Despite the fact that I have not yet begun to decorate for Christmas, I’m having a party at my *house*. You know a blog is like your home away from home. And I don’t have to clean for you to come here. So, join me this Friday for a Christmas cookie linky party. We’ll all link up here and make our favorite Christmas cookie recipe to share with others. If you don’t have a blog, you can leave your recipe in the comments section. Then, we’ll have the weekend to bake and freeze, so that Christmas week is a little less stressful. That’ll leave more time for stressing about crafting with your children and finding just right gift for Uncle Homer. If Thanksgiving food is about pies and cakes and then Christmas is about cookies and bars. Do you have a recipe to share? I hope you’ll join me in a virtual cookie exchange this Friday (and hopefully I can figure out how to use MckLinky, it’s been awhile). Tell me in the comments what you *think* you might make for our party. Pretty please. Maybe if I know you’re coming *over*, I’ll at least put out some festive trinkets. We’ll see.
xo,
edie

Here’s how it happened.

I went to bookclub at Sandy’s and she served two kinds of soups:  pumpkin-apple and chicken and barley.

I’m  a mixer, a layer-er, a lumper not a splitter.    I layer clothes and jewelry and apparently food.     So I mixed the two together and it was fantastic.

I came home, put another necklace on,  and then searched pumpkin soup recipes and found this wonderful recipe by Bobby Flay and then tweaked it and added chicken and barley to it.

Phenom Soup.  Par Excellence.  More stately if pronounced  ‘par eggselonce’.    Stevie says phooey on any soup that doesn’t have beef or cheese or beer.

I say,  you should try it and judge for yourself.  {He really liked it despite its’ obvious lack of all things manly–although in my book chipotle and barley are right up there}

You’ll need:

2 T butter and 2 T. olive oil

1 onion

1 large carrot

3 stalks of celery

3 cloves of garlic

2 boxes of good chicken stock

1 can of pumpkin puree (NOT pumpkin pie mix)  the smaller sized can ~14 oz

3 c. cooked chicken

1/2 c barley

1/2 t. cinnamon

1/4 t. ginger

1/4 t nutmeg

2-3 T honey

1-2 t. chipotles chopped very fine (it comes in a small can in the mexican section of the store and is packed in a heavy sauce)—it has a lot of heat so be cautious.

1 c. sour cream

1/4 c. heavy cream

salt and pepper to taste

To begin,  saute the veggies in the oil and butter until carrots are almost tender.   Always salt as you go along and then adjust the salt at the end.   Don’t wait til the very end to add salt or your dish will lack a depth of flavor.    Add garlic after the veggies have cooked about 5 minutes.

Then add chicken stock, pumpkin, chicken, barley and all the spices.    Cook at medium to high heat  for about 45 minutes to an hour or until barley is tender.    Turn heat down to simmer.   Add sour cream and whisk so that no lumps remain and then add cream.   Taste and reseason.  I had to add more honey to balance the heat of the chipotles but DON’T leave out the chipotles.  The smokey flavor makes the soup.  It just wouldn’t be the same without them!  Enjoy!  And make promises to your husband that the next soup promises to be full of beef and cheese.

I made this soup for my dear friends Donna, Sue and Lenna. I don’t get to see them as much now that I’ve moved and I miss them dearly.
Thanks for sharing your day with us girls!
{they are my friends from the neighborhood where turquoise kitchen was born so we share many happy memories together}

**Thank you for your response to my 12 days of Christmas pleas.  I’m getting so excited about it and have a project or two to show you as a preview!  If you haven’t heard back from me yet just be patient.  I’m slow and slightly overwhelmed at times.  But it looks like it’s gonna be a great 12 days.  There’s still time to submit  a project if you have one to share.   I’ll finalize the list by the end of the week.

I’m making blueberry coffee cake this morning.   Number one, because I came home to a nearly full container of slightly shriveled blueberries.   And number two, because baking is like therapy for me.   And tomorrow my old house will no longer be mine.   And today, I have get everything last little thing out of there.   I went over yesterday to assess the workload and nearly lost it.   The new owners are painting and making the place their own.  It was all I could do to hold in a river of tears as I reminisced about ten years of memories, ten years of life well lived within those walls.   I know that house like the back of my hand, every nook and cranny.   Oh the meals that were prepared, the babies that were rocked, the crafts that were made, the books that were read, the trees that were planted, and the walls that were painted and painted and painted.   The new owner reminded me not to forget the guitar in the upstairs bedroom.

Oh, I won’t forget.

I will never forget.

Goodbye sweet house of mine.
Recipe for coffee cake:
1/2 cup butter,softened
8 ounces cream cheese
2 ounces almond paste (or 1 t. almond flavoring)
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 c. flour
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1 1/2 t. salt
1 3/4 cups blueberries tossed in 1 T. flour and 2 T sugar
Lemon Glaze:
2 cups powdered sugar
2 T. lemon juice
2 T. heavy cream
1 T. softened butter
Preheat oven to 350. Combine butter, cream cheese, almond paste and sugar; beat until fluffy. Add eggs and then flour, baking powder and salt. Then fold in blueberries. Bake in a well-greased bundt pan for 35-40 minutes. While it cools, combine ingredients for glaze and stir until smooth. Drizzle over pound cake and enjoy!!