Horseshoe Decor

While I was cleaning out some old things for Goodwill this past month, I found an old horseshoe a family friend had bought me when I was in the midst of my young girl horse crazy days.

I almost threw it out when I realized I could probably make something pretty out of it instead. I also had a bouquet of silk flowers I'd bought at Michael's that I hadn't yet found a clever use for. 

I pulled several flowers apart from their stems and used floral wire to wire the two roses and ranunculus together, and left a tail to anchor the mini-bouquet to the horseshoe. 

There were more than enough flowers to make a second mini-bouquet so I paired another purple ranunculus with cluster of light purple flowers that evoke hydrangea, but I don't really think are hydrangea.

I couldn't decide which bouquet I like better, so I'll keep both handy for when I want a little change. 

Family Recipe: Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

 

My dad and I have been on a cookie binge this month, and so far we've been eating through our stash of ready to bake cookies. This week I decided that instead of baking another just okay batch of cookies, I would make some homemade goodies.

I pulled this recipe out of my grandparents' recipe box and after a little tweaking, I suddenly had five dozen super-moist cookies flavored with spices and chock full of plump, sweet raisins. Yum!

Catching Up on My Reading

Happy Friday! I'm a little behind in my reading, so I'm going to take off this week and return next week with a lovely reading suggestion.

Have a great weekend and check back in Sunday for a delicious cookie recipe.

Wishful Wednesday: Poppy Chair

While helping my mom search for a new couch, we stumbled across this oh-so-cute chair at Macy's. The pattern is so bright and cheerful and I love the dark pink-reddish color of the flowers. It's much comfier than it looks and looking at it even now gives me the urge to grab a book and curl up for the afternoon. Alas, it costs as much as the couch my mom would like to purchase.

Handmade Birthday Card

Today is one of my very dearest friend's birthday, and instead of purchasing a card from the store, I decided to make one for her.

I've been very inspired by the current trend of using birds on cards and stationery. I also thought it would be cute to forgo the usual "Happy Birthday" and use another image to convey that sentiment.

I have lots of craft paper and card stock around from other projects, and I knew that would be a great place to start. 

To make things easier on myself, I traced patterns for the speech bubble and bird, traced them onto the paper, and then cut out the shapes.

On the back, I cut out white card stock with paper edger scissors with a scalloped pattern.

Family Recipe: Italian Sausage Soup

For those that cook regularly, soup is the perfect easy meal. With one pot and about an hour, you can create a satisfying and (usually) healthy meal. This recipe is very popular in my house because it has really great flavor without being high in fat, salt, or carbs.

It's been adapted from a very good Cooking Light recipe. To try and manage the carbs and sodium we eat, I've taken out the pasta and canned Italian-seasoned tomatoes from the original recipe and substituted fresh tomatoes and white beans.

Italian sausage provides plenty of flavor and if you use the hot style, a nice hit of spiciness. As a result, the only other seasoning we add is Italian seasoning blend.

Italian Sausage Soup Revised  (6-8 servings)

16 ounces hot or sweet turkey Italian sausage*
1 teaspoon minced garlic, fresh or jarred
2 pints grape tomatoes, cut into eighths
1 can Great Northern beans, drained
1 Tablespoon Italian Seasoning
4 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1/2 bag of baby spinach leaves (you can add the whole bag if you like)
1 cup loosley packed fresh basil (you can put in whole or roughly chop the basil)
Olive oil
Garnish: shredded Parmesan or Romano cheese
*You can also do half sweet sausage and half hot sausage. For the batch I photographed, I used Publix brand hot Italian sausage and Johnsonville brand Sweet Italian Sausage with Sweet Basil.

1. Heat a soup pot over med-high heat. Add about a tablespoon of olive oil to the pot. Using a small knife, open the casing on the sausage links and remove the filling. Brown sausage in the soup pot, breaking it into crumbles as it cooks.

2. Drain fat from the meat. Tip: I find that a lot of fat still remains on the sausage even when you let it drain for a while. Rinse the meat with cold water and you will remove even more.

3. Saute the garlic for one minute in the soup pot. Add the tomatoes. Let them cook down for about 6 minutes until they start to soften.

4. Add the meat, chicken broth, beans, and Italian Seasoning. Stir to blend.

5. Bring soup to a boil and then lower heat to a simmer. Simmer for 20-30 minutes to let tomatoes break down a little more and let the flavors blend.

6. A few minutes before serving, add the spinach and basil. Mix into the soup and let the greens wilt for a minute or two and serve with Parmesan or Romano cheese, if desired.

Bookshelf Bookstore: The Final Solution

Today's review is of the short novel The Final Solution by Michael Chabon.
According to Chabon's page on HarperCollins, this novel is an homage to 19th century detective novels, particularly the Holmes stories. You'll soon see why even if, like myself, you've never read such a story.

The story opens in southern England, 1944. A boy is walking along a set of train tracks and upon his shoulder sits an African gray parrot. This amazing sight catches the attention of an elderly man of 89, who is known in the village as an eccentric beekeeper and a formerly world-famous detective.

The boy is Linus Steinman, a Jewish refugee recently arrived from Germany. He doesn't speak and he seems afflicted by both a physical and emotional illness. The old man notes upon their first meeting that he has "a face as wan and empty as the bottom of a beggar's tin cup." 

But even more amazing is that his parrot, Bruno, almost constantly recites a string of jumbled numbers in German, among other bits of poetry and mimicry. There is no clue as to what these numbers mean -- are they a secret Nazi code? Bank account numbers? Or, considering Linus's situation, something more horrifying?