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Saturday, January 7, 2012

BC (Before Cedar) and AC (After Cedar)

It's cedar season.

For those of you not living in Central Texas, I will translate.

We are all dying.

Go on without us. Encase our state in cement so that these trees can't follow you out. Refer to time as BC (Before Cedar) and AC (After Cedar) in the history books.

Tell stories about us so people will know how we lived during the non cedar infested months.

Show them this video and let them know we did our best, but no one could defeat this monster.



We gave our all. Every last sneeze was sneezed bravely.

We all have little survival tricks to get us through February and this madness. I alternate between fizzy water, things with hot chiles in them and hot tea to try to keep my throat from closing completely.

Who doesn't love tea, even if they can't taste it?? This is my favorite tea.

And this is my favorite tea stamp!! This set is from the new Occasions Mini and it's gorgeous! Everything a sneezing tea lover could want in a stamp set! I paired it with some lace trim to give that doily feel and made a teabag tag with the tag punch - cute, eh?
Stamps: Tea Shoppe  
Ink: Whisper White, Island Indigo, Basic Black  
Paper: Everyday Enchantment DSP (Sale-a-Bration), Crumb Cake, Island Indigo  
Accessories: Victoria Lace, Tag Punch, Pool Party Twine, White Embossing Powder, Dimensionals

Now in the fizzy water part of my remedy, I prefer LaCroix - the grapefruit is my fave. I got hooked on this when I did the 3Day walk in Dallas and they were a sponsor. No calories, no sweetener, just fizz and a faint grapefruit flavor. It's my fave water.

For the hot chile part, I like soup the best. I made the most fantastic soup last night - and I know I say that every time I make soup, but seriously - this was Soup Nazi quality soup. I promised I would blog the recipe, so here it is:

Pumpkin Peanut Soup     

  • 1 tablespoon corn oil
  • 2 TBS butter
  • 1 large onion, diced
  • 1 medium orange or yellow bell pepper, seeded and diced
  • 1 poblano pepper, diced
  • 1 jalapeno, diced
  • 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 tsp-ish salt - more to taste
  • 1 clove garlic, minced (optional - I didn’t add any)
  • 1 TBS peeled and grated fresh ginger (I like to grate mine after it’s frozen)
  • 1 can Libby’s pumpkin - 15-ish oz can
  • 6 cups chicken broth (I used CM Organics)
  • 1 (14.5-ounce) can Hunts tomato puree
  • 2/3 cup Peter Pan peanut butter
Heat the oil and butter in a large soup pot over a medium-high heat. Add the onions and peppers and and cook, stirring until the vegetables soften and the onions are translucent and squishy. Add the cayenne, black pepper, garlic and ginger and cook for 1 minute more. Stir in the pumpkin broth, and tomatoes and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, about 20 minutes.
   
Blend the soup in the pot with a stick blender. Then add peanut butter, stirring until blended, and heat on low until the peanut butter is blended and melted. Garnish with crushed honey roasted peanuts or salted peanuts.
       
This was insanely delicious - and even better left over. If you don't like spicy food - leave out the jalapeno and the cayenne.


Completely amazing.


If you need me, just walk towards the sound of the sneezing.


Loveyameanitbye. Achoo. Bless me.



11 comments:

  1. So sorry about your cedar. :( I might have to make this soup, sans peanuts. Peanuts don't like me, even though I like them a lot.

    PS; Cute card!

    WV: expainti

    I'm trying to expainti you how it feels to be so sneezy, but you just cannot comprehend the misery.

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  2. You always make me laugh! Now I want to make that soup for my roomies and say, 'no soup for you!' Your card is great too. Hope you feel better soon!

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  3. Hi, Lydia!
    So sorry about your cedar season, used to live in San Antonio so I know how that goes. But geez, no water and so much heat this year??? Ouch! Thanks for your great inspirationals! Gonna try that soup!

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  4. Oh I feel for you Lydia - achoo!! In my area of BC aka British Columbia cedars are rampant all year long, but there are many worse allergens. That said, my younger son has resorted to using a steroid inhaler during the summer when his allergies really get to him. Beautiful card!

    By the way - have a very deddlyr day! I mean that in the kindest of ways - it the antispam word that you challenged us to use in a sentence.

    hugs! Deborah

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  5. Holy Moses! I thought we had pollen in upstate NY but I've never seen ANYTHING like that! My nose is running just looking at the video. You have my sympathy. whoa.

    Love the sentiment on the tea bag tag. I might be able to stamp today now that the SCRAPBOX IS ALL SET UP AND GORGEOUS!!!

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  6. Love your card. That teacup set is awesome. Thanks for the soup recipe - sounds really yummy!

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  7. Poor you! But just think of it this way.. You're helping the economy by keeping the Kleenex company in business. Also, I read somewhere that one strategy that hasn't been fully tested yet, is to eat the honey of local bees to stem the effects of local allergies. Worth a try, huh? *smile* love tea, too! And your card is porcelain-cute.

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  8. Eep!I hate early spring here when everything turns yellow green with pollen and you can wash your car in the evening but the next morning it is under a thick blanket of goop again. So when you say "knessese!" (wv), I say Bless You!

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  9. Looks bad...really bad... Sort of like our ragweed season here in the Maritime provinces. You can't escape.
    Hope you are feeling better soon and the darn things stop getting frisky! :)

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  10. I was at FIVE GUYS and couldn't even enjoy my nommy burger because I was trying to rub my nose off my face! So sad....went right home and neti-potted my sinuses!! GAH!!! Poor Kayci is sneezing a squillion times a day now!

    OMG that card!!! That stamp set is next in my stack to play with and I love what you did with it!! SQUEEE!!!!


    WV: expolin
    The cedar trees are just expolin with craziness. Can't wait for March!

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  11. This is my first January in San Antonio and I was wondering what was wrong with me! I have allergies but never during this time. Just last week I heard Cedar Mountain for the first time and I had to check it out.

    I am dying... Well, at least that it is how I feel right now.

    I love you video and post,

    Priscilla

    ReplyDelete

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