Foodie Friday

First, is this soup.  After a long day of traveling, we needed dinner ASAP and didn’t have any groceries.  I based this tomato soup off of my memory of two different tomato soups from Our Best Bites (their cookbooks), and just used what I had on hand. I shredded two large carrots and sautéed it in a little olive oil.  I then added three cans of tomatoes: two stewed, one diced; one cup of water with chicken bouillon (the soft kind from costco–get it!), a table spoon or two of tomato paste out of a tube (from Trader Joes–you keep it in the fridge), and sprinkled in some garlic powder, onion powder, basic, salt and pepper.  I Brought it to a boil, then simmered for 15-20 minutes.  (I might have added another 1/2 cup – cup more water, can’t quite remember.)  Then I blended it all up, and added about a 1/4-1/3 cup of cream we still had in the fridge.  Voila!  We served it with grilled cheese that night and I ate it for lunch the rest of the week.

Next, crockpot oatmeal!  I happen to love oatmeal, but it is hard to cook it every morning when my kids are trying to kill each other and everyone is hungry.  I decided to make a batch ahead of time for reheating every morning! I got Irish steel oats from Costco, and they cook a little faster than regular steel cut oats.  One night, I put two cups of oats and 4 1/2 cups of water in the crockpot and put it on high for an hour and then low for another hour or two.  Once I could see it was cooked, I put it in a large tupperware and it became our breakfast the rest of the week.  When I’m ready to eat, I heat up a cup of it with some milk/almond milk, sometimes a little honey, and a dollop of almond butter with berries/banana.  It is SO GOOD!!

While visiting my family in Utah, I finally got to try Swig’s famous sugar cookie.  It did not disappoint.  So, of course, I had to try to make them myself.  I followed this recipe, but ended up adding an additional 1/2 cup of flour so it met the consistency she described.  These are AMAZING!  They seriously melt in your mouth.  You don’t have to roll them out, which makes them my go-to sugar cookie from now on because ain’t nobody got time for that!  This recipe makes a lot of cookies, so be prepared to either share a bunch or freeze half the batch.

I’d love to hear if you try any of these, and how they turn out!