creamy blended cauliflower & potato soup

Posted on February 27, 2013 by dallaswoodburn

Look what I got!

Yaaaaay, a stick blender! I’ve been wanting one of these ever since I started cooking more at home and using my regular stand blender to make dishes like homemade hummus. I love my stand blender, but cleaning it out can be a pain — the stick blender appealed to me when making smaller blended dishes like personalized morning smoothies, or …

… creamy blended soups like this one!

As soon as I came across this recipe on Two Peas & Their Pod, I knew I had to try it out with my new immersion blender! It turned out great, and was much easier than I expected. If you don’t have an immersion blender, you could use a regular stand blender to blend this soup in batches. I tweaked it slightly, omitting the cheese and adding potato and kale. Here’s my recipe:

creamy cauliflower & potato soup

– 1 head of cauliflower, cut into florets
– 1 russet potato, diced
– 3 tsp minced garlic
– 2 tablespoons olive oil
– 1 medium onion, diced
– 2 celery stalks, diced
– 1 cup chopped kale
– 4 cups vegetable broth
– 2 teaspoons thyme
– 1 tablespoon rosemary

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

2. Toss cauliflower and potatoes with olive oil and a dash of salt and pepper. Spread evenly on a cookie sheet and bake for 20-30 minutes, until cauliflower is golden brown.

3. While cauliflower and potato mixture is roasting, saute onion, garlic and celery in olive oil over medium heat for 5-7 minutes. Add vegetable broth, kale, thyme and rosemary and bring to a boil.

4. Add roasted cauliflower and potato. Simmer 20-25 minutes, until vegetables are tender.

5. Using an immersion blender {or in batches in a blender/food processor}, blend the soup until it is smooth.

6. Season with additional salt and pepper, to taste, and serve warm. {Ours tasted perfect paired with these low-fat garlic cheese biscuits!}

This soup was delicious, perfect for a snowy winter night. And I love how healthy it is! Such a creamy soup, without any cream!

Anyone else loving immersion blenders and blended soups?

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if you liked this recipe, you might also enjoy:
– chicken & veggie stew in the crock-pot
– savory pumpkin & kale stew
– my favorite mashed potatoes
– easy sausage, veggie & potato bake

year of kindness challenge: week 8

Posted on February 25, 2013 by dallaswoodburn

Happy Monday, friends!

I spent this past weekend in Louisville for a literature & culture conference at the University of Louisville. I presented a paper on Saturday morning, and then Mike and I stayed an extra day to take in the sights and have a mini “vacation.” We had so much fun! Louisville is only a few hours south of where we live in Indiana, but it felt very different there — warmer weather, lots of fun shops and new restaurants to explore, and that lovely Southern twang! If you’ve never been there, I would definitely recommend it as a great city to check out! We are already talking about going back sometime in the spring or summer.

Another novelty about the weekend? Both Mike and I left our computers at home and neither of us have smartphones, so we were Internet-free for two days. It was a nice break to be “off the grid” for a little bit! We both returned home feeling recharged. I don’t really think of myself as someone who wastes time online — usually when I’m online, I’m checking emails or reading blogs or looking up recipes or reading submissions for Sycamore Review, etc etc etc — but in the past few weeks I’ve found myself checking my email and going online perhaps more often than I need to. I think it’s easy to fall into “Internet autopilot” and feel like we must be constantly engaged with the web, staying updated, checking posts … and all of that can just be exhausting after a while, you know? It was such a relief to lie down on the hotel bed, crack open a good novel and not feel like there was anything else I was “supposed” to be doing. I think Mike and I are going to try to “unplug” more often as part of our weekend routine!

Now, on to the kindness! 🙂

Last week’s kindness challenge was to drop off a donation of canned goods to a food pantry, homeless shelter, or soup kitchen. This idea came when I was thinking about how we often hear a number of opportunities to donate food to the hungry during Thanksgiving and Christmas, but it seems donation efforts die down once the holiday season has come and gone.

My first step was to go through my cupboards and pantry and find a variety of nonperishable food items to donate. As you can see, a lot of tomato-based products made the list, since I have made a big effort the past few months to fully weed out tomatoes from our diet. {Nothing against tomatoes! But Mike is allergic.}

Then I picked up some canned veggies at the grocery store to round out the donation, and put everything into a big bag! {Note to self: next time, use two smaller bags. Mike ~~helped me carry~~ carried this big bag to my car for me.}

A quick Internet search brought up multiple food pantries in Lafayette, including one just a five-minute drive from campus. I dropped Mike off at school and zoomed over to the food pantry before I had to teach my class. Like last week when I dropped off Valentines to the nursing home, this only took me a short time, but it brightened my whole day! The woman working at the food pantry was SO surprised and grateful for my drop-by donation. I definitely plan to go back and make more donations in the future. It was a drizzly, cold, gray day, but walking back to my car afterwards I swear the world seemed sunnier. Every week of this project just proves to me more and more how being kind to others brings so much kindness and joy into your own life.

A reader emailed me that instead of donating food this past week, they donated toiletries to a women’s shelter. I think that is such a great idea that I am officially making it the Week 8 Kindness Challenge: donate toiletries to a women’s shelter or homeless shelter. Are you someone who stocks up on those free hotel soaps and shampoos and lotions? Why not clean out your stash by donating it to those in need? Or pick up an extra bottle of your favorite shampoo/conditioner/body wash next time you’re at the store and bring it by a shelter in your area. I know it will be appreciated!

Blog about your experiences and include your links in the comments section below, or feel free to send me an email at dallaswoodburn <AT> gmail <DOT> com.

Have a marvelous week!
-Dallas

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year of kindness archives:
– week 1 challenge: donate items to those in need
– week 2 challenge: leave quarters & note at laundry machine
– week 3 challenge: write & send a kind handwritten note
– week 4 challenge: give hot chocolate to someone outside in the cold
– week 5 challenge: do something kind for a neighbor
– week 6 challenge: deliver valentines to a nursing home
–week 7 challenge: donate to a food pantry

goals & meal-plan for the week of 2/24

Posted on February 24, 2013 by dallaswoodburn

How is it the end of February already?? Gah, this month always flies by SO fast … you’d think I’d be prepared for it by now! Alas, I am not. Every year, I pretty much stand on the sidelines and watch February race by while I call feebly after it, “Hey, wait for me!”

Anyone else feel the same way?

Here’s how I did on my goals this past week:

revise up to page 90 of my thesis novel {not quite to page 90 but am feeling really happy about the new pages I wrote this week!}
~~blog about Week 7 Act of Kindness Challenge & complete it myself this week~~
~~publish blog post about 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess~~ {read my review here!}
~~finish grading papers for both classes~~
~~take old financial/health documents to the bank to be shredded~~
~~knit 25 rows of the scarf I’m working on~~
~~prepare for my presentation at The Louisville Conference on Saturday~~

I realized that last week I forgot to show you pictures of my newly purged and organized file box, cleaned out of all the old bank statements/health invoices/other expired documents which have now been shredded at the bank! WOO! Here is a belated picture, for no other reason than I was proud of myself for crossing this task off my list and wanted to share with you:

Here are my goals for this upcoming week:

revise up to page 100 of my thesis novel
blog about Week 8 Act of Kindness Challenge & complete it myself this week
finish reading Blackberry Winter for the PBF February Book Club
finish grading papers for both classes {yes, this is almost always one of my weekly goals because the papers just.keep.coming!} 🙂
go through & purge/organize giant box of office supplies in our closet
knit 25 rows of the baby blanket I’m working on

And here are a few recipes I am excited to try out:
– crock-pot lentil sweet-potato soup
– coconut-crusted chicken
– asian peanut veggie dip
– baked mango with brown sugar & cinnamon
– whole wheat pumpkin scones with vanilla bean glaze

What are some of your goals and menu plans for the week?

review of “7: an experimental mutiny against excess” by jen hatmaker

Posted on February 21, 2013 by dallaswoodburn

You know when you hear a ton of good things about a book or a movie or TV show, and there’s a part of you that is hesitant to delve into that piece of entertainment or knowledge because you’re worried that it’s been built up too much, that it can never live up to your expectations now that so many people have raved about it to you?

Often, when I do end up caving and watching or reading whatever it is everyone is buzzing about, I do feel a little disappointed in the end — I guess my imagination and expectations are too easily raised to insurmountable heights! But there have been a few exceptions, when I have just been knocked off my feet by something that had already been built up so much. Off the top of my head, I can think of:

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
the musical Wicked {I saw it with my mom, who was similarly blown away}
Downton Abbey {Mike and I resisted this for a while but are now thoroughly on the Downton Abbey train! Still a little behind, making our way through Season 2 and trying to avoid spoilers on Facebook!}

And now I have a new thing to add to my list: Jen Hatmaker’s amazingly inspiring book 7: an experimental mutiny against excess.

I bought this book because I kept seeing great things pop up about it on many of my favorite blogs. The idea behind the book really intrigued me; here is the synopsis from Jen’s website:

“7 is the true story of how Jen (along with her husband and her children to varying degrees) took seven months, identified seven areas of excess, and made seven simple choices to fight back against the modern-day diseases of greed, materialism, and overindulgence.”

When sifting through my thoughts about this book, the first thing that struck me was that my experience reading this book is a little ironic, considering Jen’s message of taking your life back from the modern pressures of materialism and overindulgence. Because I gobbled up this book. I devoured the whole thing in less than two days. I just could not stop myself from reading “a little more, just a little more, one more chapter …” Talk about indulgence! 🙂

There were a number of things that made reading this book so addictive. First, I loved Jen’s voice. Much in the same way I felt like reading The Happiness Project was an extended conversation with author Gretchen Rubin over coffee, reading 7: an experimental mutiny against excess felt like I was sitting with Jen Hatmaker at her kitchen table, listening to stories from her life. She opens her home and her life to readers, and her voice is so warm and inviting. I read part of this book on a plane trip, and I had to bite my lip multiple times so as not to laugh out loud. She is hilarious!

I think one of my reservations about reading this book was that I would feel “preached at,” but this is not one of those books. The book is written in a diary format, so reading it feels like you are there with Jen in the trenches as she attempts to make these huge changes in her life. She chronicles her failures and setbacks in addition to her successes and high points — by the end of the book {or, to be more honest, by the end of chapter 2 or 3!} I felt like Jen was one of my good friends. Or perhaps my own personal cheerleader, encouraging me to take the leap and implement some of these ideas into my own life.

The book proceeds chronologically over the course of a year in Jen’s life, with each chapter devoted to a month of the project. {She took off a couple weeks between months to recharge and regroup.} Here is the breakdown of how Jen organized her 7 project:

month 1: Food
month 2: Clothes
month 3: Possessions
month 4: Media
month 5: Waste
month 6: Spending
month 7: Stress

I think for me, the most eye-opening and inspiring chapters were those devoted to waste/the environment, possessions and stress. After reading this book, I feel so blessed to have so much, yet also the pressing need to unburden myself from extra possessions — I want to give more to others, to use what I have for good. I feel even more committed to my year of kindness challenge and inspired to do even more! And I have plans in the works to create a more efficient and thorough household recycling system — I try to recycle what I can, but I think I can do better. I will keep you posted!

Well, this review is getting quite long, so I guess I should wrap it up … as you can probably tell, I highly recommend this book. It surpassed even my built-up expectations, moved me, made me think, and warmed my heart. Perhaps above all else, it made me feel hopeful and inspired to do my small part to make a difference and make the world a better, brighter place. Jen Hatmaker is a testament that we all can take charge of our lives, mutiny successfully against excess, and live a more simplified, healthier and happier existence!

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if you enjoyed this post, you might also like:
– review of The Happiness Project
– review of Thirteen Reasons Why
– review of The Secret Keeper

red velvet crinkle cookies

Posted on February 19, 2013 by dallaswoodburn

As promised, here is the recipe for the cookies I made last week for Valentine’s Day. They look fancy but they are super easy to make and are absolutely delicious. If you’re a fan of red velvet cake, you will love these cookies!

you need:
– one box of red velvet cake mix
– 2 large eggs
– 6 tbsp butter
– 2 tsp lemon juice
– 1/2 cup powdered sugar or confectioner’s sugar
– 1 tsp cornstarch

directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

2. Melt butter; set aside to cool.

3. In a shallow dish or pie tin, sift together powdered sugar and cornstarch.

4. Combine cake mix, eggs, butter and lemon juice. Dough will be slightly crumbly {and bright red!}

5. Shape dough into 1-inch balls and roll them in the powdered sugar until well-coated.

6. Bake for 9-11 minutes, until edges are set. The centers might look slightly undercooked, but they will harden as they cool. If you like your cookies chewy in the middle, I’d recommend taking them out after 11 minutes! {The recipe I found also emphasizes only cooking one sheet of cookies at a time.}

7. Top the cookies with more powdered sugar if desired.

And that’s it! The cookies will stay fresh for up to a week if stored in airtight containers. {You might want to use wax paper to separate the layers so they don’t stick together.}

Hope your Tuesday is terrific!

year of kindness challenge: week 7

Posted on February 18, 2013 by dallaswoodburn

Happy Monday! Hope your week is off to a great start!

Last week’s challenge was a fun one: deliver Valentines to a nursing home, Veterans Hospital or assisted-living facility. I got this idea after I delivered holiday cards and cookies to a nursing home this past Christmas, and it was such a wonderful experience. I wanted to celebrate Valentine’s Day by spreading love and kindness to people in my town who may otherwise be forgotten.

So I went to Target and scooped up some terrific Valentines-making supplies from their $1 section: blank pink and red cards, colorful stickers, and fun ribbon. Then I spent an evening last week getting my craft on while watching Downton Abbey! Here is the finished pile of 20 Valentine’s Day cards:

Then {because I am always looking for an excuse to bake!} I made a batch of red velvet crinkle cookies to deliver with the Valentines. {And, okay, I admit it — a couple of the cookies maaaay have made it into my Valentine’s Day lunch. Gotta taste test!} I’ll post the recipe on here tomorrow.

Next year I think I’ll make these adorable red velvet marshmallow bites that my friend Sarah posted on her fabulous food blog The Pajama Chef. Y-U-M!

I arranged the cookies in an upcycled pie tin, sprinkled in some Hershey’s kisses, wrapped the whole thing up with plastic wrap and tied it with pretty ribbon. Ta da! Cookies + valentines, ready to be delivered!

valentine's day

It did not take long to drive to the nursing home on my way to school. The woman at the front desk said she would pass the cards and cookies out to the residents during an activity later in the day. Perfect! Meanwhile, my whole day was brightened as I thought about the residents smiling to receive Valentines.

Here are some good things that happened in my world this week:

My precious Gramps successfully underwent knee replacement surgery on Friday. He is now recuperating in the hospital but I talk to him often and he is doing great!
I received a mailbox full of lovely Valentines from my mom, dad, Gramps, and my brother Greg {who is having a fantastic time in Sri Lanka — he’s keeping us updated via emails and his group’s blog.} My family makes me feel so very loved!
Greg also sent me an amazing mix CD full of songs that are special to our childhood and also more recent memories … it was the sweetest, most thoughtful gift and such a treasured surprise to find in my mailbox! I’ve been listening to it on repeat.
A little boy held the door open for me when I was coming inside from the cold one afternoon.
I overheard a fellow MFA grad student complimenting my plays to another student — her offhand comment made my whole week. 🙂
One of my good friends just announced she and her husband are expecting their first baby, a boy, in August. I am thrilled for them!

Now on to the Week 7 Kindness Challenge: drop off a donation of canned goods to a food pantry, homeless shelter, or soup kitchen. This idea came to me when I was thinking about how we often hear a number of opportunities to donate food to the hungry during Thanksgiving and Christmas, but it seems donation efforts die down once the holiday season has come and gone. I am sure there are many people who would be SO grateful for our food donations right now. Why not go through your cupboards and pantry and fill a big bag with nonperishable food items to help feed those who might otherwise go hungry? Or stop at the grocery store and pick up some of your favorite canned food or dry goods to donate!

Blog about your experiences and include your links in the comments section below, or feel free to send me an email at dallaswoodburn <AT> gmail <DOT> com.

Have a marvelous week!
-Dallas

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goals & meal-plan for the week of 2/17

Posted on February 17, 2013 by dallaswoodburn

Hi everyone! How is your weekend going? Mine has been fantastic — filled with lots of wonderful Mr. Jude time! Yesterday we did lots of puzzles, had a jam session on the piano, and spent an afternoon at Chuck E. Cheese. And Jude was my little helper at the grocery store, helping me pick out ingredients for my white-chicken chili, which I made last night for Mike’s family. Here he is having fun in the kitchen:

And the weekend would not be complete without some quality cuddle time on the couch!

It breaks my heart to have to say goodbye to this little guy. He is such a sweetheart. I am already looking forward to our next long visit over spring break!

Here’s how I did on my goals from this past week. I feel a lot better about the progress I am making on my thesis novel now that I have scaled back my goals and given myself a little more room to breathe:

~~revise up to page 60 of my thesis novel~~
~~blog about Week 6 Act of Kindness Challenge & complete it myself this week~~
blog about 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess {post is scheduled to be published this week!}
~~clean out and organize filing cabinet~~
~~knit 25 rows of the new scarf I’m working on~~
~~make 3 changes/updates as part of the #28DBC~~

Here are my goals for this upcoming week:

revise up to page 90 of my thesis novel
blog about Week 7 Act of Kindness Challenge & complete it myself this week
publish blog post about 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess
finish grading papers for both classes
take old financial/health documents to the bank to be shredded
knit 25 rows of the scarf I’m working on
prepare for my presentation at The Louisville Conference on Saturday

And here’s some recipes I’m planning to make this week:
– baked fish cakes
– edamame hummus
– cilantro-lime quinoa with chicken
– chopped brussel sprouts with cranberries, pecans & feta cheese
– chocolate turtle cookies

What are your goals + meal plans for this week?

This post is linked up with Menu-Plan Monday!

saturday upsides: the small, ordinary pleasures of home

Posted on February 16, 2013 by dallaswoodburn

Happy weekend, everyone! It’s time to celebrate Saturday Upsides!

Yesterday, I was reading a lovely collection of short stories, Who’s Irish? by Gish Jen, and I came across this quote about life as a mother and homemaker that really struck a chord with me. Maybe it will for you, too!

“It was absurd to be made happy by this small shared anticipation. Before the table actually got set, there had to be an argument about whose turn it was. How could this make Pammie happy? But it did, even as it drove her batty. She liked her busy boredom, too, if only because it readied her for the moment when Adam presented Inka with a rattle shaped like a football, or when Phoebe invented her own version of Duck, Duck, Goose: House, House, Home, this was called. You had to be a little bored to have those moments break over you the way they could. But if you sat waiting in a good dark night, they opened and opened like a brand of newfangled fireworks that lit the clouds, and the ground below, too, and all the faces turned upward, then fell with a sparkling rush right into your hands.”

– an excerpt from the story “House, House, Home” from the collection Who’s Irish by Gish Jen

I treasure the small, ordinary moments of life at home with those I love!

What are your upsides this weekend?

my valentine’s day plans

Posted on February 14, 2013 by dallaswoodburn

Happy Valentine’s Day!

My lunch today is leftover tilapia, veggies, and — to make things a little special! — a couple of red velvet crinkle cookies. I made them yesterday to deliver to the nursing home along with valentines for my Week 6 Year of Kindness Challenge, and they are just the way I like cookies to be: dense, chewy, soft in the middle and crispy around the edges. YUM!

After I finish teaching, I have plans for dinner and then a late show of the new Nicholas Sparks movie Safe Haven. I’m so excited!

I came across this Valentine’s poster idea from Julie at PB Fingers and I wanted to show you this morning in case anyone is looking for a last-minute gift idea for their sweetie! This one is inexpensive, easy, and pretty dang adorable.

Here’s what you do: leave a trail of Hershey’s kisses from the doorway through the house to the bedroom. Then have a sign waiting like this one, surrounded by more Hershey’s kisses:

Isn’t that such a cute idea?

I’m going to sign off now and get going on my day! I hope your Valentine’s Day is filled with a ton of love, laughter, and of course chocolate! 🙂 What are you doing to celebrate today?

xoxo,
Dallas

other valentine’s posts you might enjoy:
– easy + inexpensive valentine’s day cards
– an adorable owl craft project
– my favorite romantic movies
– 6 simple sweets to make your sweetie for valentine’s day
– hand-crafted valentine’s day decor

peanut butter cup brownies

Posted on February 13, 2013 by dallaswoodburn

Thanks to everyone who joined in Monday for this week’s #yearofkindness challenge {delivering valentines to a nursing home} and those who were with us last week for my fave romantic movies and easy, inexpensive homemade Valentines ideas. Today we’re continuing “Valentine’s Week” with a delicious recipe that you can make for your sweetie, friends, coworkers, or even yourself!

Peanut butter and chocolate may be my all-time favorite dessert combo, so it’s no surprise I was inspired to combine peanut butter cups and dark chocolate brownie mix! I thought I was soooo clever for using my muffin tin to make these cute little brownie cups, but one of my friends told me she and her mom have been making these babies for years. Maybe I’m a little late to the party, or maybe it’s just true that great minds think alike! 🙂 Either way, these are de-li-cious and so easy to whip up. Enjoy!

peanut butter cup brownies

– 1 package brownie mix {i like the dark chocolate variety}
– 1 package mini peanut butter cups
– 1 egg
– 1/3 cup vegetable oil
– 1/3 cup water

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin pan with paper cups or spray with vegetable spray and set aside.

2. In a medium-sized bowl, combine brownie mix, egg, vegetable oil, and water. Stir until ingredients are well-mixed and there are no lumps in the batter.

3. Fill each muffin cup 3/4 of the way to the top with the batter.

4. In the center of each cup, gently press an unwrapped peanut butter cup.

5. Bake for 20-22 minutes, until a fork inserted in the center comes out clean.

YUM! These are dangerously good. You’ll want to eat the whole batch yourself!

What are some of your favorite Valentine’s Day memories? Are you planning to do any Valentine’s baking this year?

More tomorrow!
-Dallas ❤

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Looking for more Valentine’s Day treats to make? You might enjoy these earlier posts:
– red velvet cupcakes with coconut cream-cheese frosting
– rice krispies treats with m&ms
– chocolate strawberry coconut cookies

Day-By-Day Masterpiece

Monthly Archives: February 2013