Pirates of Penzance

I know there are some members of our family who enjoy a good musical. Besides, it is a free date night idea, ladies! I don't know if you are familiar with the musical The Pirates of Penzance.
I went to a free live theater version in Dubuque a few years ago and had some good laughs. They turned the musical from a stage production to a movie production. You can find/watch it free by clicking Here.

Our House Continued

Here is our dining room. We are so blessed to have been given this beautiful set from a local doctor that left town. The door shown is the back door. It leads in to the 3-seasons room.
This is the guest room. It is a work in progress but this is how i set it up quickly to play hostess to my parents last weekend.
This is the future home of Andrew's office but in this picture it was set up for Jan and Alan.
That is all that I can share at this time due to the mess that is our house at the moment. (These photos were pre-painting which our parents were so gracious to help us with.) Also thanks to Jan, mom, and Alan for helping me get the yard ready for winter.

Free Books!

I've been taking advantage of a nice website since Spring and it just dawned on me that the rest of you (especially those with mp3 players) might find this useful: christianaudio.com

This website has a large library of for-purchase Christian audio-books and a sampling of free Christian audio-books. But the best part is the free, monthly audio-book. I've gotten free downloads of things like the New Testament & Francis Chan's Crazy Love. The November free book is John Piper's Desiring God.

I thought all you mp3-wielders might like to know!

Closing Today!

Here is a more recent photo of our new house! (Well, it will be around 11:00 a.m. today :)
This is the backyard. The white room is a 3-seasons room.
Here is another angle of the back of the house. The living room is on the left and the bedrooms on the right. The bottom windows are part of the family room in the 1/2 basement.
The little blue building is a gardening shed.
This corner, which looks amazingly dead right here, will probably be the location for next year's garden.Unfortunately, this white fence is hanging over the neighbor's property...The backyard lawn does not look like this anymore... we had the electric line trenched and that ripped up the lawn diagonally all the way across the yard (as well as breaking almost every sprinkler line our yard had). We are very excited to start moving. God worked the timing out perfectly. We were not sure we could close today because the electrician was still working at 9 p.m. last night and our church friend was still working on the garage venting yesterday late afternoon but it looks like it is all done in time. I wish you could all help me move and set up home :)

First Snow...

Here are a few pictures from our first snow the other day (the day that this is dated)... We got snow earlier than I have ever seen in the Midwest. As it got darker, more snow fell but I didn't get photos because my camera doesn't take pictures well at night while it is malfunctioning.

This is the view from our kitchen. The snow is on our screen and our building dryer vent. Today, Sunday, we are supposed to get 3-6". YIKES.

New Look and New Experiences

I like "date nights" but it is a little hard to have a homemade date night in our little apartment because we spend so much time in this little space we often just want to get out of it, so, I did a little brainstorming. Our coffee table can be raised to almost a dining table height so I raised it and put a nice tablecloth over it. Then I found some chairs and lit some candles. Next I baked this special dinner. (I baked the orange slices right on top of the chicken to help keep it moist and add flavor) and steamed some fresh veggies from our local Farmer's Market. I decided to post about this because the dinner itself turned out looking so colorful.
Last week, I drove myself down to Chamberlain for a 5 day training seminar for my new place of employment. I was pretty nervous about being gone that long and not knowing anyone or the area but the training went fine and the area was pretty. There were low hills as you can see from above.

Lucy has taken up with a new friend. During my Mental Health First Aid training we received these little Koala animals and she has befriended it.
The day after I got back from training we were scheduled to go out to a fancy dinner thanks to a member of the church who gave us tickets. The tickets were to an awards banquet that honored women who had helped their communities in South Dakota. It was a fun (and free) chance to dress up. By the way, while in Chamberlain I got this new haircut.

Soup of the Day

Andrew and I have been sick this week. I am almost 100% now but Andrew is still feeling poorly. I decided to tackle home made soups this week. Soups somehow make me feel just a tiny bit better when I am sick and I hoped they would do the same for Andrew.

On Thursday I made: Curried Pumpkin-Apple Soup
YUM (a little like tomato soup)

Ingredients:
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 cup chopped onion
- 1 cup chopped celery
- 1/2 large apple, peeled, cored, and chopped (or substitute with 1 c. chunky apple sauce)
- 2 teaspoons mild curry powder
- 3 cups chicken broth
- 1 1/2 cups solidly packed pumpkin mash or canned pumpkin
- 1/4 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
- 1 whole bay leaf
- 1/3 cup milk
- 2 to 3 tablespoons honey or maple syrup
- Sour cream and chives, for garnish (optional)

1. Melt the butter in a medium-size soup pot. Stir in the onion, celery, and apple. Partially cover the pot and sauté the ingredients over medium-high heat until the onion is clear, about 8 minutes. Stir in the curry powder and sauté the mixture for another minute. Stir in 1 cup of chicken broth and cook it for 1 minute more.

2. Pour the contents of the pan into a blender or food processor, add the pumpkin, and puree the soup until it's smooth. (or use your hand blender)

3. Pour it all back into the pot, then stir in the remaining chicken broth, the salt, and the bay leaf. Set the soup over medium-high heat and bring it to a simmer, stirring occasionally.

4. After 5 minutes, stir in the milk and 2 tablespoons of honey. Taste the soup, adding more salt or honey if necessary to get the desired balance of sweet and savory. Simmer it for 2 minutes more, remove the soup from the heat, and serve it hot. Makes 6 servings.

On Friday I made: Indian Almond Soup (I already shared this recipe. At the bottom of the page just click "recipe" link and scroll down till you find it.)

Today was my pride and joy: a soup that I came up with all by myself.
I call it: Savory Butternut Squash Soup

- 1 Butternut squash, peeled and de-seeded
- 1 c. plain or vanilla yogurt
- 4 c. chicken or vegetable broth (or 4 c. water & 4 bouillon cubes)
- 1 med. onion, chopped
- 1 garlic clove, minced (or use 1 tsp. garlic powder)
- 1 Tbsp. butter (opt.)
- 2 tsp. brown sugar
- 1 tsp. mild curry powder
- 1/2 tsp. dried oregano
- 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
- 1 Bay leaf
- Pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients and cook in crockpot on high for 3 hours. Remove Bay leaf. Blend soup with hand blender or regular blender. Serve with cottage cheese if desired. (Being a Crandall tradition, I would assume you would :)

I am proud of this soup because it tastes really flavorful, it looks pretty, it was made with locally grown squash, and it is easy to make. I wanted to call it "Autumn-in-my-mouth" because it really does capture this time of year for me. Hope you try it some time and enjoy!