Tomato Soup

As promised, I am back with the tomato soup recipe.

I found this recipe from none other then the "Pioneer Woman" cookbook.

Image and recipe from Pioneer Woman

Ingredients

• 6 Tablespoons Melted Butter
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 1 whole Medium Onion, Diced
• 1 bottle (46 Oz.) Tomato Juice
• 2 cans (14 Oz. Cans) Diced Tomatoes
• 1 Tablespoon (up To 3 Tablespoons) Chicken Base
• 3 Tablespoons (up To 6 Tablespoons) Sugar
• 1 pinch Salt
• Black Pepper To Taste
• 1 cup Cooking Sherry (I did not add this and it was still AWESOME!!) Next time I will put the sherry in.
• 1-1/2 cup Heavy Cream
• Chopped Fresh Parsley
• Chopped Fresh Basil

Preparation Instructions

Sauté diced onions in butter until translucent. Then add canned tomatoes, tomato juice, chicken base, sugar, pinch of salt, black pepper and stir. Bring to a near boil, then turn off heat. Add in sherry and cream and stir. Add in parsley and basil to taste.
Adjust other seasonings and serve with yummy, crusty bread on a cold blustery, dreary, depressing, rainy, snowy day. Then close your eyes.
And give thanks for soups like this.

I made this soup two days before. The longer this soup sits the better it tastes.

I tripled this recipe.

Baby Shower

This past weekend, I had the honor of hosting a baby shower for my sister in law.

She is expecting her sweet baby in March.

We are all excited to meet the newest addition to the family.

I worked to together with my mother in law, Jo's mother, sister, and my father in law's girlfriend.

We started planning way back in December.

If you have been a long time follower, you know that I like to have a theme for any party I throw.

Jo's sister suggested a "Little Golden Book" theme. Apparently, these were Jo's favorite books as a child.

For food, Jo's mom suggested that we have soup and salad for the meal. So, we each made our own soup.

The soups we served were: Pea, Potato Leek, Tortellini Spinach, Chicken, and Tomato.

I made the tomato soup. I will share the recipe with you tomorrow. Some of you attended the shower and asked for the recipe!! If you weren't at the shower and like Tomato soup, you need to make this soup because it's out of this world.

I have to admit I forgot to take pictures of the shower. So, today before I took everything down I took some pictures. It's hard throwing a party and dealing with everything and have to stop to take pictures.

I had the resident artist draw some pictures on our chalk boards.

I bought some flowers to put around the house and use as centerpieces.

I made some tissue paper flowers to put around the house too.

I bought a package of these white containers at the Dollar Store.

I found a web-site that had these little pictures of Golden Book pictures. I printed them out and glued them onto the white containers. I put some flowers inside and used these as centerpieces.

I cut these pictures out of an old book and made this pennant.

Found these cute blocks at the Dollar Store.

My window decorations. I will use for Valentine's Day too.

More flowers!!!

I purchased these cute little bear lollipops to give to the little kids in attendance.

I photo copied the covers of the books and made some more pennants to put around the house.

The mantel was decorated with a Welcome Girl sign and more pink flowers.

These flowers remind me of the peonies from my garden.

Ballerina is eagerly awaiting for me to hang these in her room.

More flowers.

Jo got a lot of great presents. It's a good thing that there were two trucks here to take her home.

Now that the baby shower is done its time to decorate for Valentine's Day.