coconut curry soup

2 chicken breasts

5 red potatoes

2 cups chicken stock (I used home made chicken stock that was pretty condensed, so you may need more to add flavor... also if it’s canned you may want to do without the salt)

8 cups water

2 cans coconut milk/cream

1onion

2 red bell peppers

2 granny smith apples

1 stick of butter

4Tbs cumin 

1Tbs hot curry powder

1Tbs fish sauce

1/8 -1/4  cup brown sugar or coconut palm sugar

2tsp tumeric powder

1tsp cayenne powder

dash cinnamon 

dash ground pepper

dash nutmeg

pinch of natural sea salt

5 whole green cardamom seeds
*lime

*cilantro

*avocado

boil 2 chicken breasts in water/chicken stock until cooked through.  Pull out, shred (and debone and skin, if necessary), place back in stock.  Scrub potatoes cut into bite sized pieces and place in boiling stock.   Add coconut milk, cumin, curry powder, fish sauce, brown sugar, tumeric powder, cayenne powder, cinnamon, pepper, nutmeg, salt, and cardamom seeds. While boiling dice onion and red bell pepper and sauté with butter, in a sauce pan, till brown and tender.  Cut apples and mix in sautéed mixture till coated with butter then add all of the mixture to the stock pot.    You may need to add more water, depending on how you like your soup.  Simmer on low for 15-30 min.

Top with lime, cilantro and avocado.

Tiger's house

My girls have a few special (imaginary) friends.  It used to be one tiger, but then my eldest learned that tigers die.... so they started procreating...  now there are anywhere from 2-14 tigers in our house on any given day.

Since we're all living in the small living room of our house, while the upstairs gets a face lift, there really isn't room enough for 14 tigers.  Some time ago they moved into our water heater room, a great arrangement, except when the girls went to visit they would come out with some lost treasure (mostly stuff that got shoved in there by yours truly).  Was.not.working.out!

Anyways...

the tiger's house needed some work so one day the girls and i decided to help them out. Us, having opposable thumbs and all... and the tigers (who, at first were very put out) are now happier than ever.  

Before:

this is actually before we moved in
so it doesn't have all the crap that it did have a couple days ago.

 After:

and do you see that little zebra print stroller peeking out?
Yeah, I made that... well the cover anyways.  More on that later.

What does it Mean?

JesUSAves

I used to really hate these shirts, like despise them.  If you know me, you know that I'm a strong believer that Jesus and America are not interchangeable.  I have no love for God and Country, I love God and people.

But then I realized that this little... whatever it is... word? saying? Made absolutely no since to me.  So... What does it mean? 

Jesus saves Americans?
Americans love Jesus?
Christians love America?

USA saves Jesus?

Jes USA ves...?

Is it something that you're just supposed to wear to the 4th fireworks so that people know that you're Christian, but not a terrorist? Is it klingon? I just don't know...

A whole new kind of art.

I'm seeing evidence of fall all over these parts.  I have to admit I am NOT ready, I love summer.  My parents gave me a tree for my birthday, though, a maple.  It makes my heart happy.  Seriously, I've never had a tree that turns anything but brown before the leaves fall to the ground. It's making the transition into winter almost exciting.

I looked outside this morning and thought "all of that beauty is just falling to the ground I want to save some of it". (dramatic? Yes! but true) That led me to a hole new world of art. The girls and I collected a few leaves and flattened them in a book... soon, very soon, we'll be pulling them to try out some yummy fall art.  

Smile...

"where are your teeth?"

Under Construction

The last few months we've done a lot of holding of babies, and hammers.  As mentioned earlier we moved into our house only three days before the babe was born.  we've been been doing a lot of renovating... this house had been stuck in the 70s for way too long.  Walls coming up, walls coming down... paneling coming down, drywall going up... carpet coming out, wood floors going in.  Still a lot of work before winter hits, but we're making progress. 

Flip-flop Love

Made these cute little flip-flops a couple days ago for The Mar.  They're made of a tiny bit of left over fabric from a shirt, some shelf liner and a bit of bicycle inter tubing... because that's the way I like to do things.  

I'm considering writing a tutorial on how to make these little cuties, if there's enough interest out there.  Drop me a little line if you think this is something you'd like to make, and I'll see what I can do.