More soup, date night and an eBook promotion!

Hi again!

Just wanted to share some more recipes that I made this week that we really enjoyed. I also just read about a new eBook that looks exciting for those of us looking for "Real Food" recipes for some of our favorite "bad" foods! Like chocolate chip cookies! I'll be trying THOSE tomorrow!

Why not tonight? Well, tonight is date night with my hubby! Yay! We will be having dinner at an as-of-yet undisclosed restaurant (it's a toss up between sushi, one of our favorite Italian restaurants or the wood fire grill place) and then heading over to a bistro for drinks. The bistro is a place where I have been told would be a good place for my husband and I to book ourselves at (we're musicians). So, we're going to go check it out. It sounds a bit more "jazzy" than what our music style is. We tend to perform more country music than anything else so we'll see. And I won't tell you ahead of time because I don't want to feel bad if I don't like it as I'd have come back and give a negative review. If I really like it, I'll spread the word afterward. Most of all, tonight is about spending kid-free time with my beloved husband! And being grown-ups and not crawling on the floor (well, maybe there will be some of that too but I won't go there...) and playing with toys and changing diapers, etc. I'm wearing my new black heels and I'm going to enjoy our date night where ever it takes us. As long as we're together!

So for the recipes!

First, I made POTATO LEEK SOUP. But not just any potato leek soup. This was made with leeks from the farmers market and uncured bacon and lots of love. The recipe? Here it is:

I used 4 leeks, sliced.
6 slices of uncured bacon (trying to avoid added nitrites/nitrates)
a bit of dry sherry
scrubbed cubed potatoes, about 3 medium sized ones
quart of chicken stock
2 cups whole milk
sour cream

First I cooked half the bacon in my cast iron pan and the other half in the pot which I was cooking the soup in. The idea being that I was going to use the bacon fat in the pot for the soup and save the other bacon fat. In the end I used all of it in my soup, so it was more like the rendered fat from a whole 12 ounce package of bacon.
Then I cooked the leeks in the bacon fat and a bit of dry sherry until wilted and looking cooked. Add the chicken stock and potatoes. Cook for a half hour or so until the potatoes are cooked. At this point I would puree half of this in the blender and then add back in. Let the soup cool a bit. Then add the milk. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with sour cream and bacon crumbled on top.
Yum!

This recipe is adapted from a recipe I found on Nourished Kitchen's website. She uses fresh dill which I did not have. And I added the sherry myself because I like the hint of flavor it gives. In fact, I tend to use a lot of sherry in my cooking. It is a must have ingredient when you make chicken or turkey gravy-to die for! Just don't drink it-it's kind of yucky to drink! Especially the cheap kind that I cook with! But somehow it just adds that something yummy to my recipes. Who knew? I discovered it when I watched my friend's daughter make turkey gravy at Thanksgiving one year and I have been hooked ever since.

My next recipe does not have any sherry in it but it probably would be a good addition if you so desire! This one is BRAISED LEEKS. Yep. Another leek recipe. They just looked so good at the farmer's market this past Saturday so I had to get some.

Braised leeks:
4 leeks, cut lengthwise and rinsed well.
beef stock or broth (I used broth)
grated cheese (the original recipe called for Gruyere but I didn't have that so I used Asiago, another new love of mine!)

Put the leeks in a pyrex or casserole dish/pan. Boil the beef stock/broth and pour over the leeks. Put in a 350 oven for about 30 minutes or until the leeks look cooked. Sprinkle cheese on top and broil.

The taste reminded us of French onion soup. Yummy! The original recipe is from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. Enjoy!

As you may be able to tell from this and other posts, we are making the journey to embracing more traditional and "real" foods while I also purge our clutter and organize our home (with a squirmy baby on my lap...). The eBook I mentioned earlier can be found at Modern Alternative Mama. She has recipes for french fries and fried chicken and, of course, the chocolate chip cookies! If you're looking for a good list of transitional foods, check this out. Until the 25th, there is a 25% off offer as well. There is also a giveaway in progress for a copy of this at Kitchen Stewardship. And please, come back and tell me what you think?

As for me and my house, it's baby feeding time! Have a blessed day!

Lizabeth

Progress, how to save a dime and a giveaway!

Progress is putting books away ON A SHELF!
Progress is actually filing papers IN A FOLDER!
Progress is RECYCLING recipes you will never make!
Progress is GETTING RID OF magazines you will never read again (or maybe even the first time)!
We are MAKING PROGRESS!

See? I promised to write about how I am doing with my paper purge week and I am! How cool is that?

Well, it's not like my house was totally overrun with papers, it's just that my dining room table always has piles of various sorts. Whenever we need to use the table, the piles get relocated, but never really dealt with. And sometimes those piles never make it back to the table but somehow new ones grow in their place. It's amazing how fast paper multiplies.
So, I'd say I have half of the stuff off of the table and into proper homes today. I have to confess, I didn't spend the whole day doing this. I was only half-hearted about it really. It was just too nice outside and I rarely have the energy to get out of the house with the twins so today we went to the park. It was a glorious day!
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Part 2:
Ok, so how to save a dime, or maybe 3160 of them to be exact. (That's 316 dollars in case you are taking your shoes off right now...)

If you have car insurance and own a home, you should look into contacting one of the online sites that compare insurance quotes for you. I did it through Swagbucks. They have an offers page where you can earn swagbucks for accepting an offer, which in this case, involved entering my information online for Einsurance. I earned a bunch of swagbucks and got A LOT of insurance quotes.

For me, Traveler's came in at the lowest rates, $300 less than my current auto insurance! I was all ready to convert my policy so I called my insurance company to cancel. Just for kicks I had them re-run my information to see if they could get my rate lowered. I didn't tell them what the Traveler's quote came in at. They BEAT IT by $16. That may not seem like much but it meant that I didn't have to switch carriers, fill out a bunch of paper work and set up automatic drafts again. The biggest benefit is that since I have been a customer for a while, I have accident forgiveness.

I don't think $316 is chump change so I am happy about this. It lowers my monthly payment about $30. And since I only "work" 2 days a week, every penny counts.

I actually did this last year and saved money again by calling my insurer and checking the policy rates. I didn't do it on purpose this time, thinking there was no way the rate would be so much lower than it currently is.

So, my question is, why wasn't my rate lower to begin with? Why do I have to shop around and then come back and ask for it to be lowered? My car certainly isn't getting younger or hotter and I haven't been in an accident or gotten a ticket. Shouldn't it go down every year, not up??? I don't get it.

Now I am getting a new policy on my home owners insurance also. The company I have been with for auto insurance came in with a quote that is about $150 less than our home owners inurance and we will also get a discount for having auto insurance with them. I am looking forward to saving around $500 a year total when all is said and done. Checking out Einsurance was certainly worth it for me! And now I have enough swagbucks to get a few Amazon gift certificates!

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Part 3:
The giveaway!

Ok, so it's not MY giveaway. (You really don't want what I have any how:)
I am really NOT savy about inserting a link into a blog so try this: Nutrition Class. Did it work? If not, copy and paste www.kitchenstewardship.com and look for the Real Food nutrition ecourse giveaway.

All this week, Katie at Kitchen Stewardship is giving away back-to-school items. Today's giveaway is a Real Food nutrition ecourse produced by the Food Renegade. You can find them both on Facebook also. Great places to find information about REAL FOOD. Like butter. MMMMmmm butter. And bacon. MMMMmmmmm bacon. I am SO into this right now.

If you homeschool or if you just want to learn more about nutition, this course looks like it would be great. You can read a sample chapter of the book it is based on first. There is also a link to a detailed course description. Enter to win a FREE course! Then again, I want to win, which is part of the reason I am posting this. So if YOU win, you have to fill me in on all of the gory details, ok?? Good luck!

So for tonight, I am signing off. God bless you and goodnight!