Marzipan Cookies

Back in September I spotted an adorable cookie idea on my new favorite blog:

The Sweet Adventures of SugarBelle

She suggested giving these apple cookies as a Back to School treat for Wesley's teachers... Well, I was a little late discovering the recipe so I thought they might make cute pumpkins. I even went to comment about this idea only to find that other people had already had the same idea! The Sweet Sugar Belle even replied with a suggestion: "Use popsicle sticks to indent the sides, and add a few curly vines =)"

So, I printed off the recipe and headed to the kitchen!!

First step, where do I find Marzipan?? Well, that stumped me and Brad. I asked a baker friend and she bought some for me :)

When she handed it to me, I was a little surprised... I was thinking Almond Paste would be something akin to Peanut Butter... Nope.

The dough came together easy breezy and was easy to shape ...
We rolled a toothpick up the sides to make our dents. The first batch wasn't distinct enough so we made the 2nd batch with deeper indents.
Here they are, before baking:
(Aren't they CUTE?!)

Here they are after baking... a little spreading happened.

I even tried my hand at adding leaves and vines....
It didn't turn out quite how I had envisioned... So I left the greenery to the experts and told myself that pumpkins you buy never have vines and leaves :)

Here they are in their jar. I made the little labels and on the back it says, "Please do not eat the stems, they are just for decoration. If you have a nut allergy, be careful, these pumpkins contain almonds."  :)

Wesley delivered these to two of his teachers. One was out on maternity leave so she missed out :( The cookies were a hit with the other 2 teachers though! Wesley said one almost ate her whole jar today!

Hearty Tortellini Soup

It's time to talk about food again :) We had a briefly cool day so I took that as my cue to try out a new recipe: Hearty Tortellini Soup

I'll just be up front about this - it was awesome!
I didn't have all the ingredients it calls for so I was a little worried. Brad was sent with the shopping list 2 weeks ago. When he couldn't find some of the key components, he gave up.

I visited 2 grocery stores and found everything we needed (after some serious searching!)

The first problem was that it calls for Italian Sausage... Neither of us has bought that before so it was a mystery as to where to find it. (near the ground beef and brats, by the way)

Next, I had trouble finding the Broccoli Coleslaw Mix... I don't usually want cole slaw in the first place so I sure didn't know it could have broccoli in it... As it turns out, I couldn't find that kind so I just got the regular kind.

Neither Brad nor I could find a can of French Onion Soup so I used a packet / mix.

I went to the pantry and realized that we didn't have the right kind of tomatoes so I used Italian Diced Tomatoes instead... Well, after I had finished making the soup I found the Italian Stewed Tomatoes on the counter where Brad had, in fact, bought them. OOPS!

Once all the ingredients are in the pot... It looks very questionable how this whole thing is gonna turn out...

See:

Once it was all cooked, though, the doubts were gone!

After dishing it into the bowls, I sprinkled on the "optional" Parmesan Cheese...
No cheese is "optional" haha!

And doesn't that just look divine?

As usual, I'm all excited about a new meal and Wesley is
...
not.

After literally 20 minutes of begging him to take one bite, he finally explained that the only thing he doesn't like is the "potatoes".... so we let him pick those out.

See:

Soup = Gumbo?

Remember a couple weeks ago when Kim and I made That Soup? Well, I needed something to make for dinner tonight so I pulled a ziploc baggie out of the freezer and set to work.

After it thawed, I added a bay leaf. I'm not really sure what it brought to the flavor, but it felt wrong to skip it...

Also, I seriously want to know why the leaves come in this container (see photo)... Why bother including the sprinkle-cap??

Next, I chopped up a chicken breast that we had boiled earlier in the week and half a package of turkey sausage. I didn't measure, but I'd say it was oh... about this much:

When I went to grab the okra I considered what the final product would be.
Tomato Soup (basically) with chicken, gumbo and okra... hmm what would Wesley think?
So, I grabbed this from the freezer AND the okra.

So I guess by adding all those other veggies (carrots, green beans, corn, more tomatoes, more okra... and a stray lima bean) it really made it more of a thick vegetable soup than a gumbo. I'm not sure what makes the difference between the two, except maybe if I added shrimp... (well, that's not gonna happen... GAG!)

In the end, I served it over rice and didn't give it a name.
Whatever you decide to call it, it was good!

Ok.
to be fair.
Brad and I thought it was good :)

Wesley?