Southwestern Corn Chowder & Mossy Monogram Project

Hi everyone!

I finally have a recipe to share! As promised, I cooked a warm fall soup this weekend: southwestern corn chowder. I got the recipe from my Betty Crocker app, and be forewarned - it's pretty spicy. Here's the recipe... FYI: I tripled mine and it was enough for about 4-6.

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp butter
• 1/2 cup chopped onion (1 medium)
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 3/4 cups chicken broth (I used chicken bouillon cubes, but you can do either)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1/8 tsp ground red pepper (I didn't have cayenne so I just used flakes)
• 1/2 cup half-and-half cream
• 1 can (11 oz) Green Giant southwestern style corn (I only found Mexican, which seemed close enough)
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh chives
• Additional chives for garnish, if desired

Directions:

• In 2-quart saucepan, melt butter over medium heat.
• Add onion and cook 3-5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until tender.
• Stir in flour until well blended. Gradually stir in broth.
• Stir in salt, black pepper and red pepper - heat to boiling.
• Reduce heat and cook, stirring frequently, until thickened.
• Stir in half-and-half, corn and chives. Cook until thoroughly heated.
• Serve hot and enjoy!

This was the perfect fall meal, and Mr. G made a delicious broccoli side to go with it (fresh broccoli + butter + water + chicken bouillon + garlic salt + red pepper flakes). I want to make chili soon, too, as well as some pies and fall-inspired cupcakes. I was also hoping to make hot cider this weekend. I even bought apple cider at the store, but I ran out of time. :( Hopefully I'll get a chance to make it sometime this week or next weekend. Nothing makes me think of fall more than hot apple cider. :) Good news is, I have leftover corn chowder to bring to work tomorrow! Much better than a Lean Cuisine.

In other news, I also finally got started on one of my craft projects! Remember the mossy monogram I mentioned way back in April? (if not, here's the link to my post on it). Well, I bought the supplies for it forever ago, but tonight I finally got to work on it. Maybe the fall weather inspired me? Anyway, I'm actually almost done with it. I would have finished it, but I ran out of hot glue.. Didn't expect to use the whole bag! It's not terribly hard to make, but it is pretty frustrating because the moss keeps falling off and the hot glue gun and I are NOT friends. I burned my pointer finger countless times and then actually gave myself a second degree burn on my knee, of all places... I had my pants rolled up and some glue oozed out of the gun onto my knee as I was replacing the stick. I screamed bloody murder and scared poor Mr. G and Molly. I'll have a nice scab there now, and I might walk a little funny for a couple days because it's on an awkward part of my knee... My coworkers will get a kick out of this injury. Not to mention this was my second burn of the day - my first was this morning with the curling iron. Who knew hair styling and crafting would be so dangerous?! But hey, after icing my knee, I kept on crafting like a champ. ;)

I'll post pics and a tutorial for the moss letter after I finish it. I have two other letters to go after this one, and I'm still deciding whether or not to go through with them... They're smaller at least, and I have a great place to put them. So I probably will. But I may wait a few more months...

Do you have any funny crafting horror stories? If so, please share! I hope I'm not the only one with a glue gun handicap...

<3 Mrs. G