This roasted red pepper soup recipe is healthy and easy
to whip up!
A friend of mine gave me this recipe
oh, probably, 10-15 years ago.
Without further ado,
here it is with my additions of
extra seasonings and alterations
when you are out of
an item or two.
🙂
Roasted Red Pepper Soup
2 lbs. red bell peppers, seeded and chopped 1 medium onion, chopped
2 Tbsp. olive oil 2 carrots, chopped
1/2 tsp. garlic powder 1-2 ribs of celery, chopped
1 lg. (or 3 small) cans of chicken soup stock base or celery seed
*I bought a carton of chicken soup base 1/2 cup heavy cream
Some potato flakes or cooked minute rice for thickening salt, pepper, cayenne pepper to taste
***I added some Mrs. Dash, a little paprika since I didn’t have cayenne pepper, garlic salt instead of garlic powder (didn’t have any). Tip ~ If you don’t have any heavy cream, add some watered down sour cream and a tiny bit of sugar to sweeten.
Roast the peppers:
* Wash and cut up the bell peppers into strips, removing the white tough ribs and seeds. Toss with olive oil and garlic powder. Roast on a cookie sheet for approximately 20 minutes at 425 degrees F.
Basic soup:
* Pour chicken stock into heavy sauce pan (1 can or 1/3 of the chicken soup carton). Add chopped onion, carrots and celery. Cook until tender.
Dump soup mixture into a blender or food processor and blend with roasted peppers. Mix, blend, purée until all is soup consistency. Return to large sauce pan. Add remaining 2/3 chicken stock and cook for about 10 minutes to heat. Add 1/2 cup heavy cream and salt, pepper and a pinch of cayenne pepper (and any other seasonings you’d like) to taste. Add 1/2 cup potato flakes or cooked minute rice to thicken.
Enjoy this recipe!
It is really good with grilled cheese or tuna sandwiches or as a first course before
quiche at a tea.
{my favorite way!}
This roasted red pepper soup recipe was originally shared with me by a lovely lady in one of my tea groups whose name was Barbara Spriggs. Oddly enough there were three Barbara’s in our tea group! There were eight of us in that 1st Wednesday Tea Group and we all loved this recipe so much Barbara graciously shared it with us. And now I share it with you. 🙂 Sharing with Wow Us Wednesday ~ Savvy Southern Style Inspire Me Wednesday ~ Adventures of Mel
I pass this “Queen Anne” home (just out of the picture) and it’s covered patio next to the garage at least once a week and this year the owner was outside… I saw his wisteria madly blooming, screeched the car to a halt, jumped out and asked if it would be alright to snap a few photos. Gloriously dripping with lavender blooms ~ I was blown away!
“Ethereal blooms
Verdant in light
Wave coquettishly
To all in sight…”
Barb Chapman, your blog author, April 2016
Ethereal spring! Verdant with blooms magical… Doesn’t your heart feel light when spring erupts in this majestic massive menagerie of blooming hysterics??
[F]lowers… adorn our lanes, fields and fells, and… smile upon us and cheer and bless us in our country rambles…. the lovely blossoms… kiss the clear brooks and mountain wells… ~James Rigg, “Preface,” Wild Flower Lyrics and Other Poems, 1897
I know I’ve shared this photo viaInstagram, but I hadn’t yet shared it on my little rambling blog, so today I thought I’d share this “bougainvillea bouquet” in its pick~up~truck~vase with you!
When I think about colors, especially here in the spring, I think about how much these colors influence our design decisions: what we are going to buy and wear this year, what fabrics we will pull out of our textile piles and sew, or new textiles we will buy from the fabric store to fashion into new pillow covers or tablecloths. And, I like to think about what colors we will put on our walls when what was that perfect shade of paint no longer looks so fresh and inviting…
Just turn to God’s wonderful
floral creations for renewed inspiration!
Isn’t it magnificent that there are soooo many color
choices and color combinations in flowers at our supermarkets
and at flower markets around the world?
I use these offerings as major sources of inspiration
when I head to the store to get a new can of paint!
When I visited England in 2005 and saw varieties of tulips
with ruffles and colors I had never before seen in America,
I was in no doubt as to why the tulip mania of 1636 – 1637
occurred. Speculators helped drive up prices for tulip bulbs to
incredible heights only to cause the world’s first
financial “bubble.”
I was totally inspired in my decorating upon coming home
and spent a good part of that year making floral chair covers
for my dining room chairs using colors found in
those tulips, though my favorite flower pattern is roses!
I also painted several rooms that year!
😉
Sometimes its the blooms we encounter growing uncared for
out in some hidden meadow, or those blooms found in our
neighbor’s yard that give our souls such happiness
and inspirations.
I confess that my favorite colors are the ones
seen in these photos. Your favorite colors might be found
in other flowers, or just in other rose or lilac hybrids.
And, that’s okay.
It’s good to know yourself and your tastes
when it comes to color inspiration.
Find your flower with its blaze of color and use it to fuel
your creativity!
[F]lowers… adorn our lanes, fields and fells, and… smile upon us and cheer and bless us in our country rambles…. the lovely blossoms… kiss the clear brooks and mountain wells… ~James Rigg, “Preface,” Wild Flower Lyrics and Other Poems, 1897
Let these beauties be your inspiration!
Changing colors within our homes
should be fun and a source of happiness!
Our new yard, for however long… 😉
So as spring bloomsbrighten your day,
let their magic work on renewing you…
Roll a little paint, sew a few new things this year ~ be inspired!
Sandy in the cute home she shares with her husband and tuxedo cat Guido!
Sandy is a great friend and the best cook and baker I know! So, when she had a Valentine’s Tea…
I was ever happy to come to her ethereal home as I love her decorating style! She loves Shabby Chic, Victorian, lots of florals and china with violets or any purplish flower transferred onto their pretty edges and sides.
Every tea Sandy has is different ~ she NEVER serves the same thing twice! This is a talent of God, I am sure, and not one that I really have. She keeps a diary of the different sandwiches, sweets and savories and desserts she has shared with all of her friends through the years, and I am always amazed that she hasn’t really duplicated a meal! She might remake a favorite sandwich but only because one of us requested it!
taken with my old iPhone 4
Sandy loves purple in all its shades and her guest bathroom
just embodies her Victorian tastes and
her love of the hue so perfectly!
Sandy knows how to “do Victorian Chic!”
Her former home had a living~dining room whose walls
were painted
all one shade of lavender,
but…
with a twist!
Paint tip: She used a paint roller as the “width” of her stripes
and
then taped~off every other one and used a clear glaze overtop
creating “another color” but really just the same color.
She did this LONG before it became popular
and
I was sooo in love with those walls!
(when I find my tea photo albums again, I’ll photograph a copy of those walls)
loved this little basket of “fingertip towel roses”
Decorating Tip: Fingertip Towel Rose~ tutorial So easy to create! * Just fold your washcloths and hand towels in half lengthwise (you can also fold them into thirds) * Begin rolling from the end with the tag on it (if you don’t cut them off; hide any raggedy ends) * Roll slightly off-center creating “the rose” * Arrange in your prettiest basket, on a tea tray, whatever lovely container you can come up with! Done! 🙂 Sandy is one of the original members of the Victorian Tea Society and has held various positions on the board. She is most notably known for hostessing the yearly Christmas and Spring Teas. She bakes thousands of scones and lovingly helps set the tables for each of the attendees.
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no Law. ~ Galatians 5:22-23
Our table set for tea ~ in the foyer between the kitchen/sitting areas and the covered patio
We weren’t in her new dining room today, but isn’t it lovely?! This was her “staging area” for today’s tea.
Sandy’s parlour
I have known Sandy through
two houses~worth and 17 years (I think!) of time now.
We’ve watched each others children grow up and get married,
we’ve shared a lot of tears and our frustrations
{Funny, the VTS started off that one was NEVER to talk
about anything political, controversial (hah!) or sad (my description)
and of course it evolved into “real life!”}
and
our love of tea, friendship, decorating, shopping together, loving the same
things and decorating magazines!
And, great friends take care of each other…
Sandy has most of my plants.
The ones you see lately in this blog are all new.
Only the inside violet that lives in the bathroom came
with me to our
“tiny home.”
Sandy opening a little gift from Gloria, seated.
Sandy’s super cute patio with her writing/sewing desk and a daybed for when one of her two “boys” comes home to visit!
This is Sandy’s shelf that I copied a pattern off of in 1999 to make one for myself. She recently painted hers white and it is a vintage piece with “true” 1/4″ thickness of wood (not like today’s 5/8″ pieces).
So as a style teacher,
Sandy has taught me sooo much about being a good hostess,
throwing a fun party and serving delicious dishes
that inspire others to cook!
A true friend with an incredible gift of sharing and
cooking from the heart, indeed…
🙂
***I’d love it if you’d “Share” my posts and “Like” my blog! I’m trying to grow my readership.
It’s the little thingsthat mean the most to me these days
honestly!
and a really gooey, light and chocolatey cake
is just about the
best. thing. ever.
and…
It inspired me to look around the house
to create a little tea party!
That’s when I remembered
all the lovely antique china pieces
in
Gramma Gini’s gun-cabinet-cum-china-hutch! {the hutch was her father’s cabinet and she inherited it.}
This tea set
is
Crown Ivory
The saucers show a blue back stamp, the teacups are completely blank, the dinner plates also have blue back stamps. {sorry the picture is sideways}
This set belonged to Gini’s grandmother and grandfather
on her father’s side.
There is no teapot, sadly.
Perhaps it was broken long ago
however,
the creamer and sugar bowl are here
and
feature in today’s tea party story!
😉
Also in the set are 8″ dinner plates, small bread plates, small fruit bowls and a large bowl. Really, really cute!
Emma Louisa (Hine) and Hearly Everett Fudge and their son Raymond Fudge, aged 5 Mr. Fudge was a conductor on the trolley line in Joplin, Missouri during those years photo circa 1914
Of coursethen I began looking up the name of the company…
Do you ever do that??
Then three hours goes by…
😉
I’ll keep looking for this company Crown but my guess from the backstamp is that Crown is an American company and this particular china pattern
was fired in the 1930’s.
This is my husband Charles down in the corner, circa 1975, and his sister Jodi on the right. Rear ~ Raymond Alvie/Alva Fudge, {Mami} Kate Daffin (Duke) Fudge, Mary Virginia “Gini” (Fudge) Chapman, Charles Robert “Pete” Chapman, Sr. Gramma says that the two dresses she made for Jodi and herself to wear to this Odd Fellows instillation dinner hung in the Sacramento County Library for a short time representing the Colonial period and the American Bicentennial.
Love this photo! My mother-in-law today. She is a joy and beautiful in spirit and body to me and to my hubby Charles. 🙂
*Will be sharing with:
Feathered Nest Friday ~ French Country Cottage
and others 🙂
***Thank you for joining here on Blogger; I’m happy to have your friendship!***
How many teacups do you have in your home? What are your favorites? How do you share yours?
Today I thought I’d share a few treasures with you…
Do you have teas for family or for special friends?
When my children were young, I volunteered but I wasn’t working outside the home then so we had lovely mornings during school breaks to bake chocolate chip scones and have a little tea party with lemonade tea, hot chocolate, or just a cup of milk. 🙂
Peter and Amy when they were almost 4 and 6 years old. We had a lot of chocolate chip scones back then!
Here is the Victoria Magazine recipe for their scones circa 1991-1992. It is and has always been my favorite scone recipe…
Oven Scones
1-3/4 cups self-rising flour 2 teaspoons sugar 1 teaspoon cream of tartar 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 cup unsalted butter 2/3 cup milk
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Sift together flour, sugar, cream of tartar, and baking soda. 2. With pastry blender or 2 knives, cut in the butter until mixture resembles coarse meal. 3. Slowly add milk, mixing with a fork until a soft pliable dough forms. 4. On floured surface, knead lightly with fingertips to form smooth dough. Roll out 1/2-inch thick. Cut in 2-inch rounds. (I make teapot and other shapes.) Arrange 1-inch apart on ungreased baking sheets. 5. Bake at 450 degree for 10-12 minutes until golden brown. Yield: 12 to 14 scones
***To ours, we always added a combination of dark and milk chocolate chips. I also make golden and dark raisin scones (those were for me, since I’m the only one who likes raisins here! :))
Serve with mock Devonshire cream, assorted jams and jellies. YUM!!! 🙂
***I had a Girl Scout troop back then. My daughter was in Brownies and we sometimes had Mother and Daughter Mother’s Day teas. (a post for another day!)
This one, above, however, was Amy’s 6th birthday tea. I sewed her dress for her that spring for Easter. It was finished Easter morning and we had gone up to Sacramento to be with Gramma and Grampa. and we had Belle, from Beauty and the Beast come and celebrate with us! One of my most favorite photos of Amy!!!
***
A favorite photo of our Peter ~ in the blue shirt is one we took when a friend Margie came over for lunch with her granddaughter one day. These were taken at our first home here in Murrieta. (basically the same house, living room-wise, just smaller than the one we have now) 🙂
Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
Yesterday I was inspired while out cutting roses to set up a little tea table for you!
I had wanted to set up our dining room table with a cute Easter-themed tea, but due to fixing things around the house, that just didn’t happen. 😉
Then yesterday while I was out clipping some of the long canes to tidy the Cecile Brunner climber, I saw all of the lovely blooms on our Winchester Cathedral standard…
You know when a rose bursts into bloom and it is just calling your name. Yep, that was what happened.
The Winchester Cathedral standard is the tall rose to the left along the fence, and to its right is a Mary Rose in between the WC and the monster Cecile Brunner climber.
Snip, snip, snip…
clip, clip, clip…
A quick trip inside to reclip stems under water,
plunk into a favorite vase,
and
voila!
Then a little birdie
flew
onto the table…
A sweet little bird I found last year at Michael’s Craft Store. I bought a green one for my daughter and this one for me.
Wedgwood’s Sarah’s Garden tea set and tray ~ not named for the current Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson (and formerly married to Prince Andrew, Duke of York), but for the first Duchess also named Sarah. Sarah Ferguson was spokesperson for Wedgwood back in the early 2000s.
Okay, I admit it. I am a completely nuts for royalty! When my friend Cheryl and I found out that Macy’s was hosting Sarah, the Dutchess of York, in a meet and greet back in 2001 We Had to Go!!!
I am not a royalty snob but I followed Princess Diana, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mum, Prince Charles and the whole crew back then buying and collecting People and Majesty magazines whenever they had Princess Di on the cover. She was my age and generation, after all… 😉 I, like many of you, was devastated when Princess Diana was killed in that terrible auto accident in France. I had seen her wedding to Prince Charles when I was 19 years old and in Germany on an exchange program.
From Leverkusen, at 2:00 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, the family let me take over the television and stare dreamily at the screen as Diana, shy and beautiful in her voluminous gown and sparkling from the camera lights bouncing off the pearls and diamonds in her tiara, she married her prince.
***
Flash forward to 2001… Meeting the Duchess was like getting to meet Princess Dianafor me… She was wonderful! Gracious and funny, Sarah Ferguson gave a talk about taking a china tea service wherever she goes as she really dislikes taking tea in a styrofoam cup! (Her lady in waiting would prepare tea for her when there wasn’t a nice tea service around.) She and the representative from Wedgwood showed us all how strong their bone china is ~ that you can quite literally flip a teacup over and stand on it! It will not break. It was really cool when the man did that. Everyone seemed quite impressed! Has something to do with the way the cup is shaped, and the strength of bone china. We still were impressed!
Having the same first name as the first Duchess of York was one of the reasons Wedgwood asked Sarah to be their spokesperson and to help introduce and promote this ethereal line of botanical china. Personally, I love the realistic look of the fruits and flowers, butterflies and bees! Soooo cute!
I use this china a lot at my teas. The salad plates are standards in my cupboard for serving cake, muffins, whatever! They are used daily.
The teacups come out when I want to visit with one friend and have a heart to heart.
🙂
Pumpkin scented candles ~ replacing some of my usual vanilla ones. These are my favorite candleholders!
My friend Kathy gave me the front-left, cream-colored one with the roses and tied tassels.
The others I have found in various shops like Tuesday Morning and Home Goods.
Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, signed three pieces of china for me: this large serving tray, the teapot, and another tray. Wedgwood uses a technique involving vodka to loosen up the glazing. Once loose, one can “write” on china with a certain type of pen, then each piece has to cure for a month or so to “harden.”
This Wedgwood Sarah’s Garden teapot holds eight cups of hot tea which is quite good when serving
many thirsty friends. 🙂
This week we are having super hot days ~ over
100 degrees Fahrenheit.So, it was nice this afternoon to come home
in the rain with the weather slightly cooled and have a nice cup of hot tea!
An ethereal piece ~ so lovely!
I am looking forward to many more fall days with tea and teacups, and you know Sarah’s Garden will be involved in there somehow…
For some of my other posts covering all subjects royal ~ click here and here.
~ As always, please feel free to “Re-post,” “Share,” and “Pin” from my blog, thanks!!! ~
It was my turn to host our monthly tea today and I was still setting the table as my friends from the Victorian Tea Society group I am involved with in Riverside County, CA, arrived.
But I was able to snap just a few photos before they arrived all the while as I was going on with getting the tea and scones ready to serve and out on the table…
Similar scones ~ photo “stolen” from a later tea tablesetting. 😉
For the first course I made cranberry and walnut/pecan scones then I tossed a summer salad shared by Courtney over on
French Country Cottage a week or so ago, made with spinach, sliced strawberries and fresh blueberries, crumbled feta cheeseand drizzled with a lovelypoppyseed and oil vinaigrette!
The salad was absolutely delicious!!!
*Here is the link to Courtney’s post here.
A little stack of silverplate platters and a teacup decorating the buffet.
Next, we ate smoked turkey and avocado sandwiches served
on mini croissants with fresh fruit salad sans dressing.
The beautiful rose strewn teapot given to me by the ladies when we first moved into this house in 2004 ~ it’s a favorite! Here it is paired in all of its peacock blue goodness with tea-stained linen napkins found in Idaho on a track and field trip.
It was the first time I used this cake pan; however, it turned out well for baking it for the first time!
This I served with powdered sugar
sprinkled lightly over the top of the cooled cake. {sorry, no photographs…}
The table set for our first course of tea and scones served with lemon curd and clotted cream.
The ladies enjoyed all of the courses and we talked about all kinds of things (like usual!) ~ about our kids and grandkids who was heading back to college (my kids) upcoming weddingsand school beginning soon.
A little rose craft I copied from one I’d seen ~ hanging off a floor lamp.
The peacock tea with blue and cream as part of the decorating
theme and inspired by these little note booklets I’d found
at Michael’s Craftstore, I believe.
The peacock feathers I was given by the occupational therapist
who works with the students at our middle school.
He and his wife have a gentleman’s farm and raise peacocks
and other farm animals ~ a perfect addition to this tea and
was part of today’s Peacock Tea inspiration!
Friends Gloria (left, on settee under the window), Caroline, Julie and Patsy ~ sitting on the just finished settee cover. We were having fun looking at blogs and Pinterest.
Julie has a cute glamper so we had to check it out! I hope this tea has inspired you to try some themes at your next teas and with your tablesettings!
