My good friend and her darling baby!

I had the pleasure of getting to meet up with Ellyn and her adorable baby Ally for lunch in Indianna on Wednesday. I got to visit with her last summer in Colorado when she was pregnant but this was my first time meeting her baby! I left as soon as the kids went to school and made it back by there pick up time {almost}. Ellyn and I met in Montana over 7 years ago and became fast friends. It was such a special time getting to catch up with her and hold her little darling. Ally is quite the cutie and so sweet! She is 6 months and at the smiley/happy stage. I got so many toothless grins and she has the cutest bald head ever!  I really wanted to take her home with me.. Thanks Ellyn for driving to meet me half way! I hope you get stationed a little closer then Wy next time around.

Spring is here!

We have had a busy last couple of weeks. We were able to head to Niagra Falls for Spring break. We had never gone before and enjoyed a couple days in Toronoto, Ca and Buffalo, NY. We found the darling chocolate shop in Toronto and enjoyed hot chocolate from Soma. I think that the hour walk to get there was worth it but I might have been the only one to agree with that statement... Marks parents and brother decided to meet us in Cleveland on the way home for a few days to enjoy some time with Mark. It was really nice getting to have them visit. We hope some day that we will live closer then a plane ride to our parents and family. Jonathan and Anna both started soccer this month. We have 2 practices and 2 games a week for each kid. I think I understand the term "Soccer Mom" now! CRAZY! Hope you are enjoying the sun like we are in Ohio. I hope the warm weather stays. I love getting to run outside again on the many bike trails we have here. Happy Spring!

My little helper!

Anna has decided that she really likes to help me in the kitchen. For her birthday a friend gave her a Williams Sonoma cookbook. She has spent a lot of time pouring over the recipes and deciding what she wants to make. This weekend we had friends over for dinner. I made Pioneer Womens Pot Roast. This was such an amazing recipe. I have made a few pot roasts in the last 12 years and this one topped all of them. I think it might be caramelizing the veggies and cooking at such a low temp for such a long time. If you haven't it then I would highly recommend this recipe! I served it with PW's spinach salad, roasted green beans, cheesey bread and salty caramel brownies with ice-cream and espresso.

French Onion Soup Round 4

My husband loves French Onion Soup and I love my husband so I have been trying different recipes to find the "perfect recipe".  It is all just a matter of preference to what you really want in your soup. After using 1/4 of a cup of chopped garlic in todays recipe, I am not sure if anyone will want to be close to me at the gym tomorrow. Todays recipe was really good! It had the right balance of wine, caramelized onions, garlic and broth. I think one of the keys is to really cook the onion over low for40 minutes. They should be a dark, rich color. I found the recipe from Cuisine at Home Splendid Soups.

Sweat in Olive Oil and butter then caramelize:

2 yellow onions and 2 red onions sliced thin

1/4 cup chopped garlic

2 TBS Olive Oil

1/4 cup butter

Add And Reduce:

1 cup dry wine

1/3 cup dry sherry

Stir In: Add and Simmer

3TBS flour

3 Cups Beef  Broth

3 Cups Chicken Broth

1 TBS thyme

salt and pepper to taste

8 slice french bread

1 cup gruyere cheese

1/2 cup parmesan

Sweat onion and garlic in oil and butter for 40 minutes. Add wine and sherry, cook until wine evaporates, stirring often.

Stir in flour and cook 1 minute. Add broths, thyme, salt and pepper: bring to simmer and cook another 10 minutes.

Toast bread under broiler. Ladle soup into bowls, arrange on baking sheet and then top with bread and then cheese. Broil another 1-2 minutes or until cheese melts. Enjoy!

Our New Kitchen

Mark spent the last few days tiling a backsplash in our  kitchen! I love how it turned out.  I am so glad that I married such a "handy" man. He has big plans for the rest of our house as well. I will post pictures later of our bathroom that he tiled.  It has been a crazy week in Ohio. We have only had school 2 of the 5 days. We took the kids to COSI today. What an amazing childrens museum it is! We would highly recommend a day at this fun Science Museum! 

Our big snowstorm!

We have had so much snow! It is always so much fun the first time it snows. The kids want to play outside, build snow forts and go sledding. The favorite way to warm up is with hot coco and lots of marshmallows. Anna also celebrated her 8th birthday at Barnes and Nobles with a book party. She had allot of fun picking out books and doing a craft with her friends.

Shrimp Bisque

Jennifer of Blessed Home chose this months recipe from Barefoot Bloggers for Shrimp Bisque. I am in great need of a new camera. I don't think you are supposed to have to hit the camera for it to turn on?! Please ignore the fuzzy photo! This was such a wonderfully delightful soup. I had a little problem assembling all of the ingredients’. We went to the store twice for tomato paste. It was one of those days that nothing seemed to go as planned. I served this with crusty French bread and roasted garlic. Between my husband and self we consumed an entire head of the roasted garlic. I bet that is why the treadmills on both side of me were empty at the gym the next day... Definitely a hit in our household and we will be making this again in the near future. I don't think I enjoyed peeling all the shrimp but it really did add allot of flavor to the stock.