Olive Garden Zuppa Toscana Copycat Recipe

I would be lying if I said that this is was the first time that I attempted this recipe. I fell in love with this soup in my high school days and as soon as I knew enough about cooking on my own, I tried it. Back when the internet was shiny and new, I looked online to see if I could find a recipe that would at least come close to the soup I knew and loved. I did find a few different ones, but very few. Today, the internet is saturated with recipes and you can find a huge number of variations on this soup. I distinctly recall finding this recipe and not knowing what kale was! Oh, the days before kale became a thing... times were simpler then... but they're tastier now!

Here's a pin to a recipe that's similar to the one that I first found:

Here are the ingredients I gathered for this attempt:

In this photo you can also see my original recipe card that I wrote down, stained with many different versions of this soup! If you want my version of this recipe, here it is:

1 lb. spicy Italian sausage, crumbled

1/2 lb. smoked bacon, chopped

1 medium onion, peeled and chopped

2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed (or use the pre-chopped kind in the jar!)

1 qt. water

2 - 14.5 oz cans chicken broth (or you can sub boxed broth for this, I usually do now.)

2 large russet potatoes, cubed (organic potatoes are all I buy now, and so they're usually small, use 3 or 4)

2 cups kale, chopped (Be generous with this! Eat your greens!)

1 cup heavy whipping cream

salt and pepper to taste

And in the picture there is my Blue Moon First Peach Ale... my cooking companion for the night. Delicious! There's also a can of biscuits that will not be making an appearance in this blog post. They were burnt. My bad. Ordinarily these Immaculate Baking Company Buttermilk Biscuits are an excellent companion to this soup. Don't burn yours.

I do most of my shopping at Sprouts Farmers Market, simply because I can buy all of the basics there and some of the specialty stuff most people go to Whole Foods for, and not have to take out a home equity loan to pay for it. I picked up some of their Hot Italian Pork Sausage and got to work on cooking it up!

You can get the bulk sausage if it's available or just use the link sausage. Simply remove the casing if you want to use the links. It cooks up pretty quickly, so keep an eye on it.

Meanwhile, cut your potatoes up into cubes... Or cube-ish shapes. I'm no prep work master, so this is my translation of cubed:

After your sausage is cooked up, put it on a paper towel to drain (If you skip this step, you'll have a bunch of unappetizing grease floating on the top of your soup. It won't be inedible, jut not as pretty). Then cook up your bacon, let it drain on paper towels, then chop it up and try to not eat up too much of the delicious bacon goodness! 

Saute your chopped onions until they're translucent, toss in the garlic and let it get aromatic. Then toss in your broth (or stock. Stock tastes gooooood.), water, and potatoes. Bring it to a boil, then turn down the heat and let it all simmer until the potatoes get tender (about 10 minutes).

After the potatoes get soft (but not mushy) add in the bacon and sausage and let it simmer for another 10 minutes. Then add the cream and kale, stir, then serve it up! 

This soup hits the spot every time. It's one of my favorite cold weather soups, but who am I kidding...I love it in all weather! Olive Garden soup in my yoga pants at home with my Hulu subscription, because I'm classy like that. Enjoy making your own Zuppa Toscana. Experiment with hot/sweet Italian sausages, different kinds of potatoes, kale, etc. It's always good. Just don't use bacon bits. That's a damn shame. Make some bacon.

Yves Saint Laurent VoxBox

I am so excited to have been selected to receive Yves Saint Laurent's Influenster VoxBox to try and sample! I always love receiving complimentary productes from Influenster to try out, but I was especially excited about this one, because the product that they sent me is something that I wouldn't have ordinarily splurged on.

Of course, here is a pin to the mascara I got to try out:

I got an email letting me know that I had been selected. In the email there was a link to this video that totally hooked me in and got me pumped up for this VoxBox:

I'm sure you can see why I was so excited! There were only 4,000 boxes sent out, and I got one of them! When my box arrived, I made a video right away:

The video came out a bit long, but I had a good time making it. AND YES I did clean off my eyelid with a Q-Tip! After doing that I went and added a bit of eye shadow to my look.

Side note: It's really tough taking a good picture of your own closed eye lid... and I need to clean up my eyebrows. 

Best things about this mascara:

• It works just like it says it will. I got lots of volume with good separation.
• It smells amazing! It's not gross and chemically smelling. It's like a tube of flowers!
• It stays soft and doesn't make lashes brittle.
• The tube is gorgeous! 

The shadows I used were from my ipsy March glam bag and my own stash. I started with my favorite eye shadow primer, Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion in Sin. The copper shades came from Pixi by Petra Mesmerizing Mineral Eye Duo in Apricot Glow. The sparkly black I used as liner is an Urban Decay shadow called Oil Slick, and of course, I used Yves Saint Laurent Volume Effet Faux Cils Luxurious Mascara from my Influenster VoxBox. 

ipsy March #ipsy #floralfantasy #marchglambag @ipsy

A photo posted by Victoria (@lsgtorie) on Mar 28, 2015 at 6:05pm PDT

Getting my ipsy bag every month makes me happy. My favorites from this bag have to be the Pixi eyeshadow, the eyeshadow brush by Crown Brush, and the LeeAnni Eco 3 in 1 Revolution Light (it's a toner, serum, and moisturizer in one!).

I received these products complimentary from Influenster for testing purposes, and you can too!

http://www.influenster.com/r/668275

If you're interested in getting your very own Glam Bags from ipsy, follow this link:

https://www.ipsy.com/r/1tgvs

Spontaneous Eureka Trip

For February vacation (I'm a teacher!), we decided at the last minute (like literally when we were in the car with our bags) to go to The Avenue of the Giants and Eureka, California, just to see what's there! I know I'm calling it spontaneous, but really... it was totally premeditated - by me! I just brought it up in the car as we were about to leave for Tahoe, or at least my darling husband thought we were leaving for Tahoe! My honey was totally awesome and said yes to my plan, so off we went!

Here's what I pinned: 

I know the pins kind of look the same, but they are similar maps with different points of interest on them. The map on the left is of all the cities, towns, beaches, parks, and state parks. The pin on the right has some parks too, but it also has some sightseeing and things to do. I knew I wanted to go see the Avenue of the Giants, but after seeing both maps, I realized there'd be a lot of other interesting things for us to do as well. You know, if we ever got tired of trees... which we didn't.

Our Road Warrior rockin' his Babiators in Black Ops Black

What you talking about Willits?

On our first day, we just drove and drove with a couple of pit stops along the way. We ended up driving through San Francisco, to go across the Golden Gate Bridge on our way over, and to avoid the toll going north though the East Bay! We were almost to Eureka, when we decided to take this last stop for a little picnic before it got too dark. This spot by the "World Famous Grandfather Tree" was neat. The tree was impressive and next to a store that had a bunch of kitschy redwoods stuff in it and some cool looking redwood burl tables. I learned just how much redwood slabs go for, and it was surprisingly not as much as I had expected. I always think of Redwood as so expensive, but I guess when you take the shipping out of the equation, it saves a lot. 

There are a ton of fun tourist traps along this route, but there was one in particular that I came to see. This was a pilgrimage of sorts, since I took this trip once before when I was three years old. There's not much I can remember about being three, but this is one of the few memories I still hold...

Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox at the Trees of Mystery in Klamath, California!

My honey found the statues... um... impressively large.

Us at the top of the mountain after taking the 9 minute ride up the SkyTrail.

I know Sprout looks passed out here, but he is actually trying to look at the tree tops! He did this several times throughout our walks through the redwoods. It's so cool to see that awesome sense of wonderment in your child's eyes when taking them to see something like this. I'm going to do another post soon just on the Trees of Mystery, so stay tuned!

Our drive back down from Klamath was breathtaking. We saw so many natural wonders. It was definitely awe-inspiring! We also got to so a whole bunch of elk up close. I believe it was a first for all of us! The meeting of the sea and forest here is out of this world beautiful. God, I love California.

On our way home we decided to hit up one place on the map that was calling my name: Loleta Cheese Factory! I am a big cheese lover, as is my son, so when I saw it on the map, it piqued my interest right away. When I saw a flyer for it in our hotel lobby, I grabbed it and read that they had 36 different kinds of cheese to try! Well, that sealed the deal! 

Although I didn't get to try all 36, I definitely got to try around 20 different cheeses and picked up a few to take home. Initially, we were feeling disappointed, because we were so far from home, we figured the cheese would never make it. However, the woman working inside told us that the cheese would be fine not being refrigerated for up to 4 days, as long as we kept it sealed and from getting too warm. Eureka! I mean... Loleta! Love your cheese!

One other tip the wonderful staff at Loleta Cheese Factory mentioned was that in the next town of Ferndale, we needed to stop by Humboldt Sweets and get a cinnamon roll. She said they were huge and delicious!

The town of Ferndale, California.

Humboldt Sweets is bakery heaven on Earth.

I stayed in the car with the Sprout while my honey went inside to get our cinnamon roll. ONE cinnamon roll I said, because the woman at the cheese factory said they were big enough to share. 

My honey comes out with two boxes and a bag. Sigh...

When he comes back to the car, of course I had to ask what he had done! Why did he get so many cinnamon rolls! He told me that when he went inside he began to make small talk with the man behind the counter. He told him that we were form San Jose and he said that he LOVES the Sharks and is a huge fan! He ended up giving us two giant chocolate covered cream puffs stuffed with strawberries and a chocolate chip cookie for free! Thanks Humboldt Sweets! We'll be back!

So, my pictures end here. Why no picture of the cinnamon roll, you ask? I think you know why. It was so good, we ate it before we could take a picture! However, I did find a picture of one on there website, so here's a pin, for your drooling pleasure...

Valentine's Day in the Middle

Middle school students are too cool for Valentine's Day cards. Just because they are too cool to hand them out, doesn't mean they don't want to receive them! I love being able to surprise my students with something that makes them feel noticed and cared for. Being acknowledged is a major part of the psyche of a middle schooler, at least in my experience. So while looking for Valentine's ideas for the sprout I came across an idea perfect for an English classroom.

Here's what I pinned:

I followed the link in the pin to Etsy to purchase and download the PDF template for the tops of the baggies.

Here's all of the supplies I used in order to create the valentines:

Martha Stewart Crafts Bone Folder, Wilton 100 Count Party Bags 4"x6", Swingline 747 Classic Stapler, Cheez-it Scrabble Junior, , Fiskars 12 Inch Portable Scrapbooking Trimmer, White cardstock (purchased from RAFT San Jose)

I started out by cutting out all of the little cards and trimming them to the correct size. It's really important to have sharp scissors or a scrapbooking trimmer so that this part goes smoothly. I ended up cutting out a LOT of them as you will see, so the sharper your blade, the easier this part will be.

Next, I had to fold all of the little cards. For this step I used the bone folder. Yeah, you could just use your hand to fold it, but the bone folder makes the crease so sharp and makes really fast work of your project. It also helps keep your project clean and free from hand oils. Here's a video I made (with my knees!) that shows how to use a bone folder.

The next step is to fill the bags with the Cheez-its, then fold over an inch and a half or so at the top of the bag. I chose to fill the bags with 10 Cheez-its each. I needed to make sure that I had enough for my whole project and I didn't want to to over fill the bags either.

Finally, I took one of the cards that I pre-folded and placed it over the fold I made at the top of the bag. I then used my stapler to put one staple on each side of the card, to secure it to the top of the bag.

I think they came out pretty cool! I ended up making 160 of them! I would definitely do this project again. It was an easy way to do something a little extra, wasn't too expensive (I think I spent about $30 because I already had the bone folder,stapler, trimmer, cardstock, and a few of the bags, left over from another project. So they came out to a bit less than 19 cents each). Make stuff for big kids, too! everyone likes getting a Valentine!

Cream Cheese Frosting

So just as I said in an earlier post, I'm trying to eat more healthfully. And now I bring you...

Cream Cheese Cupcake Frosting.          

You're welcome.

Here's what I pinned:

I scoured through several different cream cheese frosting recipes before settling on this one. Ultimately, I ended up choosing this one because it seemed the most simple, with the fewest ingredients and one that was lower in sugar than the others. I personally like tasting the cream cheesy-ness of this recipe and others had twice as much sugar or worse! I was not looking to cut calories, because let's face it: it's cream cheese frosting. However, I do look to cut out a gram or two of sugar where I can. 

The original blogger used reduced fat cream cheese, but I say that if you're going in, might as well go in all the way! Besides, low-fat foods seem to have more additives, sugar, and salt than their full fat counterparts, because the manufacturer is trying to make it taste better. You know what makes it taste better? FAT! So get the full fat version. You won't be disappointed, and if you're watching calories, don't eat a cupcake.

Another deviation I took from her recipe was that I used unsalted butter instead of the salted stuff. I also opted for grass-fed Kerrygold Irish butter. I love this stuff! Both the salted and unsalted versions are delicious. If there is a grass-fed option for anything, it's usually worth the extra cents to get. Not only does it taste better, but it's closer to what nature intended.

Here's the cream cheese, vanilla, and butter waiting to be blended into delicious frosting goodness. After whipping together these three ingredients, you are supposed to use sifted powdered sugar. Well, I don't sift much, so I just gradually shook about half of the box of powdered sugar into the frosting while mixing it with my electric mixer (I also don't measure much). Someday a KitchenAid will be mine!











In the end, I was able to frost all 30 of my cupcakes (with a bit to spare!). It was delicious! I have seen other variations on basic cream cheese frosting that come out to be chocolate, strawberry, or spiced flavor. Those are definitely ones I want to try after making this batch. I have begrudgingly purchased canned frosting for way too long, knowing that they were full of chemicals and partially hydrogenated death. Hopefully those days are soon over. Buttercream is next on my list of frosting to tackle. It was so easy! Pinterest for the win!

Valentine's Day for the Sprout

So just like any self-respecting Pinteresting mommy, I made Valentines for my son, AKA Sprout, to take to daycare. Being that Sprout's only one and a half, I kind of saw this as a low-risk trial run for later Valentine's undertakings. And it's fun. Who am I kidding?

So this is what I pinned:

So I got started by printing out the little circles on regular printer paper. The blogger who created these has a super nifty machine called a Silhouette that cuts stuff out perfectly, and well... I don't. So, scissors!

Cut, cut, cut!

After I was all done cutting them out, I needed to make them stronger somehow. The printer paper alone wasn't going to hold up, and besides, they needed a bit of jazzing up!

I wanted to do something a little more masculine than the pink scalloped border on my pin, so I searched around the craft stash and found some turquoise card stock. I used a glue stick and glued all of the circles down, then just cut around them again, this time leaving a quarter inch border all the way around. Meanwhile, I also print and cut out my tag for the hand soap gift for his daycare provider and glued and trimmed that as well.

The tags came out pretty cute. Some might say they look a little sloppy, but I'd say they have that "handmade" touch with the uneven borders.

        

Next, it was time to trace my little one's hand. Anyone who's ever asked a toddler to hold still for anything knows how big of an accomplishment the tracing job I did is. I amazed myself! He moved at one point and I had to replace his hand over the part we already traced to finish the job. Because I just barely accomplished this is, I cut it out and traced three more, just in case I want to use them for anything.  He ended up ripping one of them, but I still have two more left!

When I got to work, I had one of my teacher's assistants help me string the tags onto the soap and applesauce pouches. Mission accomplished! Happy Valentine's Day!

Paleo Chicken Tortilla-less Soup

Ever since I began to lose weight a couple of years ago, I have been working on changing my diet to include more whole foods and less processed junk. It's tough... mostly because hamburgers and fries, but that's a story for another post.

I pinned Paleo Chicken Tortilla-less Soup. I remember one of the first things I cooked for Orlando was Tortilla Soup. He gave me his highest compliment by saying, "My mom would love this!" Oh - still be my heart! So now in an effort to live longer, here we are. No vegetable oil and certainly no tortillas! Not to say that those don't occasionally slip into my diet, but compared to how I was eating four years ago, it's much better.

I was excited to find this pin, mostly because the picture looked delicious and I was totally hungry, but I wanted to recreate a bit of that tortilla soup magic for the fam!


I happily headed to my favorite grocery store, Sprouts, and picked up all of my ingredients. Chicken breast was on sale for $1.99! Score!

So I got these chicken breasts home and they were huge! I needed them to cook quickly, because... well... I was hungry! So I gave them a couple of quick slices and that was that! I topped them with a bit of melted ghee and sprinkled on a mix of "taco seasoning" that I mixed together based on personal preference.

Here's what I came up with:

(measurements approximate...)

1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp chili powder
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Just adjust the seasoning to your liking then sprinkle it all over that chicken. There was some leftover so I just tossed it in the soup at the end. I like it spicy.

After this short departure from the recipe, I pretty much followed the directions on the blog. Cut up your onions, saute them down, then put in the peppers and garlic. Saute that up a bit, then add the roasted tomatoes and chicken stock (this is when I put the extra seasoning in). I even blended some of the soup up before putting the chicken in, like the blogger suggested. A little salt to taste at the end is a must. It came out great! It tastes best with a bunch of avocado, cilantro, and lime at the end. Tapatio is a great addition, if you like it extra spicy like me! Even my little guy approved! A Pinterest success!