Hearty Italian Soup Recipe - Easy Gluten Free and Dairy Free!

When my husband and I first got married, I’d cook up something, and he’d ask, “What are we having for supper?”

My answer? Almost always, “Ummm, I don’t know. I made it up.”

See I cook like my dad- you start with a little idea in mind, and some general ingredients and flavors in mind, and just run with it.

My husband was gracious, and answered, “Oh, hmm. Okay. Well, I’ll try it.” A bit skeptical, I could tell, but he was always great about trying not to show it.

Soon, he stopped being skeptical, and just sat down to dinner, and just ate.

Then, before long, we ran into problems. Problems of this sort:

“Hey honey, how about we have that one supper you made, with such-and-such ingredients? That was really good.”

Hm. Well that would be really great if I could remember what I did.

More often than not, when I blog a recipe, it’s for that very purpose- so I can remember what I did.

Today is Sunday, and it’s rainy. So today called for just such a creation.

Also, my youngest is on a gluten-free, dairy-free diet right now, so I had to do something along those lines.

I’m not really a fan of GFDF dishes that include some kind of expensive substitute item (i.e. making the same recipes you made before, only with the ‘dairy-free cheese’ or the gluten free bread/pasta, etc.). It’s costly. I know, because we tried going that route when I was gluten-free and dairy-free (and a whole lot of other things-free) a while back.

This time around I bought a few of those things, but mainly planned to do what we could to just eat around them. There really are a lot of options. Chinese food, for one, (the healthy homemade kind, not the deep-fried kind) is a great option that is naturally dairy-free and gluten free. Mmm chicken, veggies and rice! Our barbeque sauce is gluten free, so we’ve done pulled barbeque sandwiches, and our one-year-old just has it without the bread, which he likely would have anyway.

Today, when I got busy in the kitchen, I knew we didn’t have a lot of time before he’d be tired and need to go down for a nap, so I needed something quick. I was also really wanting soup- because, as I said, it’s Sunday and rainy.

We already had some sausage browned up and in the freezer, so I thawed it out, and put it in the pot first. Then I added some garlic. I love fresh garlic, and have an incredible garlic press, but I rarely use either, simply because I got this fantastic –huge– container of minced garlic at Sam’s Club and it’s lasted me forever and cost about the same amount as the little 4 or 8 oz jar (can’t remember because it’s been so long) we used to get. I’m only about half-way through it, and we use a lot of garlic. Mmm garlic.

Sorry.

So, sausage, garlic. Then I opened one of the jars of stewed tomatoes I canned last year, put it through the food processor till the bits were smaller, but not totally pureed. Then I dumped the whole thing in the pot. I did the same thing with some Swiss chard we had frozen from the garden. Chop to smaller bits, then add to pot. I added a bit more garlic, because it seemed like there wasn’t enough in there. I told you I love garlic.

Then upon checking the Italian seasoning label, it said there might be some wheat in it (because that totally makes sense. Not.) so I decided not to chance it. I then added some thyme, some garden-oregano (which did not have wheat in it. Ha.), basil, parsley, salt and pepper. I also added about 1/2 c. rice and 1 cup of water, popped the lid on and set the timer for 20 minutes (so the rice would be done).

When I checked on it a little later, it seemed to need a bit more broth, so I added a can of tomato sauce, and a touch more water (maybe 1/4 cup?).

And that’s it. My three-year-old (who was asking for purple soup on the way home from church for some reason. “Purple soup is yummy, mom!” “Hm. Okay. How about red soup instead?”) asked me what was for lunch, and he doesn’t do okay with abstract answers, so this soup promptly got a name. “Italian Soup” was born.

Here is the recipe without the commentary. Thanks for joining me!
As always, spices are to taste, as I didn’t exactly measure them to begin with.

Italian Soup

1/2 to 1 lb. Sausage (regular or Italian)

4 C. Stewed tomatoes, lightly pureed.

1 Tbsp. minced garlic (about 3 cloves)

1/2 to 1 C. frozen chopped Swiss Chard or Spinach, thawed slightly

1 Tbsp. parsley

1 tsp. oregano

1 tsp. basil

1/4 to 1/2 tsp. thyme

1/2 to 1 tsp. salt

dash pepper

1/2 C. dry white rice

1 C. water (adjust as needed)

1 8 oz can tomato sauce

Brown sausage in soup pot. Drain excess grease, but don’t drain completely. (We really like Jimmy Dean, because there’s hardly any excess, and I never have to drain it.) Add tomatoes and garlic and bring to low boil.
Once boiling, add remaining ingredients and cover. Cook 20-23 minutes.

Serve with parmesan. (Or don’t, for dairy free)

Christmas Watercolor Giveaway

Hello again!
I am hosting my Christmas Kickoff Sale over at my Etsy shop, with a sale and a giveaway!

You can save $3 on a purchase of $15 or more - which is 20% savings! Yay!
Go to my Etsy shop www.nouvellemere.etsy.com and use code ChristmasKickoff2015 at checkout.

I'll be giving away this watercolor Christmas print trio - one of my favorites, by the way. It is a $25 value and makes a great gift, especially for the person you don't really know what to buy for them.

Here's how to enter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Carpe Diem

Carpe diem is a Latin phrase, usually translated "seize the day”. This painting, along with its series, was inspired by a recent loss in our family. We so often forget to slow down and live the today that we are given. To enjoy our loved ones. To sit and savor. To linger a little longer around the table after a meal. To love.

Some of the verses that echoed around my heart in the weeks surrounding our loved one’s death are these, all speaking of the brevity of life. Our life is but a vapor, and we do not know if we will have tomorrow. Let’s enjoy each other while we can. We are only given the gift of right now.

For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: 1Pe 1:24

Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah. Psa 39:5

Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. Jas 4:14

The rest of this series employs coffee ring art, because most of the time we linger together, it involves a hot cup of coffee which encourages us to sit and sip, instead of gulp and go. 

See this series in my Etsy shop

This particular painting is unique, and dedicated to the memory of my father in law. It features tea rings, because his hot drink of choice was tea. Winter days would often find him with a cup of this or that variation of tea in a mug. His open Bible would likely not be far away.
He will be greatly missed, and we long for Heaven when we will see him again. For we will, with certainty, see him there.

If you would like to learn how you can be forgiven, and have the same certainty of life after death in heaven, please message me and it would be my pleasure to introduce you to Jesus.

Faith Spoken Of: Stay

Faith Spoken Of: Stay: It’s hard to fully express what I felt God working in my heart last night when my husband was reading the Jesus Calling Bible Storybook to our kids.

Visit the link to read the full story.
I will likely be adding new devotional-type posts over at Faith Spoken Of, and keeping this blog to more personal/family posts, and of course DIY and recipe posts.

Have a blessed week!
Nicole

Let There Be Light

The first thing God created was light.

Because light gives life.

Because by light we may see His works.

Even from the beginning of creation, He was revealing Himself to us.

And then He brought another kind of light.

Unto the upright there arises light in the darkness;

He is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous.

Psalm 112:4 NKJV

In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 1:4-5 NIV

For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 4:6 NKJV

They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

Revelation 22:5 ESV

And so He bookends His precious words to us.

Light.

His desire to reveal Himself to us.

Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Romans 1:19-20 NIV

And then He becomes not only light to us, but He becomes our fullness. Our sufficiency. That we need no lamp or sun.

God’s very first recorded words were

“Let there be light.”

And there was light.

Gen 1:3

And from the beginning, His powerful words came true.

From the beginning, the whole of creation is influenced by Him. Unchangeably marked.

And without Him, the earth was not formed.

It was a void.

Dark.

And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.

Genesis 1:4 NKJV

…The light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

2 Corinthians 4:4b KJV

 Yes it should.

Let there be Light.

Doing Away With Tissues and Using Our Sleeves

We're a cloth diaper family. I don't really do it because I care about the environment, although I agree that is important.
Mainly I'm cheap and hate buying disposable things.

We make our own baby wipes for the same reason. While, yes, they are disposable, they are cheaper, and I know what's in them.

When I can, I make our own spices, as well, such as pumpkin pie spice, ranch dressing mix and taco seasoning mix. Partly for health reasons, but mainly because 1) they taste better, and 2) CHEAP!

I am cheap frugal when I can be. Allergy season had me cringing over the amount of Kleenex boxes we were going through. And sometimes (okay, you have permission to announce "how cheap! those poor kids!") I would let my toddler's nose run just a bit longer before he was old enough to blow his nose, just because I didn't want to waste a whole kleenex if I was just going to wipe it again in another minute and a half. (I know, I know...)

So I got an idea.

Hankies.

Yep.

Not original with me.

But here's the thing. I don't know how they did it back when Kleenexes weren't a thing, and tissues were... especially with a cold, or allergies. The same ol' hankie all day long??

This is what has stopped me from trying it sooner.

But then somehow I got the idea to use some old t-shirt sleeves we had in the scrap bin. (I think these are left from the t-shirt quilt I have cut out but never sewn together.)

I cut off any seams, since those wouldn't feel good on a sore nose, and cut each sleeve into two pieces. If you want larger, just use the whole thing. I cut out a bunch! I knew we'd need several to keep us stocked while they cycle through the laundry.

I kept an empty tissue box to stuff them into. (Which by now looks a bit too beat up for a blog pic, since my two-year-old found it and decided it was a toy, or something to jump on, or who knows what, so you get a pic of what we're using right now, which is an empty diaper-liner box which is working nicely) Then after a bit of blowing our nose and running to the laundry room to discard the used hanky, I decided we needed a handy place to put them.
Hence, the little blue basket in the pic.

And again, my boy decided this was a toy, and commandeered it, and guests didn't know what they were for either, so I labeled it.
I used just a scrap piece of cardstock and punched holes in it, and tied it with some cute twine left from the goody-bag from my niece's 1st birthday.

And there we go! It's been a pretty easy transition for my family. It has taken a bit longer to get guests to love the idea, so we still have Kleenex boxes around, but we've totally saved money so far!

Toy Spice Container DIY Tutorial

My funny little niece received a beautiful play kitchen from my sister and her hubby this year for Christmas. My sister asked for the other gifts from the family to go with it. Play dishes, food, etc.

In the midst of making dinner (and consequently, a grocery list…) I emptied a few spice containers. Thought about washing them to use for herbs from this year’s garden, and then realized I really have enough. So I thought about tossing them.

And then I remembered Christmas.

Win.

I did wash them.

And here’s what else I did with them.

I could’ve left them as-is, and it would have been fine, but I just can’t help myself sometimes. So I got out the construction paper, mod podge, marker, stencil, and a couple other fun things.

I had asked my sister whether her daughter would have fun with little things to shake in the spice containers (I’ll never forget the little toy salt and pepper she and I had growing up- they had little plastic bits you could see shaking around as you “salted” you play-food. It was delightful.), or whether she’d be frustrated at a glued-shut lid. My sister replied that her daughter loves to open things and would probably either get frustrated that it wouldn’t open, or break it open, one of the two.
Since I wanted neither to happen, I came up with a compromise, as you’ll see below.

First, I have a very technical way to measure the paper.

Lay the container next to it, make a little mark where I want to cut. Then roll it around to see how big it should be to go all the way around, and make another mark. Cut accordingly.

Told you it was technical. Ha.

When I had all the papers cut, I wrote on them. I used the Tupperware alphabet stencil I found at a garage sale. It made such adorable letters! I could have freehanded it, but I was happy enough with the stencil that I decided to go the easy route and stencil it.
I went for “Sugar”, “Spice”, and “Everything Nice”… because that’s what little girls are made of.

Not that she’ll be cooking up little girls any time soon…

I hope.

For the pepper container, since it wasn’t round, I looked at the faint folds in the paper from when I wrapped it around to see where I ought to write the words. And I wrote it on both sides. You can do yours however.

I mod-podged them on (See my newsprint tray tutorial for tips on mod podge if you’ve never done it before, so you don’t end up with wrinkly labels on your play-kitchen spices.) and then added some little paper-punch stars. I used a scrapbooking star punch, and punched various colors. I even used the construction paper packaging from the store (The one that is on the top, like the label for the pack of paper. “250 sheets! 8 colors!” or whatever… Yep I saved that.) to punch stars with. It made some of them have a fun color pattern. (I must not have gotten any pictures of that part.)

I modpodged the stars on as I did my second coat of mod podge. By the time I got to the fourth spice thing, the first was dry enough for me to add a third coat. I have no idea if it really needed that much mod-podge but I thought more is probably better when it’s going to be a toddler toy. More durable that way.

So about the shaking/opening dilemma. I really really wanted to put something in there to shake around, but wanted to honor my sisters request to just leave them all openable. Here’s my compromise.

The two “Spice” containers and the “Pepper” container I left openable and empty. They weren’t really see-through enough to warrant shaky little pieces inside anyway.

But the more clear one (from parsley or something?) also had the two-way lid (pour and shake) so the lid opened with a flip top, instead of just the screw-off. With me so far? After punching a decent amount of fun-foam confetti and putting it inside (actually I gave up on using the hole-punch and just cut little tiny pieces with scissors. It was faster)  I cut a circle in the fun-foam the same size as the lid and superglued it inside. Then I superglued the lid onto the container over that. So you can still open the shaker, but no pieces come out.

Win-Win.

And that’s all I did! You can go easier or more complicated- totally up to you. You could do more writing on it, or cut out some pictures from magazines to mod-podge on there, or whatever!
I’d love to see pics or hear your ideas of what you did.

What I’m collecting this year

For the last few years I’ve tried to pick a word for the New Year in lieu of making any resolutions. The idea is to be able to focus on forming new habits or traits and not being overwhelmed with a list of hard-to-achieve goals. I’m all for goals, don’t get me wrong, but finding a single word to work toward makes it a lot easier to focus.

Here’s the way myoneword.org puts it:

“The challenge is simple: lose the long list of changes you want to make this year and instead pick ONE WORD.
 This process provides clarity by taking all your big plans for life change and narrowing them down into a single focus. Just one word that centers on your character and creates a vision for your future.”

In the fall, through some excellent studies I’d been participating in, one theme kept sticking out to me in the verses I would read.

Wait on the Lord.

But my soul kept asking me, ‘what does that really even mean?’

So my word this year is wait.

WAIT.

And it will become a matter of deeper study and reflection for me as I discover what God meant when He tells us, yes, urges us, to wait on Him.

From time to time you’ll see a post here delving into some of those reflections and discoveries- like today! What better way to start the new year than to be in God’s word?

Today, as often happens, I went on a daisy-chain search through the Bible, finding what I wasn’t really looking for. I was looking up the cross-reference listed in my Bible to one of the Jesus Calling daily devotional verses for today. (I highly recommend Jesus Calling by Sarah Young, by the way! You'll probably see me reference it a lot in times to come.) When I arrived at the cross-reference verse, I started looking at all the verses on that two-page-spread that I’d marked or underlined. And that’s when I landed on this verse:

Wait on the Lord;
Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the Lord! 

Psalm 27:14 NKJV

 And I cried. God does know His children.

He knows me.

I decided to look up the word wait in Strong's and was very blessed. I think you will be too.

Wait

To wait, look for, expect

Waiting (participle)

To linger for

To collect

What if I linger a little longer, and my collections were God – could I gain more enjoyment from collecting God than any other thing collected?

I linger at the window when my husband goes to work.

I linger a little longer in the coffee aisle at the grocery store than the other aisles.

I linger at the doorway when I lay my sleeping sons in their beds.

I linger to witness the sunset, sunrise, clear stars or breathtaking sky.

Would I linger at God’s word and allow Him to offer me strength in return? Will I linger in prayer a little longer instead of becoming distracted with my to do list for the day? Would I linger in an attitude of worship before moving on to the next thing?

And what if God was my favorite collection?

And why do we collect things in the first place?

Because we really like them.

Because we can’t get enough.

Because looking at them makes us happy.

Because we like finding them at all the places we visit.

Because there are so many varieties and we just love all the different kinds.

And aren’t these all great reasons to collect God?

Let’s develop insatiable appetites for Him! Let’s take joy at looking at our collection. Let’s look for Him everywhere we visit. Let’s be in awe at all the different marvelous facets of Him.

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