Creamy Potato & Kale Soup with Rosemary

Every Sunday my husband John and I have a post-church lunch time tradition: soup and grilled cheese. It started when that was the easiest thing I could gather for us after church a time or two and now it's expected! Except canned tomato soup and american cheese are big no-nos in this house! I'm kind of a snob about it! My apologies if you like those two food items. :)

This week I made a potato and kale soup! We LOVE kale. We eat it so much when it's in season at the farmers market i'm sure all the vitamin K makes our blood like syrup! Kidding, but serious. 

My apologies for not having step by step photos but I do have my Instagram pic of the soup :)

 Creamy Potato & Kale Soup with Rosemary

-2-3 tbsp olive oil

-4 garlic cloves, sliced

-1 to 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary

-2 large potatoes, diced

-2 small/med yellow onions, diced

-bunch of chopped kale (about 6 cups)

-1 carton of veggie stock/broth 

-2 cups water

-1 cup heavy cream

-salt and pepper to taste

Heat large pot with the olive oil. 

Add garlic and rosemary. 

Cook until very fragrant. 

Add potatoes and onions.,sauté until cooked and lightly browned/crisp. 

Add broth and water and kale, bring to a boil. 

Reduce and cover with lid, leaving a crack for a little steam to get out. 

Boil until potatoes are tender with a fork. (Around 20 minutes) 

Remove rosemary stems, and add cream. 

Let heat through and then season with salt and pepper to taste. 

Serve with cheese on top if you like! 

2012

We started our year in two different places. I celebrated with friends in Lexington and John rung in the new year working in the ICU in Northern KY, but we had a few great adventures this year! 

The first major thing that happened was that his sister gave birth to our FIFTH niece, a little cutie named Elena. 

I started my last semester working for Christian Student Fellowship at the University of Kentucky. It was really weird knowing that it would be my last time doing everything there. In all honesty I’m pretty sure I was in denial about that fact the entire time. 

In March John joined me and a crew of students and staff from CSF for an alternative spring break mission trip to Joplin, Missouri. We loaded up in 15 passenger vans--and yes I drove one of those suckers all the way there and back--and helped do some clean up and re-building after the devastating tornado that came through a little under a year before we came. 

I was so blessed to have multiple wedding showers and got to celebrate our soon-to-be wedding with friends, family, and soon-to-be family. 

When April came so did the NCAA basketball championship. We cheered on our Kentucky Wildcats in the heart of campus and then went and celebrated in the streets with tons of other college students. Don’t worry neither of us set anything on fire. 

In the middle of April we celebrate two years of dating with a picnic in the Arboretum, painting pottery, and dinner at a hibachi grill!

April was quite the busy month for us. Not only was it a month before our wedding but we had been training the past few months for the Kentucky Derby Festival relay marathon with friends from our church. So two weeks before our wedding we both ran in our first race. I ran a 10k leg and John ran the final 12.2k leg. 

My sister graduated from UK!

I ended my 7 year life in Lexington and on one of my last mornings I went to my favorite bakery and enjoyed my favorite treats. An almond croissant with southern pecan coffee. Then we loaded all my stuff up and I made the move to NKY. 

We got married! 

We honeymooned in Mexico! 

Then came the real world again. We started to settle into our tiny apartment. (We still feel like we’re still settling into it.) John went back to work, and I played housewife until I could find a job. 

My brother graduated from High School!

Our summer wasn’t super jam packed. We watched Netflix a lot and I cooked dinner every night. We would go to different firework displays, enjoyed hot dogs at the ballpark, and even went to see the Cincy Pops in the Park. We also started our tradition of going to the farmers market every Saturday morning. Now this is something we love to do and it’s also fun to spend that time together, walking around, checking our the produce and other goodies and sipping on our coffee. 

We even attempted to grow some herbs on our porch but the zero amount of sun it gets proved to render that nearly impossible. I spent a lot of time cooking, baking and crafting. 

One of my best friends got engaged and I got to go and visit her right after it happened! 

As fall came we got to go down to Lexington a few weekends in a row to help CSF out with some beginning of the year activities. It was such a fun time for us and we were so happy to help!

When September came we became vegetarians. Believe it or not it was John’s idea! I wouldn’t call us 100% veggies but we are close. We have cut out meat from our diet for health reasons and will sometimes indulge in meat for special occasions or treats. 

Then I turned 26. The weekend before we celebrated with a night out at PF Changs and then I celebrated day of with my free birthday Starbucks while I did our weekly grocery shopping, had an indian lunch with my mom, and then watched football with our lifegroup from church. 

Also in September John and I volunteered at the Hillsong Live concert at NKU, had a blast, did a few random errands for Hillsong and then sat back stage during the show. 

October came and I started a part time serving job. 

In November we enjoyed time with our families for two delicious Thanksgivings. We also enjoyed black Friday shopping both together and then with my dad and siblings. I had my first experience actually going to a store when it opened (normally we sleep in, get breakfast and then hit up a few stores). John and I went to Best Buy for it’s midnight opening and also Home Depot at 5am! We didn’t get much sleep. Esp John who ended up playing his video game from Best Buy before we went to Home Depot. 

December came and with it the Christmas season! Ok, we might have started in November. And by that I mean we started listening to christmas music the 1st of November and put up or decorations before Thanksgiving. Even though I was sick on Christmas we still had a great time celebrating with both of our families. My sweet husband event drove around at 6am on Christmas morning to find any open drug store to get me cough syrup since I woke us up at 5:30 with a coughing fit. Then unfortunately he caught sometime different so we were super pathetic and watched a lot of the office. 

I worked New Years Eve but I made us some snacks ahead of time so when I got home we watched the ball drop, snacked and toasted in the New Year together. 

Here’s to 2013! 

World's Largest Water Balloon Fight

So remember water balloon fights when you were a kid? You spend what seems like HOOOUUURSS filling up a few balloons, you throw them at your friends (or attempt to while mostly missing...) and running around the yard. You’re barely event wet and all your hard work is over in about a minute. 

Well when it comes to the world’s LARGEST water balloon fight it’s nothing like you remember from your childhood days. Try 11,622 people and a whopping 236,484 water balloons! Unreal. 

I’ve had the pleasure of helping a ministry (CSF) on the University of Kentucky’s campus out with this event for the past 5 years! And each year it’s been a huge success!! Sometimes stealing the title away from other organizations (like Microsoft) and sometimes just breaking a breaking their own record. 

It’s always fun and exciting to be a part of an official Genesis record! Plus the fight is an incredible thing to be a part of and to watch. So much work goes into it but it is always worth it. 

Check out the official video for this years fight! 

Here are so pics I snapped that night.

finishing touches on field set up

so many balloons

the balloons are really pretty

The hubs and myself

with some awesome lady's working one of the many check in stations

a small glimpse of the madness starting

Homemade Peach Iced Tea

I absolutely LOVE peaches. In just about every form. A special favorite of mine if fresh peach ice cream on a waffle cone. *yum* It takes me back to the days of going on vacations to Florida every summer and making a pit stop at this peach farm and deli shop in Alabama on both the trip down and back home. We would buy big crates of peaches and eat them all week long on breaks from the beach. Then on the way home we would stop again and buy more to bring back to Kentucky. They were so good. 

I still remember the way the little place smelled, and watching it grow from year to year. And sometimes if we were lucky we would eat lunch there at the deli. There is something about a southern deli and rocking chairs on the porch. But if we were even luckier we were able to get ice cream. They also had ice cream that they made. All if which was delicious but I always got the peach for myself. They used their own peaches in a vanilla ice cream base and it was to die for. And that’s big coming from me cause there are very few sweets I like that don’t include chocolate. I’m kind of a diva that way. 

So when I started seeing peaches at the farmers market this year I wanted some. Unfortunately the husband isn’t a huge fan of peaches. He’ll eat just about anything but he doesn’t like peaches. How can this be? So I finally did buy some from the farmers market, but it’s so hard to me to eat that many before they go bad! 

So I decided to make peach iced tea with them! And believe it or not this IS one peach thing John will enjoy. Plus we’re cutting back on buying coke at the store and making a switch to pitches of Crystal Light in the fridge, so this is basically the same thing! 

This was SO easy and it tastes great! 

All you have to do is make some iced tea. Use whatever tea you like normally and make according to the package. I prefer Luzianne for my iced tea. It comes in the big bags {one bag per quart of water but I always throw in one extra bag cause I like my tea strong}. Leave some room in you pitcher with the peaches, ice, and cool water. 

For the peach flavor you need a few ripe peaches. The peaches I had gotten were small ones of I use three but if you have big ones two would be enough. 

I pitted and skinned them. My were SUPER ripe so it was kind of a mushy mess. I made sure to do it all over the bowl I was collecting them in so all the juices were together and not running down my counter. 

Then I put them all in my food processor. {Seriously this thing is one of my best friends. It amazing. I think I use it almost every day at least once.} 

I chopped it all up until it was a soupy! I added less than 1/4C of water to help make it very thin. 

After I took my tea bags out of my pitcher I mixed in my liquid peaches and some sugar {sweeten to your liking with sugar, sweetener or a combo} I think I used a little less than 1C. 

Once everything is all mixed up and dissolved add a bunch of ice and if you still have room some cool tap water to fill your pitcher up. And now you’re good to go! 

The tea is ready to drink now if you pour it into a glass completely full of ice or you can refrigerate it until you’re ready to drink it. 

I would say it’ll last up to a week in the fridge but good luck making it last that long! 

*sorry if the pictures are a little blurry, I may have dropped my camera last week and then lens may be bent...