves of garlic
fresh or dried herbs
Additional: more vegetables, pasta, other kinds of beans

Directions:
1) Boil chicken with bay leaves, carrot/onion/whatever you like to make the broth flavorful.
2) Remove chicken from broth.
3) Add beans, tomatoes to broth, bring to a boil, and allow to simmer (add additional veggies or pasta if using).
4) Saute onion and garlic, then add crushed herbs and stir for a few seconds.
5) Shred chicken from bone and add back in, along with onion, garlic, and spices.


Tuesday, April 5, 2011

How to Make a Baby Carriage Cake!

So far we've had 3 baby showers at my church here in St. Petersburg. I always have very grandiose expectations which prove difficult to meet, given the lack of baby shower props sold here. And doing it all yourself is a nice idea, but very time-consuming!



At the first two baby showers I really wanted to make one of those picture-perfect cakes you see on all the sites, but there are no specially shaped baking pans or cans of fondant to be had!