Sunday, April 15, 2012

Zupas Tomato Basil Soup

Zupas Tomato Basil Soup!
If you have some time and are dying to eat Zupas Tomato Basil Soup for a week, here ya go.
I love this soup at Zupas and I found the recipe (I’ve been informed that it is, in fact, not the EXACT recipe, but I think it tasted exactly like it and so I, in fact, don’t care.)
It actually took a lot longer than I expected, but if you want to save money and make way more soup than you would get at Zupas, then go for it! But just know you have been warned that it takes a little bit of time, like as much as it would take to make home made rolls. Both are amazing though, so maybe it is worth the time :) And if there are only two of you, you have also been warned that I had this soup probably six times before it was gone, haha.
But it was good and worth it and I would love to eat it six times, 
so here it is!

 Ingredients:
4 lb tomatoes, halved lengthwise (apparently plum tomatoes make the flavor even better, but I just used normal tomatoes and it was still awesome)
6-8 garlic cloves, left unpeeled
3 tbsp. olive oil
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp black pepper
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 tsp fresh oregano, minced (only ½ tsp if using dried)
2 Tbsp. fresh basil, minced (only 1 tsp if using dried)
2 tsp sugar
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
3 cups chicken stock or low-sodium broth
¾ cup heavy cream

Directions:
Put oven rack in middle position and preheat to 350.
Cut all stems off tomatoes, and cut in half lengthwise.
Arrange tomatoes, cut sides up, in one layer on a large shallow baking pan and add garlic to the pan.
Drizzle tomatoes with oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Roast in oven for 1 hour, then cool in pan on rack.
 While that is cooling, cook onion, oregano, basil, and sugar in butter in a 6-8 qt pot over moderately low, stirring frequently, until onion is softened (about 5 min).
Peel garlic (should squeeze right out)
Add tomatoes, garlic, and stock and simmer covered for 20 min.
Puree soup in batches in a blender (be careful with the hot soup!)
then force through a sieve (I used just a normal strainer and it was fine) and into a clean pot. (I put all the unblended soup into a bowl, and then put the blended and strained soup into the same pot)
Stir in cream, and salt & pepper to taste (you need hardly any, if at all)
Simmer 2 min.
Also, Zupas adds in orzo pasta, so I made some of that too for the full effect!
I found it at Winco in the bulk section, but you don’t need to add this if you don’t want to!
 We had these with grilled cheese sandwiches, and it was AMAZING. So yummy!!! Let me know if you try it!

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Now Sleeping With One Eye Open!

We had an incident in December I also wanted to post…
Trent and I were peacefully sleeping one night, 
when out of nowhere Trent gets SLAMMED in the face by something, and this something (or someone for all we know!) hits me in the nose too! 
So we both wake up at the same time, doing who knows what... just freaking out. 
He immediately thinks someone is in our room attacking us or beating us up or something, so he shoots up just about throwing punches, and I am clinging onto him having no idea what in the world is going on. 
We both sit up and he gets up to turn on the light. I started feeling around on the bed to see if I can find anything. I felt something warm, and when it hit Trent’s face I heard the slam! Like it made a crashing noise! So my first thought was someone had thrown a grenade through our window, naturally, and there it was sitting next to me on the bed, about to blow. (We had just had a conversation about grenades the day before, haha!) 
And can i just say... 
being completely asleep and then being suddenly awaken by something slamming you in the face... is just weird. Like you are not expecting it to say the least and are just completely out of it and can't see a darn thing and are really frazzled, for lack of a better word!
This all happened in a matter of like ten seconds.
Come to find out, it was the vent on our ceiling!! What the?!
We had been living at our apartment for a good 8 months, why in the world would the ceiling vent fall from the ceiling that much later, and what are the odds that we happen to be asleep, DIRECTLY UNDER IT!? And not only that, what are the odds it hits BOTH of us!? And the fact that we have vaulted ceilings doesn’t help either.
Poor Trent got a gash on his nose and eyebrow. Yes, eyebrow, see the pic! What if it had hit his eyeball?! I could have a blind husband! And by the way, those vents are heavy! And sharp!
Most of all, what if there had been a baby sleeping under it?! Could be death!!
SO…
Check your ceiling vents! Make sure they are nice and secure. First of all, make sure they are screwed in...!!! Someone, not to mention names Landlord, had not screwed it in…?? Looks like someone needs to take Landlording 101. We couldn’t go back to sleep for ever, about gave us a heart attack! I know, weirdest thing ever. 
 Sharp!!!
 Yes that is blood on the vent.

Latest Post of the Century...

Well Happy Easter everyone!
Speaking of holidays, uh, the last time I updated my blog was Christmas.
I always told myself I wasn’t going to be one of those people that goes forever without updating their blog, but here I am. Whatever.
So anyways… I still have more to say about Christmas, haha.
My mom was so cute and did the 12 Days of Christmas for us.
It was so fun and cute I couldn’t let it slip from my blog!
Before December started she gave us 12 presents, (as well as supplied us with a tree!) so it was fun to have lots of gifts under our tree to start the Christmas season. Every day we got a cute Christmas story and a gift (usually food!)
Here are some pics :)
Cute huh? 
And here was my family’s Christmas card, Brady Bunch style
 Anyways, Merry Christmas & Happy Easter! haha

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Crayon Art w/ the sister!

My sister Amy & I are both "pinners" and have loved this idea... 
So we decided to try it... 
Here's our first one finished
And here's our other one!
Which one do you like better?!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Awkward Moment.

That awkward moment when you try to sneakily take a picture of someone’s outfit in class, and the flash goes off.
Wouldn’t recommend, learned my lesson.
However…
If people wouldn’t wear funny outfits, I wouldn’t be tempted to take pictures of them.
That’s mean, I know.
But like I said, I learned my lesson.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Helpful Tip...


Helpful Tip of the Week:
When considering a home to buy, and getting an inspection done, GET A DRUG TEST DONE!!!  
 Just sayin’…

Saturday, January 7, 2012

My Crazy Christmas Craft Kick

In the Crane household, it was obvious that Pinterest came to be this year. 
I found all these DIY craft ideas and with Christmas coming up, I couldn't resist. 
It was SO fun. 
And it is what got me through death-week finals, I was so excited to get started on my crafts! My cute friend Natalie (no wonder I like her!) got in on it with me, so we worked on them together! Trent and I just love Natalie and Ryan. We could hang out with them for days on end. It does get a little confusing sometimes when our husbands say "Nat?" and we both say "yes?" haha.
My first craft I did, found on Pinterest, was a menu board. We LOVED the idea so we decided to copy it. Here's a little tutorial if ya wanna make one yourself! It was cheap and fun and was easy to stylize how you wanted :) I made this for my mom, but I was tempted to keep it for myself!
First we got a bulletin board from Walmart for $6.50, two different prints of scrapbook paper (red paisley and light blue for me), pushpins, clips, ribbon, 5x7 cards, and paint.
First, paint the bulletin board. 
Then, we painted the clips and pushpins (funny I know).
Then size the paper to the board and cut it out so the prints line up. This was the hardest part believe it or not! We tried using modpodge to glue it to the board, but it curled. So we then tried using nail glue, but that didn't really work either. We then tried a plain old glue stick and that seemed to work pretty well. 
Cut out squares of paper for the days of the week and for the two pockets. We used a stencil and paint to put the letters on. 

I asked my mom a few weeks prior (in a discreet way) to give me a list of things she liked to make for dinner (I "needed ideas" hehe) and I wrote those out on the cut slips of paper, and left some blank ones too for her to write her own on when she thought of more.
Then just glue on the letters of the day, attach the ribbon with the pushpins, attach the pockets with pushpins, put the 5x7 cards in one pocket (to write the recipes on), put the slips of paper in the other pocket, and attach the clips! Way fun, easy, and turned out great! 
This was Natalie's (the other Nat)

And this was mine, yay!

Meanwhile... While Nat and I are busy being little artsy busy crafters, here is what our husbands did.
 playing each other in FIFA Soccer...
The second craft we did was also Pinterest inspired. I made this one for my Grandma & Grandpa Hansen. I couldn't find holly anywhere. I tried Walmart, the dollar stores, everywhere. But when I went to Michaels, I found this glorious thing. It was this big strand decoration thing of holly originally $30 but was 60% off. I found the same thing at Hobby Lobby for $70, and not on sale! I was blown away how expensive it was supposed to be! But we got a good deal. Anyways... I also got a tiny glue gun which I have been needing (like $3 at Walmart), mini glue sticks (way cheap), and the wooden letter from Michaels (only $4). The example from Pinterest we saw used burlap ribbon and was SO cute. We looked everywhere for it and had no luck. So we just found some cute gold ribbon at Hobby Lobby (and then a few days after Christmas I happened to see some burlap ribbon in Taipan... oh well!)
Basically it's really easy. You just get some berries and hot glue them on. It does take a while, but its really easy.

The "holly" is really just styrofoam little balls, so when you rip them apart it tears a little part of the ball off if that makes sense, so a lot of them had white spots on them.
 We took some red paint and just did a quick coat over the white spots. I took this second picture in different lighting so it looks like there are still white spots haha.
And then you tie your ribbon in a bow, attach some sort of a hook (we realized we would need a hook when we were done and used the ends of little holly branch, luckily they worked perfect!), hot glue them all together, and there you have it!

Nat did a "G" for her mother in law. They turned out so cute!


 Thanks Nat for being my partner in crime! :)


The next little project I did was one I have been wanting to do for a while! A couple years ago I discovered Uppercase Living at a friends house. They do the cutest vinyl expressions that are the big thing nowdays. I found a phrase that reminded me of my cute Grandpa Adamson who just LOVES to fish. So I ordered it and away I went. 
I needed wooden boards for a few different projects as you will see so I went to Home Depot with my brother Riley and got a big huge sheet of wood for a great price! I had them cut it down to the sizes I needed and we were good to go! As we were walking to the car, Riley was like "geez, I need to bring you with me every time i come here... it's not every day a little blonde girl comes in needing stuff from them!" Apparently i can get what i want at home depot! haha
Anyways, so I sized the wood to the expression, sanded it, and painted it a cream/beige color

Then Trent helped me line up the expression
 
and rub it on! I think it turned out cute :) 

But wait... there's more! 
One more project I did. 
So in Trent's family, the siblings all draw names and they do homemade gifts! I think that is the cutest idea and has been SO fun the last two years they've done it. It makes the gift so much more meaningful than your typical gift card or something - even though gift cards are great too :) 
So I drew his little sister Hallie. She just turned 12 this year and graduated to Young Women's! Haha. So I saw something, once again on Pinterest, that sparked this idea. Basically it is a wooden board with a cute quote on it to hang in her room. So i got a wooden board 12x28, sanded it
and painted the sides that same cream color
I have a big pad of different papers, picked a bunch that matched the colors of her room and arranged them how I wanted.  
To explain the quote I chose, I don't really remember where I first heard it, but I got it on a little handout when I was little and have remembered it ever since. I love it and it makes me remember who I really am :) I thought it would be good for Hallie too going through Young Women's and those crazy teenage years. 
So it was hard to decide how to put the words on the paper, but I ended up going with a few stickers, but for the most part I used stencils and painted it. 
But first I modpodged the papers onto the board (and forgot to take a picture before I got started haha)
 Then i figured out how i wanted to arrange the words, which font and size to use, etc.  
 Then I used the stencils, and painted it on! I don't know if i would necessarily recommend doing this, haha. It takes FOREVER...
 then i added the final touches, some little bling crystal things, stick on pearls, and it was finished!
Here is the final thing. Hope she likes it!

Well that's the end of my crazy Christmas craft kick. Here is all of them together, minus the quote board for Hallie. 
 I loved having time to sit and do fun girly things, it was so nice. If any of you have more craft ideas that you need a friend to work on it with, let me know haha. Oh and i would love to know if any of you decide to do any of these! And if you don't already have Pinterest, watch out... If you decide to get one, it might just make you a crazy person like me :) haha