1 Laundry Basket

Here is my favorite home organization tip as of recently.

Yep. I'm talking about laundry today. Now that I'm home with the kids instead of working, I'm doing more of the household duties (it was pretty 50/50 before). I quickly became overwhelmed with laundry. My kids each had their own basket and my husband and I shared a ser of colors and whites baskets. 

I. Detest. Folding. Ugh, seriously hate it. So all the clothes would stay in baskets and we would pull out what we needed when we needed. So this resulted in heaps of dirty laundry everywhere. 

I saw a post on Pinterest about 1 laundry basket for the family and loved the idea! It took some catching up (and I admit I still have clothes to fold in our master bedroom) but is working very smooth. My daughter knows to put her clothes in the family basket at the end of the day. I wash 1 load of clothes every other day (and a load of diapers on the other day). And since its a bit of everyone's clothes, I fold and sort in the living room. So they have to get put away right away otherwise the kids will destroy them. 

I picked this basket up at Target for under $15. The liner comes out easily to carry laundry up and down the 3 flights to the laundry room. 

So, now the laundry isn't taunting me in each room I go. The family basket sits at the top of the stairs, outside the bathroom and our bedrooms. So far, a much easier laundry solution! 

What is your best home organization tip?

-Lynsee

Monday Night Craft!

Are you ready for some football crafting?  It's Monday night and the Minnesota Vikings are playing tonight.  That means that my husband is hunkered down on the couch (but doing 'chores' during the commercials...yeah..he's fabulous...I don't even ask him to do them!) and after being away since Thursday morning, I was itching to get crafty.

The weather turned almost winterish this weekend.  Like, it was snowing on our way home from Duluth.  Yeah.  Great.  I love snow, don't get me wrong, but I feel like we barely had a fall!  It went from 70 to 40.  I love me some brisk fall days but that was too drastic for me!

Anyways, my daughter needs a winter hat. When I ordered her winter jacket, the website was being funky and I couldn't order the matching hat.  Then when I reordered my son's winter gear last week I forgot to look at her hats again.  Grrrr!  But, then I remembered that I had purple fleece sitting in my fabric stash.  So I went to work!

I bought an animal ear hat pattern on Etsy just after my daughter was born 4 years ago.  Check out Level Design on Etsy.  She also sells her products at TheJuneBride.  Here is the  animal ear hat pattern on Etsy.  She also has an adorable bootie pattern.  You'll see them in some of my pictures below.  I love these hats!  I made a hat for Sassy then, another for my son when he was born 2 years ago, and many others in between.  So, so simple!  (And check out Karen's website, TheJuneBride.com.  She shows off customer projects, new tutorials, and even recipes! P.S. You can score a better deal on her patterns at her personal website!!)

Sometimes, if I'm feeling extra crafty, I'll add my own embellishments to the hats.  Today I added a purple heart on the side of Sassy's hat to match the purple hearts on her winter jacket.  Even with the heart embellishment, this took less than 30 minutes.  (I got a little distracted and sewed off the bottom of the heart a bit.  Oops!  But that makes it much more special, right?!)

I'm sure Sassy will love this and be happy to rock another mommy-made hat this winter!

Here are a few others that I've made in the past.

Sassy's first hat with matching booties.

Another set made for a friend's baby girl.

The monkey hat I made for Tigster.

-Lynsee

Creamy Roasted Garlic Tomato Soup

"Nailed it" exclaimed Hubster as he finished his soup.  I am not one for canned tomato soup so I always make it myself.  Yesterday was a typical chilly Minnesota fall day and I was in the mood for grilled cheese and homemade tomato soup.  I had most of the ingredients on hand so I threw it together off the top of my head and it turned out delicious!

**This recipe can easily become vegetarian.  Take out the bacon and just add an extra tablespoon of olive oil before sauteing vegetables.  And use vegetable stock instead of chicken stock.  This is my basic recipe but go vegetarian when cooking for some certain friends!**

Creamy Roasted Garlic Tomato Soup

Ingredients:
1 head garlic
olive oil
3-5 slices bacon
1 medium white onion
1 c. chopped carrots
14-16 oz tomato sauce
28 oz whole peeled tomatoes
2 c. chicken stock 
1 tbsp. dried basil
1 tbsp. dried Italian seasoning
1/4-1/2 c. heavy cream

Directions:
1.  Preheat oven to 400 F.  Peel off loose garlic peels and chop off top third of garlic head.  Place in a square of aluminum foil and drizzle lightly with olive oil.  Wrap foil around garlic and roast in oven for 30 minutes or until soft.  Allow to cool after roasting and squeeze out the garlicky goodness into a bowl when cool enough to handle.

2. Chop bacon into 1 inch pieces.  In your pot, drizzle 1 tbsp olive oil and cook bacon until crispy on medium heat.  Pull out bacon and save for grilled cheese.  Say what??  Yah, that's right.  I put little bits of crispy bacon goodness on my grilled cheese.  YUM!

3.  Add onions and carrots to pot with bacon drippings.  Add salt and saute until soft, 3-5 minutes.  Add in roasted garlic and saute for 30 seconds.  Now, the bottom of your pot will be brown.  Don't worry!  That, my friends, is called fond.  There is a lot of wonderful flavor in there.  You WANT it there!

4.  Add tomato sauce, whole peeled tomatoes and the sauce it came in, chicken stock, and seasonings.  DO NOT ADD THE CREAM! Bring the soup to a boil and simmer until slightly reduced, about 30 minutes.  Make sure to stir a few times during the simmering and scrape that wonderful fond off the bottom of the pan.  After reduced, taste for flavor and add salt and pepper as you see fit.  I use unsalted or low-sodium products as much as possible so I can control the amount of salt going into our bodies.  (This time around, I used my own canned tomato sauce and whole tomatoes so there was no salt in those.)

5.  Turn off heat and add in heavy cream.  Or not.  This is what makes it creamy.  I thought it was pretty fabulous without the cream and considered not adding it.  But I love a creamy soup.  And Hubster bought it for this particular dinner.  So I added it.  

6.  Serve and enjoy!  Of course we served this grilled cheese.  I add the bacon pieces from the beginning of the recipe to my grilled cheese!

*This makes great leftovers.  One of my favorites, actually!  When I worked, I would make the grilled cheese the night before and wrap it in a paper towel before putting in my sandwich box.  The paper towel helped to absorb any moisture while stored or cooking in microwave. 

-Lynsee

A homemade kind of weekend

We love to cook from scratch around here.  Even my husband.  Last winter I roasted a chicken and Hubster used the carcass to make chicken broth.  It was fabulous to have on hand!  We try to use the least amount of salt as possible and he made the broth completely salt free.

This weekend was another homemade kind of weekend.  I was busy Friday night and Saturday morning at church making lefse (for those of you non-Scandinavians, it is a like a tortilla but made with potatoes).  I had some other things to do on Saturday so my husband was home with the kids most of the day.  I got a text while at church of my daughter at the counter helping Hubster make pizza dough from scratch.  I came home for lunch and not only had they made the crust from scratch, but they also made the sauce.  Best part?  He used my tomato sauce that I canned earlier this fall.  YUM!! It was, handsdown, the best pizza we had eaten!  If I had the recipe, I would post it.  I'll try to get it from him...

While pampering myself at a spa party on Saturday night, I received another text picture.  This time, they were making homemade ice cream.  A few years ago, my husband got his grandmother's ice cream maker.  He loves making it with the kids!  It has to sit for a while in the freezer so we had it after dinner last night.  We didn't have any chocolate syrup so can you guess what I did?  Yep, made it myself!  I used this recipe but didn't have any vanilla extract.  It still tasted really good!  We used it right out of the pan so it was slightly runny, but the rest went in a jar in the fridge.  It will thicken as it sets.  So yummy!! 

So, did you make anything homemade this weekend?

Lynsee

Liquid gold! Aka creamy Mac n Cheese

We are Big Mac n Cheese fans around here. And my favorite cooking blog is Mel's Kitchen Cafe. So, Saturday evening rolls around and it was pretty dreary here. Commence comfort food season!! I had been eyeing up Mel's Creamy Skillet Mac n Cheese for a while so I decided to whip it up. 

HERE is the recipe that I used. 

End result: 

Half gone skillet of Mac n cheese. "Liquid gold!" as my husband calls it. It is a very simple recipe, that's for sure. I did think it still had a slight flour-y flavor to it despite the lack of flour used, but that could have been from the cheeses. I plan on playing with this recipe a bit, adding different cheeses. 

All in all, a delicious, easy, and healthier mac n cheese than others out there!

See, Tiggy agrees!

Lynsee