Roasted Cauliflower Beer & Cheese Soup

Roasted Cauliflower Beer & Cheese Soup

DSC_0330editWinter.is…..here. It’s snowy, it’s sleeting, it’s icy, it’s…..COLD.

But that’s nothing this delicious and *BURSTING* with flavor soup, can’t fix.

Jake helped me make this soup and when we got to the part where you put all the ingredients in the blender and puree into the freaking smoothest thing this side of, I don’t even know… he was a little concerned.

“Wait. What are you doing? You’re going to blend it all up? It looks good enough as it is. Are you sure?”

Truth is, he had a good point. The soup did look delicious and great as is, before blending. But seriously you guys….. don’t be tempted. The silky smooth creamy velvet texture that a Vitamix blender creates is out.of.this.world.20160106_171020editNow we were  fortunate enough to have received a Vitamix as a wedding gift, but any high powered blender will work well (I’m told). I’m still learning the ways of the Vitamix and all the amazing things we can do with it. This was the first soup we made and I am SERIOUSLY impressed. I’ve obviously had a regular blender for most of my life and I’ve tried to make blended soups, both in the regular blender and also with an immersion blender. But seriously while those other two methods obviously work to a degree and definitely have their place in my kitchen for other tasks, I’ll never, EVER use either one again for the purpose of creating a smooth blend of ANYTHING(smoothies, soups, dips, hummus, etc…).

Yummm. I’m actually eating leftovers of this for lunch today so these pictures are making me hungry already. DSC_0322editEven though the soup does have beer and cheese in it, because, why not? Oh and Bacon….we got a hearty 6 servings out of this batch of soup so for each serving you aren’t really indulging toooo much. But it will taste like you are. While eating this soup, it was like an EXPLOSION of flavor. So many of them. We both said aloud, “Wow, this is great. It’s like you can taste all the individual ingredients but yet they combine to make a kick a** combo!” Paraphrasing of course 🙂 And no lie, the leftovers were even better.

But it was really good, and overall pretty simple:
ALWAYSSUMMERWe used some pretty serious dark beer in ours, a dark ale from a local brewery, so our soup had some serious beer flavor, which we loved. But if you aren’t really into that, you could try a lighter brown ale (like Newcastle or something similar).

Additionally, you could make this vegetarian/vegan by omitting the bacon. If you did this, I would add an extra tbsp of oil when sauteing your veggies. I honestly still think it would be delicious even without bacon, so no fear of missing out on flavor!

Serve with some crusty bread or crunchy crackers and ENJOY!!!20160106_170921edit

xoxo

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Roasted Brussels Sprouts & Butternut Squash

Organize your 2016

{Organize your 2016}

Brownies

HAPPY 2016! Ok so I’m not really one for New Years resolutions. Maybe it’s because my mind is constantly going 20,349,823,094,832 miles an hour and I think of things all the time I want to do to try to improve my life, my fulfillment, and my happiness and I’ll make the change when I think of it, not wait until January…..orrrr maybe it’s because each time I make one, they never stick.

What? Don’t look at me like that! They’re both sort of true.

Anyway, usually when the year comes to a close and the new one is right around the corner I think of organizing and getting ready for the turn of the calendar. *Oh and trying to mentally prepare for how many dates I’m going to have to erase when I accidentally write 2015 still* Seriously I swear it takes me until May to get the hang of it.

Calendars. Speaking of Calendars…(I bet you didn’t think this post was going in this direction) I wanted to share with you today some of the best free calendars and life organization tools that I’ve come across recently.

Did I mention free? 🙂 Bless these individuals for having the patience, creativity, and time to make these awesome resources and then HAND THEM OUT FOR FREE!

Here are some of my favorites!

  1. Kate at Small Paper Things has my favorite calendar templates. Simple, understated and beautiful. Not to mention her weekly planner, saves.my.life. Check out her post HERE. And honestly I love her entire site. It’s gorgeous and pretty much everything I want in life. Check her out and subscribe!
    • My Faves:
      • Calendar is so damn cute because it’s so simple.
      • Weekly Planner is like my favorite thing right now. I have it on my desk and it help my keep my head on. *I’m serious*

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  1. Marie at Blooming Homestead has so many cute printables on her site. Her menu planner is ADORABLE and I plan to print it, laminate it, and put it on the fridge! She has birthday and anniversary lists by month, school work trackers, and a billion other adorable things in her Family Planner sets. She even has them available in 3 different prints/patterns. The floral stripe is my favorite but they’re all SO CUTE.  In addition she also has cute 2016 calendars available too!
    • My Faves:
      • The menu planner. Cmonnnn it’s like I want to menu plan now 🙂
      • The calendars are gorgeous too.
        • Note that you’ll be directed to Dropbox to download the files. 

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  1. Jamin & Ashley at The Handmade Home have another great assortment of printables that make me feel I need to get my life together 🙂 Kidding; that are awesome for helping streamline your life! Also after reading this post I felt like I needed to run out a buy a reusable bound leather planner so I could print these pages and file them. I resisted the urge but I’m sure it will come back. They make it look so glamorous to be organized!
    • My Faves:

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I know there are TONS of other great resources out there for this stuff and totally possible to create your own! I was drawn to these few examples in my recent searches and wanted to share with all of you.

Cheers to you and a happy, healthy, fulfilling, and organized(if you want to be 🙂 ) 2016!

xoxo

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Roasted Brussels Sprouts & Butternut Squash

2015 Year in Review

2015 Year in Review

Brownies (1)Yowza! It’s the last day of 2015. I swear we just went through this new year thing….already a new one?!? Time flies when you’re having fun.

2015 was an amazing year for me, personally and on the blog with my ever evolving journey with Eat Laugh Craft. Grab a cup of coffee and feast your eyes on way too many photos of my year 🙂

Take a look!

I got married to the most wonderful guy in the world! Surrounded by our absolute favorite people in our lives.

{All Photos by: Dani Stephenson}Screenshot_2015-07-29-21-47-19 Screenshot_2015-07-29-21-51-04 Screenshot_2015-07-29-21-52-24 storyboarded-5 (1) storyboarded-27 storyboarded-28 storyboarded-30 (1) storyboarded-31 (1) storyboarded-32 (2) storyboarded-33storyboarded-41 storyboarded-46storyboarded-9

And then we went to Italy! First stop: TUSCANY ❤ ❤ ❤

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Then we made our way to the Amalfi Coast ❤

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That last picture is RIGHT OUTSIDE OUR BEDROOM WINDOW PEOPLE!!! I’ve been wanting to travel to Italy since before I can even remember. And we finally did it and it was SO MUCH BETTER THAN I COULD HAVE EVER DREAMED. Sorry for yelling. It’s just really that amazing. We are already planning our next trip back!

Now for blog awesomeness!

We were on TV! Check out the crafting special we did for our local ABC affiliate station here in Madison, HERE. This was such a cool experience that we got to do. Only little mishap was that the station thought I was from JoAnn Craft and Fabric stores, but in reality they only sponsored us. Good thing I have my sign there (that’s so small no one can read 🙂 )!

We had another busy year on the blog we published 31 posts (got a little derailed with all the DIY stuff for the wedding so we didn’t hit our one post a week goal but 2016 is a new year).

We also had over 100,000 views in 2015!! Here is a breakdown of our top 5 posts:

2015 top 5Thank you all for helping make our 2015 such a wonderful year! It is such an awesome experience to be able to share my ideas and tips and tricks and actually have people listen! You are all the best, whether this is your first time stopping by or you’ve been reading since the beginning (hi mom and dad).

I hope you all have a wonderful and safe (find yourself a DD or call a cab!) New Years Eve! I have an exciting night of a delicious cheese board and Chianti Classico wine (a special bottle from our honeymoon) planned and to be honest, I might I’ll probably be passed out by 10 pm….. and I’m 26, thanks for asking 🙂

xoxo

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Rosemary Spiced Nuts

Rosemary Spiced Nuts

These little nuggets of flavor are perfect for gifts or perfect for snacks at your holiday party!20151222_183823I am sitting here writing this looking at these nuts and wishing I hadn’t given them all away as gifts!!

Since cooking, trying new recipes, and posting about it is such a big part of my life, I love to be able to share some homemade food gift with my friends and family. In the past I’ve made THESE , THESE, THIS as well as flavored salts (including Sriracha, Rosemary, Lemon, Chili Lime, Porcini Mushroom, to name a few) for gifts in the past. They’re always a big hit because I think people really appreciate the time, energy and love that goes into homemade gifts!3This year while browsing Pinterest, I kept seeing so many recipes for different flavors of nuts. I’ve tried a few in the past but for some reason I was really digging the rosemary this year. They turned out great and the sugar in this recipe really helps create a great glaze that helps the little pieces of rosemary and salt stick so each nuts is packed with flavor.

Even if you’re gifts are already given and your parties are all over, you definitely should give these a try!
20151222_184317
ALWAYSSUMMER1It’s as simple as that. You can totally use any type of nuts that you like too. These are just what I had on hand.

I hope you all have a wonderful and very merry Christmas today! My plans for the rest of the day looks like it will contain yoga pants, a top knot, coffee, a nap or two, and enjoying the company of those I love most. In other words, the most perfect day ever.

xoxo

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Roasted Brussels Sprouts & Butternut Squash

 

Friday Faves-Holiday Gift Guide-12-4-15

Friday Faves-Holiday Gift Guide

Dun dun duuuunnnnn. Guess what?!? 21 days until Christmas! And if Christmas isn’t your holiday, it’s getting close to a lot of other gift giving holiday times as well.

I actually have the majority of my holiday shopping done! (I know…what a show off). But don’t worry, I still have a few things to make and complete but going out to the crazy stores for last minute things will NOT be happening this year (first time ever???)

So it’s been a while since I’ve done a Friday Faves post and today I wanted to do a special one and share with you some of this years new items (or new to me 🙂 ) that I’ve come across while holiday shopping that I think are really cool and wouldn’t mind receiving a few for myself…*cough cough* BUT FIRST!!! One little piece of exciting news for us!

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we will be doing a short segment for our local (Madison, WI) ABC affiliate channel, WKOW27. We were contacted by a representative for JoAnn Fabric and Craft stores to do a short (3 minutes or so) segment on some easy holiday crafts. Of course we said yes! I am pretty excited, I’ve never done anything like this so it’s be really interesting! If you’re in the Madison and a early riser we’ll be on at around 6:25 am tomorrow December the 5th! Tune in if you’re around and if not, send good vibes 🙂

Now onto these great gifts! There’s definitely something on here for everyone on your list.
Copy of FAVORITE

  1. Hair tie BRACELET: I can NOT believe I didn’t think of this!! Who doesn’t hate wearing those pesky things on their wrists? I need at least two on me at all times but I hate how it leaves marks and also hate that I know it looks tacky but there’s no way around it. UNTIL NOW PEOPLE!!!
  2. Blackberry Elderflower Pimms: Maybe this is a British thing (my dad is from England and I grew up visiting family there frequently) but  Pimm’s is delicious in the first place and then combine it with Elderflower (one of my all time favorite flavors) and blackberry and I’m already drooling over it. The *ONLY* thing that could make it better was if it was already chilled in my fridge waiting for me after work today 🙂 While it may be a more summery drink, I’m down for it all year long.
  3. Cooler Tube: I’m not sure why I think this is so cool but how awesome is this?! A cooler just for a couple of cans that you can wear and have both hands free to do activities?!? Ok typing it out it seems like sort of dumb, and unnecessary but I don’t care, I still think it’s cool!
  4. Swell Bottle: First off, they look so sleek and chic and pretty! (& there are a TON of designs to choose from) 2nd and probably most important, they keep your drink HOT for 12 hours (yeah not a typo) or they keep your drink cold for 24 (also not a typo). They’re composed of non-leaching and non-toxic stainless steel, comes in three different sizes, and the company gives back to many charities around the world. Talk about win, win, win!
  5. Typhoon Digital Kitchen Scale: I totally stole this from Oprah’s favorite things list of 2015. I love this because it’s sort of retro looking and cool. It also can be used with or without the bowl and really makes things easy to measure more precisely particularly if you’re cooking recipes from abroad that ask for grams and ingredients measured by weight.
  6. Perfect Skin Spin: I’ve been aware of these face cleansing brush systems for a couple of years now but they were all (that I had seen) too pricey for me to try and not know if I’d like it. But this one on the other hand is extremely reasonably priced and also is multi functional! There are multiple heads to use (rough, gentle, even pumice stone for your feet or rough elbows!) It comes in a variety of cool colors and it’s awesome to have an option to give this type of cleansing a try without breaking the bank!

So there are some of my favorite things this holiday season! Go out and get your shopping done so you can have a *more* stress free holiday! As always, thanks for stopping by and checking out our blog!

xoxo
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*Please know that we have not been compensated for featuring any of these items. There are no affiliate links contained in this post. We simply wanted to share some great products and are not benefiting from this post or earning income in anyway. Enjoy! 🙂