Potato Soup with Rivels

I grew up having this soup and I love it.

My mother caught the concept on a news show cooking segment a long time ago she then adapted it for our family and taught me this recipe. I now make it for my husband and his family. 

This Potato soup is a little different then most others. It contains red potatoes, bacon, and onion, as wells as rivels.

Unlike most potato soups that are thickened by flour and butter this soup has rivels. Rivels are a egg and flour mixture that make some dumpling like pieces. 

Wanna make this super easy and yummy recipe?

Well keep reading I will take you step by step.

What you will need.

6-9 Red potatoes if you have smaller ones use more and for larger use less.

6 cups chicken broth

4 slices bacon chopped

1 cup onion chopped 

3 cups milk

1 1/2 cups flour 

2 eggs

3 drops Tabasco sauce

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

Chop your red potatoes into small pieces.

Place in your soup pot.

Cover with chicken broth.

Allow to simmer for about 20-30 mins till soft.

While potatoes cook in a separate frying pan add chopped bacon pieces.

Cook the bacon till it starts to crisp then add chopped onion.

Cook till onion is soft and bacon is crisp. 

Let bacon and onion rest on a paper towel to drain off grease. Set aside.

In small bowl add eggs and flour and with fork mix together. Keep combining and cutting with fork till you form rivels, they will look like small rice grains. 

When potatoes are soft add the milk and rivels and cook for ten minutes on medium high heat. The rivels will thicken up the soup and rivels will be soft. 

Add bacon and onion mixture, slat, pepper, and Tabasco sauce. Cook for five more minutes on low. Then you are ready to serve.

This recipe makes six large servings.

ENjoy 

Hope you like it. If you try it let me know in the comments below! 

Love <3 Lace

Springtime Basket Wreath

Awe well happy belated happy Easter.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter Sunday however you celebrate it in your family.
We had a lovely gathering with my husbands family and are nieces and nephew.
We hid Easter eggs for the kids and had too much really good food.


now down to business...

Doesn't this time of year just make you want to splash bits of color throughout your house?

I love the blooms and buds popping up all around.

And you can't forget to adorn your door with a spring inspired wreath!

This basket of spring only costed $3 to make!!

Wanna know how I made this cute yet cheep wreath?


Well if so read on and I will show you how.


First you need a few simple things as follows....
Wreath form (I used a straw one bought at the dollar store)
Yellow Crate Paper (dollar store as well. I used two rolls comes in one pack)
Wide cheap ribbon (bought for a dollar from Walmart)
Silk Leaves (had some leftover from our wedding)
And hot glue and pretty ribbon to tie a bow with if you like.

Place and hot glue your leaves on half the wreath making the handle part of the basket wreath.
I simply placed all my leaves where I wanted them then went back and glued them in place.

Next start right under where the leaves end take a piece of wide ribbon cut a length the fits across the wreath with the ends fitting behind the wreath. Hot glue in place. And repeat all the way down.

Make sure you put the ribbon on tight because this is the basket part that the flowers will attach to.


OK now onto the flower making. I must confess that I didn't get any photos of the making of the yellow pretty flowers so I took some making the same flower with brown packing paper. So this is why the following pictures will be of a brown flower.


For the flowers I cut 1' , 1' 6", and 2' strips of crate paper.

Strip of paper.

Scrunch it up in your hand.

Straighten it out again, but be careful this is still paper.

With your hands holding each end twist the paper to get a nicely twisted gathered strip like the photo.

Starting at one end fold over and place a small dot of glue to start your flower.

Wrap around the glue fold. Hold in place with your fingers and continue placing small dots of glue and wrapping around. Keep the flower flat to achieve the shape of the flowers on the wreath.

Wrap and glue until you have a tail left that is big enough to cover the backside of the flower.

Glue a circle on the tail and press on the back of the flower to cover the backside and hold in place.

Trim any excess paper that may be sticky out the edges from the back side we glued on.

Your flower should look something like this one.

The length of your strip will determine the size of your flower.

Now make a bunch more. For my wreath I used two rolls of crate paper and made the perfect amount of flowers for my wreath.

Once you have your wreath prepared and your flowers made, comes the fun part of gluing the flowers on! 

Use hot glue to glue the flowers on the ribbon. I place mine starting from the sides to the bottom placing them very close and over lapping at times. I think this achived the best look over all.

Glue them on close together. 

And your DONE!

Add a bow then hang it up and admire your hard work and few dollars spent well!

Thanks for hanging out with me.

Hope you have a super day!

Love <3 Lace

Little Ballerinas

When I was a little girl I wanted to be a ballerina, like most little girls do! My mother took me and my sisters to ballet class supporting us in this dream we all had of being ballerinas. 

I found out years later that my large feet and odd proportions were not meant for the dance floor, so I did not become a ballerina and that's fine by me. My sisters Kate and Natalie on the other hand are true ballerinas. Kate lives in Washington D.C. living the life of a ballerina. She amazes me with her talent and perseverance to reach for her dreams. Natalie continues her training in ballet along with trying new sports and activities like her new found talent in swimming. It is true that training in ballet can help you in any physical activity. It is pretty obvious that I have grown up and around the ballet world and it still is apart of my life as I continue to support my beautiful ballerina sisters. 

Kate as Clara, and Natalie as a Russian girl with the Nutcracker Prince 

We love to share are love and experience in ballet with other little girls. My cousins wife just recently had a little baby girl, we could not pass up the opportunity to make her little one her very own ballerina outfit, so with the efforts of our mother and sisters we all set off to make a very personal to us gift that held a story behind it. 

My mother crochet these very delicate soft pink baby ballerina slippers 

My sisters made this beautiful pink baby tutu names the Kate tutu.

My sisters would make tutus to raise money for their ballet school. Every ballerina that made a tutu would name it after their self, so every little girl that received one of these tutus also received a story of the ballerina that made it. Kate included hers for our cousin's baby girl.  In the card is two pictures of Kate one of her as a 3 year old little ballerina and one recent picture as the sugar plum fairy for the Washington ballet's nutcracker.

Kate as the Washington Ballet's Sugar Plum Fairy 

I appliqued these onesies by hand of ballet slippers.

And whats a cute little ballerina without some matching bows? These were also made by myself as well.

And tired with ribbons and bows.

All together these precious hand made gifts create a one of a kind baby shower gift for a little girl to be welcomed into the world with. All little girls should have the chance to dream of being a ballerina one day. 

With love <3 Lacy, Our Mommy Tamra, Kate, and Natalie!