NORTHWOODS SCRAPBOOK: Sharing a love for my faith, family, cooking, gardening, paper crafting, and hospice work from my cozy home on a bay in the Northwoods.
It is still freezing up here in the northwoods with below zero or single digit temps. Looks like next week we may finally crawl back up into the double digits. Here's hoping. :)
Hubby & I both love soups in the winter. They are such a way to get in lots of veggies, flavor, and warm the body (& soul). 😋 And they are often easy to prepare too.
Before we left on our trip I had made some meals and brought them for my Uncle post surgery...including this creamy chicken wild rice soup. I got this recipe from...can you guess?? Yep, another Pioneer Woman recipe! Lol I was watching her cooking show several weeks back and she made this and I liked the kind of Italian twist to it. She adds in red pepper and some pesto along with the cream at the end. We loved this flavor profile.
And it couldn't be easier, as you just throw everything in the slow cooker and let it do its thing. And then when it's ready you just stir in the cream and pesto at the very end. I think if you wanted to be "extra" you could sweat the veggies down in a pan first and add a little flour to thicken it and deglaze with the sherry and stock - and then throw it all in the slow cooker. The slow cooker is a great way to make this, though, because wild rice needs hours to cook.
Definitely recommend it! Here is a pic of the recipe I printed up:
Happy Thursday! How are you this Friday Eve? I hope your answer is that you're wonderful and you have an amazing weekend ahead of you. We will get some time with Aaron and Jill and that makes my Momma heart so happy! :)
I just wanted to also say thank you for the all the love on Bubba's good news! It's so nice that I can cross one worry off the list. 🙏🏻💗
It's overcast right now and a chilly 42* here in the northwoods. Leaves litter the landscape and it looks like late Fall. It is supposed to warm up this weekend and be in the upper 50's. So that will be lovely and we will take advantage of it with some outdoor projects. Lately, however, I have been working on some indoor projects - including homespun Christmas gifts. I've also been doing more of my zen coloring app - it's just a relaxing thing I often do on my ipad while watching tv in the evenings. I've been coloring Halloween inspired pics lately - here are a couple from the other night. I love how the second one looks like felt fabric:
And in other cozy news we finally put the Fall patchwork quilt on our bed. And underneath that is a an even warmer layer of a knit weave kind of blanket layer from L.L.Bean. I've had it forever and it's so warm and heavy like a weighted blanket. So we are snug as bugs over here now that it's been getting so cold at night. And I think the quilt is cute with the Autumn garland I had already put on the headboard. 🍁🧡
In this continued yummy soup season I thought I would share that the lasagna soup I made the other day in the slow cooker was so tasty! I share about it and the recipe in a prior post. But I'll share the recipe again here and this is a pic of the one I made. We added a little ricotta to the top of ours and some shredded parm cheese. Absolutely delish!
And I thought I would also share this recipe for homemade garlic cheddar bay biscuits that I made to go with the soup. Think the Red Lobster biscuits but I just made them from scratch with things I had at home. I found the recipe at thecozycook.com They turned out great and even a fluffier, less dense texture than the boxed kind. I followed the directions and in her post she shared easy ways to make quick homemade buttermilk. I followed the one using white vinegar and it turned out great! You can find the post about the biscuits and all instructions here. But I will also share the recipe below and a pic of the ones I made:
1cupcold buttermilk, see notes for substitution options
½cupunsalted butter, melted and cooled for 5 minutes
For the Topping:
2tablespoonsmelted butter
½teaspoongarlic powder
¼teaspoondry parsley
Instructions
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, salt, garlic powder and cayenne pepper. Stir in the cheddar cheese and set aside.
In a separate bowl, mix the buttermilk and melted butter together until small lumps form.
Add the buttermilk to the large bowl with the flour and mix until a dough has formed and the ingredients are no longer dry. Do not overmix.
Lightly grease a ¼ cup and scoop out the dough with it. Place on a light colored, lightly greased baking sheet, leaving slightly more than an inch between each. You should have 10 total.
Bake for about 12 minutes, until they are golden brown.
While the biscuits are baking, combine melted butter, garlic powder, and parsley. Brush the tops of the biscuits when they come out of the oven and serve immediately.
If you try either of these recipes I hope you enjoy them!
We need to go grocery shopping soon and I'm thinking of adding on the list ingredients to make a pumpkin cream cheese bread I haven't made in a while. I also recently found a recipe for Autumn inspired stuffed chicken breasts I may make too.
Thank you again for the continued prayers and support regarding all the health things going on over here. I will keep you posted.
Yesterday was my 54th birthday. Wowzers! I can't even believe that number, but there it is. Other than some arthritis issues, I sure don't feel 54 and for that I'm thankful and blessed. I had a wonderful day. 😊🍁🧡 Matt spoiled me with a romantic card and some goodies in the morning. Well after he teased me about being a cougar, as he is only 47 - turns 48 pretty soon. He also got me a whole new set of dishes that I had been eyeing up. I'll share a peek of them.
I had lovely long phone calls from my kiddos. They were both worried about getting their gifts to me and I told them all I want is time with them. I will be getting that soon with each of them thankfully! And then Matt & I went for a long walk in the Fall beauty last night and he grilled me an amazing dinner! Then we topped it off by sitting around a cozy fire on the deck. I had my blanket on my lap and my hot apple cider in hand and we gabbed, gazed at the fire and listened to the owl that was serenading us. It felt so beautifully Autumn and I soaked up every second!
the dishes he got me are the new PW Agatha pattern in brown and I'm in love
the best part of a cozy fire - this guy❤️
The icing on the cake - when your daughter sends you this message before asking what is a good time to call you. And also getting a phone call from my son in which he tells me how proud he is that I'm his mom and that I'm the best person he knows. My kids were determined to make me cry! They are everything to me and I have the most thankful heart that the Lord gifted them in my life. 🙏🏻
Okay, enough birthday gushing.
Let's talk cozy food time!
I was looking at ideas for upcoming meals. I have been seeing some delish Fall things on social media. I watched a private chef I follow make a healthier lasagna with zucchini noodles but the sauce was a sort of pumpkin & sage bechamel kind of deal and she also had a ricotta layer and sausage layer in it. I'm going to find the full recipe as it looked amazing!
But I think for next week I'm going to add this to the list. We both LOVE soup season and I found this recipe from someone I also follow. It's for a lasagna soup and I love that it's done in a slow cooker and I think it would be so yummy and comforting (plus I have some old lasagna noodles to use up)
Speaking of soup - I also have several pinned recipes I'd like to try soon, including a soup one. This orzo lemon chicken soup, cashew chicken sheet pan meal idea, and this roasted caesar where you roast the seasoned chicken breasts and the heads of romaine in the oven. I think I'd even throw a sliced lemon on there to roast too. You can click my pinterest here, and look under my boards called soup and one called sheet pan meals.
A final recipe I wanted to talk about is cincinnati chili. Have you ever had this? It's such a unique way to have chili and here are the basic ingredients I found in a recipe by Katie Lee. You can click the link for the full recipe here. It intrigues me because it has such warm baking spices in it. And you eat it over spaghetti! Definitely not like any chili I've ever made before. Do you think you would like this? I really want to try it sometime.
Do you have any seasonal or cozy recipes you haven't made that you want to try? I'd love to hear or please share if you have a favorite Fall recipe you always enjoy making this time of year.
Blessings to you and wishing you fun in the kitchen!
