Easy + Healthy Spinach Cream

There's nothing quite like warm soup after a fun day playing in the snow. Need I say more?

Not too long ago, my in-laws cam e to visit us from Mexico. My mother-in-law made this delicious meal called Mole Verde. Essentially, it's a sauce made with greens and seeds. You serve it on top of meat, usually bird. I also like it on rice!

Anyway, we had a whole bunch of spinach and broccoli trunks left over so I thought it would be a good time to use up some of my homemade chicken broth to make a new and delicious soup for the upcoming winter months.

I just got around to taking pictures of it to share with you, hope you like it!

INGREDIENTS

Spinach (a handful)
1 small potato
Cream
Chicken broth
Water (as needed)

OPTIONAL

1 small onion
2 tbsp butter
Salt + pepper
Leftover greens

You want about a handful of spinach per 2 cups of liquid. Enough so that the broth covers all your greens so they can cook evenly. If you don't have broth, you can just use water, it'll just taste a bit different but still good, just add a bit more spices! As for the cream, just add as much as you like for the desired consistency, you could also use milk. If a lot of liquid evaporates, don't forget to add a bit of water!

DIRECTIONS

1. Chop the vegetables.
2. Boil everything.
3. Blend and add cream (or milk!). At this point you can also season with spices and butter.

I like to sprinkles a bit of grated cheese on top for added flavor, the I serve it with crackers. Enjoy!

What kind of soups do you like to make at home?

Life Lately

Hi everyone! Here's a little insight into my life lately.

Lately...I purchased umbrella lights. Actually, my husband bought them for me. He saw how stressed I was all the time about taking pictures during daylight (which is nearly impossible when you want to spend all your daytime playing with your babies), and decided it would be give me more freedom. Now I can take beautiful pictures late at night after my kids go to sleep and I can enjoy playing with them - worry free. I'm so excited to start taking more mockup pictures, I love creating messes!! I've been taking color coded pictures of random items in my house, trying to do pretty setups. It's seriously a lot of fun.

Lately...winter arrived and I've been enjoying the slower beat of things. Especially cuddling inside with my kids. We also put our 2 year old on skis for the first time this year and I wasn't sure he would be able to do it but he surprised me. He's actually quite good at it and he enjoys it a lot!

Lately...I've been hard at work updating my branding. I'm experimenting with my style, trying to define my colors and make my blog a little bit more user friendly. I'm doing everything on my own and it's quite the adventure; from coding, to web design, everything is made by yours truly. I'd love to hear what you guys think. Any constructive criticism?

Lately...my oldest had pneumonia and we spent 3 days in the hospital. It was really hard seeing him so sick. It was the first time one of my children was hospitalized and since I'm still breastfeeding my youngest, I was only able to be at the hospital with him during the nights. It happened just before we were supposed to leave for our Christmas vacation (which we had to cancel) so my husband was off work (thank goodness!) and he spent the days with our baby at the hospital. No one tells you how hard it is to explain things and entertain a 2 year old all day long (and night) when he's confined to a hospital bed. Oh, and by the way, when the nurse misses the intravenous 20 times in a row and they have to tie your screaming child down - not cool. His poor little hand was all swollen and bruised. He's feeling much better now and I'm glad that's over. We made the best of our Christmas holidays at home and took some much relaxation time.

Lately...I've been sporting my Rudsak coat. It's the Atelier Noir collection which can be found at Costco. It's a gorgeous design but I'm a bit disappointed with quality. I find it doesn't have enough filling and it doesn't really keep me warm enough. I've worn it for 2 winters and this time around I'm layering it with a shirt + sweater but next time around I'm probably going to go with a real Rudsak coat, even if it's more expensive.

Lately...I mastered my egg free gingerbread cookie recipe, which I'm planning on making a Christmas tradition, along with my homemade hot chocolate. :)

Lately...I've been spending a lot of quality time with both of my kids. I found it extremely difficult to be away from my kids so often when I returned to work after my first child. So this time around, I'm keeping both of my kids at home and playing with them as much as humanly possible (as in, I'm always on the floor). We have car races, screaming contests, story times, sword fighting, quiet eating times, lots of cuddle...and of course, the messy house that comes with all that. I'm absolutely and completely in love. Oh, and I stole my son's popcorn #random.

Lately...Em has been in a building mood, so we've been making lego villages and block towers.

Lately...Ez started crawling and man is this mommy thing getting excitingly fun. Em is such an amazing big brother. As parents, I guess we're never sure how things are going to work out between siblings, but I'm happy to report that in our home, it was love at first sight. I was a bit worried about what would happen when Ez started crawling and stealing Em's toys, but you know what? He's perfectly happy about it and he even changes his games to suit his younger brother's abilities. Isn't that amazing?

Basic Homemade Hot Chocolate Mix

 Dear winter, thank you for forcing me to slow down and enjoy the simple things in life.

With the increasingly cold weather keeping me inside, I've been taking every opportunity to cozy up with my kids in front of the fire place with some hot chocolate. I've never really been a big fan of winter, I prefer heat (beaches!!!), but I have to admit that since having kids, winter is a lot more fun; snow angels, snowmen, sliding, skiing... and most importantly, cuddling up on the couch! I also love the slower beat of things.

This year, for our Christmas tree decorating party, I wanted to give out Christmas themed party favors. That obviously meant gingerbread cookies and hot chocolate. I prefer things being personal and we all know I love making my own recipes. So I spent a bit of time trying to figure out the exact ingredients to my basic homemade hot chocolate mix. This is another one of those things where I usually just randomly dump ingredients together and just like magic, out comes deliciousness (that's a word right?). 

It turned out quite delicious and smooth. If you want it sweeter, you can always add a bit more sugar, but I find it just right this way. I have every intention of making tons of variations of this basic recipe so stay tuned!

Hot Chocolate Mix

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup cocoa powder (pure, unsweetened)
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp corn starch

To make the mix is very simple. Just pour all the above ingredients into a container and shake. If you want to make sure it's homogeneous, you can mix the ingredients in a bowl first.

When you're ready to have some hot chocolate, all you have to do is add 2 tablespoons of the mix to 1 cup of cold milk and bring to a boil on med-high, stirring constantly (it shouldn't take more than 2-3 minutes). You could also microwave it, but I prefer the stove.

And if you want to give this as a gift, don't forget to make a pretty label with the instructions!

Single Serving Homemade Hot Chocolate

If you don't want to make a big batch and prefer just making a cup as you go, you can use the recipe below.

Ingredients

1 cup milk
1 tbsp cocoa powder (pure, unsweetened)
1 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp corn starch