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Sunday, October 18, 2009

Saturday Shopping and Cooking


Went to Dollar Tree and WalMart. I should never go to WalMart alone I should have a watch-person. I always spend way too much and never know why. 


I am so glad we have the Dollar Tree. You know everything is a dollar. I hear people ask the store clerk, "is everything really only a dollar?" I like the larger stores, they have a bigger variety. Found some large bottles of liquid potpourri for my potpourri simmer pot. Black Cherry and Plum, Ocean Breeze and the one I am using right now Apples and Cinnamon. Good find.


I made a pot of minestroni soup. Ingredients are so simple, a little chopping is needed but mostly canned items. 

2 chopped onions
3 or 4 stalks of chopped celery
4 or 5 carrots chopped
2 zucchini cut into nice size pieces
sautee in olive oil
2 cans of chicken broth
2 cans of diced italian style tomatoes
I added a little water for the vegetables
add some pepper, garlic powder, italian seasoning, parsley, I never added salt but will taste today and see if it needs any, you get a lot of salt from the canned items.
bring to boil and simmer for a while
add 2 cans of cannellini beans, juice and all
small size pasta, I used the little bow ties
simmer all this til pasta is tender but do not overcook

Serve with cornbread or your favorite crusty bread and butter. Yum.



This is a nice soup to freeze which I will do in smaller portions for myself and friends.  I love my vacuum seal Food Saver. It is great. I found this one at Big Lots (another favorite store). The trick is to use their bags, off brands will not work.  I also need to freeze the soup in the bags before I vac and seal. Liquids do not vac well until frozen. Just a tip.






My walking buddy went to the Applefest in Elijay last weekend and brought me the best apples.  I think they are Mutsu (Crispin).





I have eaten several but thought they would make a good pie. I am a terrible pie crust maker so I always buy the frozen ones. I made this pie with Splenda. Cut the apples, added 1 cup of Splenda, 3 T of cornstarch, 1/8th of a teaspoon of salt, 2 teaspoon of cinnamon. Put in the crust, laid the other on top, cut a few slits in the top and bake. Yummy pie and no sugar (except for the apples naturally). Easy.





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Have a wonderful Sunday.
 
P.S. What happened to the spellcheck in the new updated version of "new posts". Am I overlooking it or did it just disappear?

8 comments:

  1. What a nice post! I'm a dollar shop fan too.Here they add vat so it's not exactly a dollar.Thanks for the receipes,that pie looks good.

    Sorry I couldn't get here sooner,Back here,diwali(Major HINDU festival) brought it's share of visitors-each bearing gifts, irrespective of what religion you follow,folks here will bring gifts,so I was busy last week.

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  2. That all looks sooooo yummy!! That pie, mmmmm. I love the Dollar Tree, too. You can find some great deals in there sometimes!! We have a pretty big one here in WR.

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  3. The soup and pie look delightful. What time is dinner? LOL

    I didn't even know there was a spell check. I pre-type my posts in Word.

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  4. That soup and pie look wonderful - great for a COLD day!
    Re: your question on my blog about the camera I use. I have a Nikon D40X DSLR.
    Thanks for visiting my blog :)

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  5. Ooh that pie looks good. I have always made mine with MacIntosh apples.

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  6. Your soup and pie look good.

    We always say we have a $100 entry fee to Walmart. We can't seem to get out of there unless we spend at least that much.

    Ramona

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  7. The dollar store here is not all that good but Walmart sucks me in with their prices. The soup looks delicious, I will probably do a soup or stew later this week.

    I'm still using the old version of New Post so I can't help but what would I do without spell check?

    My computer connection has been healed, the cable guy just brought a new modem. Cable broadband is super fast when it works right and this new modem has increased the speed to lightening fast.

    Judy

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  8. Yummy - it's snowing here in Breckenridge. Wish I had a steaming bowl of your soup and a large slice of that pie (with ice cream) for dessert!

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