Blonde Moment Monday

• I've been making a lot of soups and salads lately, now that it's gotten cold. I love soup even in the summer, but even more so when it gets cold out!
• Of them, I made Pioneer Woman's Corn & Cheese Chowder. You can see her recipe here or I have added my own pictures and the recipe below too

Ingredients

• 4 Tablespoons 1/2 Stick Butter
• 1 whole Onion, Chopped
• 3 slices Bacon, Cut Into Pieces
• 3 whole Bell Peppers, Finely Diced (red, Yellow, Orange)
• 5 ears Corn, Kernels Sliced Off
• 1/4 cup All-purpose Flour
• 3 cups Chicken Stock Or Broth
• 2 cups Half-and-half
• 1 cup (heaping) Grated Monterey Jack
• 1 cup (heaping) Pepper Jack
• 1/3 cup Sliced Green Onions
• Bread Bowls

Preparation Instructions

In a large pot, melt butter over medium-high heat. Cook onions for a couple of minutes. Add bacon and cook for another minute or so, then add diced bell peppers and cook for a couple of minutes. Finally, add corn and cook for a minute.
Sprinkle flour evenly over the top and stir to combine. Pour in broth and stir well. Allow this to thicken for 3 or 4 minutes, then reduce heat to low. Stir in half-and-half, then cover and allow to simmer/thicken for 15 minutes or so.
Stir in cheeses and green onions. When cheese is melted and the soup is hot, check seasonings. Add salt and pepper as needed.
Ladle into hollowed out boules and serve immediately

It was soo good that I ate half of my bowl of soup before remembering to take a picture!

• I also made Pioneer Woman's French Onion Soup which you can find her recipe for here or get the recipe below

• Ingredients

• 1 stick butter
• 4 whole Large (or 6 Medium) Yellow Onions, Halved Root To Tip, And Sliced Thin
• 1 cup (generous) Dry White Wine
• 4 cups Low Sodium Chicken Broth
• 4 cups Beef Broth
• 2 cloves Minced Garlic
• Worcestershire Sauce
• Several Thick Slices Of French Bread Or Baguette
• 5 ounces, weight (to 7 Ounces) Gruyere Cheese, Grated

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Melt butter in a heavy soup pot or Dutch oven over medium-low heat. Add onions and cook, covered, for 20 minutes. Place soup pot into the oven with the lid slightly ajar to ensure the onions will brown. Allow onions to cook in the oven for 1 hour, stirring at least once during the cooking process so onions won’t stick and burn.

Remove pot from oven and place back on stovetop over medium heat. Stir, scraping off all the brown, flavorful bits. Turn off heat and pour in wine. Turn heat back to medium. Cook wine for five minutes, allowing it to reduce. Add broths, Worcestershire Sauce and minced garlic and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 30 to 45 minutes.

Butter one side of the bread slices and broil over low heat, allowing bread to brown and become crispy.

When soup is ready, ladle into bowl or ramekin. Place crispy bread on top, and then sprinkle generously with grated cheese. Broil until cheese is melted and bubbly.

Serve immediately.

• And if the soups weren't enough, I made pizzas with Ryder on Friday, and wanted a yummy salad to go with it, so I searched the internet to find the Outback Steakhouse chopped blue cheese salad recipe. If you haven't tried it before, you are in for a yummy treat! You can go here for the recipe, or check out my pictures and recipe listed below

Candied cinnamon pecans

• 1/3 cup pecans sliced-lengthwise
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 Tablespoon dark brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons butter, melted

Salad

• 3 cups chopped butter or bibb lettuce
• 3 cups chopped red leaf lettuce
• 3 cups chopped iceberg lettuce
• 1 green onion, chopped

Blue cheese vinaigrette dressing

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
• salt & freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese

Directions

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
• Slice each pecan half into at least three lengthwise pieces.
• Combine the cinnamon and brown sugar.
• Toss the pecans with the melted butter, then with the cinnamon/sugar mixture, making sure to coat them all evenly.
• Put the nuts on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for 5 to 8 minutes, until sugar is caramelized.
• Remove the baking sheet from the oven and slide the pecans off of the parchment to cool.
• Chop all of the lettuce into small bite-sized pieces; and rinse them with cool water.
• Slice the green onion.
• Whisk together the vinaigrette ingredients.
• Place the chopped lettuce into a serving bowl large enough to allow you to toss the salad.
• Add the vinaigrette and toss thoroughly.
• Sprinkle with the chopped onion.
• Break the cooled pecan slices apart and sprinkle them over the salad.
• Enjoy!

We had as much fun making the pizza as we did eating the yummy salad and pizza!

• It was a good, low key weekend for us. We woke up for Daylight Savings to end. We sure did! 2 hours EARLY! Scot and I are idiots and had tried to plan ahead by setting our clocks forward instead of back. Genius right? Needless to say during the 3am feeding, neither of us really knew what time it really was, but we knew that somehow Brynley actually slept an hour later than she normally did. So basically after the clocks were fixed after the time change, we went to bed at 7pm (normal time) and woke for the day at 8am (really 7am).
• Strangely enough, this is also probably why Brynley just a night or two ago, started changing up her feeding schedule routine and seemed to want to eat about an hour earlier than each feeding. We thought she was just going through a growth spurt, but maybe it was more than just a coincidence?
• Have you heard the news??

Jessica Simpson is going to be a Mummy! I thought this was a cute way to announce her pregnancy
• 
via Movie Insider
One like Arthur Christmas. This would be a really cute movie to get us into the Christmas spirit!

via Movie Insider
or Happy Feet Two would be really cute to see too!

• via Movie Insider
  November really seems to be the month for movies! Of course, as a Twilight fan myself, the new Twilight saga continues and I would LOVE to see this! Convincing Scot to see it with me on a date night is a whole other story though
• I finally gave in and started watching Once Upon a Time. When it first aired and I saw the commercials for it, I had no interest at all. Then after reading other blogs and seeing how good it was, I thought I would give it a try. Now I'm hooked!

• We bought the Cars 2 movie for Ryder. I was supposed to take him this past summer to see in in the movie theater, and it would be his first movie to watch in the theater. Plans changed and we never made it, but after watching it, I'm glad we saved it for a different movie. It had way too much James Bond action in it to hold his attention, and we would much rather take him to see one that would hold his attention better!