Great day at the Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden's Orchid Festival

Today was one of total bliss for me, I got to be surrounded by some of the most gorgeous orchids in the world. I took my daughter Molly and off we went to see them. I was very good, I only looked and didn't go on a mass buying spree as I have been guilty of the past several years. The orchids never failed to impress their beauty on me.

These are just a tiny sample of the over 500 pictures I took at the festival. You will see several of them put into my Bliss Seeker Ink photo card collections and up in my Etsy.com store soon. As soon as they are up and my new etsy store is ready to go I will put the word out here, on twitter, and on facebook. Then you can buy yourself (and everyone you know for that matter!) the perfect orchids - all the beauty and none of the work!

Awesome Cold Killing Chicken Soup

Okay so I spoke too soon earlier this week, we've had a plague relapse around here and I'm so sick of being sick. So yesterday afternoon I whipped up some positively delicious chicken soup that is doing it's darnest to get me well!

Carin's Cold Killer Chicken Soup
This recipe serves 4 but can easily be doubled.

1 package Matzo Ball mix
1 1/2 containers 32 oz chicken broth
2-3 shallots minced
3 garlic cloves finely minced (you can omit or reduce the number of cloves depending on your garlic tolorance. The boiling of the soup really mellows out the taste of the garlic and gives great flavor)
1/3 - 1/2 cup fresh finely chopped parsley
6-7 baby carrots or 1 large carrot finely chopped
1 Tablespoon fresh chopped thyme
1/2 teaspoon fresh finely chopped rosemary (forget the knife I use kitchen scissors for this- easy!)
The zest and juice of 1 lemon, mince lemon zest super fine.
1 cup finely chopped or shredded chicken breast. (I used left over roasted chicken)
1 cup whole wheat rotini pasta. (I used Barilla Plus Pasta for this recipe)


DIRECTIONS

1. Make up the matzo ball mix per mix instructions up to the point of cooking the matzo balls. I make mini matzo balls, making the raw matzo balls no larger than a quarter in diameter.

2. All other ingredients except for the pasta go into a large saucepot and bring to a boil. Once boiling, add in pasta and raw matzo balls turn down heat to medium and let matzo balls and pasta cook for about 12-15 minutes.

3. Once matzo balls and pasta are cooked the soup is ready to eat. The matzo balls will be floating on top when done. If you want to really be decadent add a spoonful of goat cheese chevre over the top for a creamy yummyness to your soup.

4. The soup can easily be stored in the fridge or frozen. When you rewarm the soup you may need to add some more chicken stock or broth to the soup as pasta and matzo balls act like sponges with the remaining soup broth.

For the 15-20 minutes of chopping and making matzo balls it sooooo well worth it when you taste it. Nothing from a can could ever compare. Enjoy! Let me know how you like it!

Getting Inspired and the search for clarity

Wow, okay well that title seems like kind of a lofty statement. The last two and half weeks our house has been plagued by, well, the plague as I call it. It's been sickville and we've been up to our eyeballs in everything relating to being sick. I have two young children under 3 1/2 years old. And when they bring it home from their school or classes odds are one way or another you're going to end up with it. And boy have I. I was doing so well earlier in the school year of not getting or shaking off colds quickly and easily, well that has come back to bite me. I've managed to catch the last three colds my kids have had. It hasn't been pretty and it's made me cranky and restless.

So now that we're all on the road to recovery, kids are better and back in school and classes, and my husband and I are getting better but still kinda hanging on to the lovely cough this cold brought, it's time for reenergizing and a total break from all that is sicky related. Clarity, that's what's desperately needed around here.

What I'm feeling is time for mass spring cleaning! Disinfecting any sick germ related thing out. Clearing out the old to make room for the new to come into my life. I'm finishing up the taxes for last year, cleaning out the studio and the office, just yearing for lots of bare space to create new collections and be inspired to create vibrant new projects. For my friends and family, this is no shock, they know that I'm not completely happy if I don't have a million irons in the fire and flying mach 5 with my hair on fire.

So what am I craving you ask? Bright, bold, clean, beautiful, unabashed color! Forget pastels, forget muddy, forget cold unemotional color. Give me bright happy reds, stunning bright pinks, bright turquoise-y blues, bright spring grass green, crisp bright whites, deep navy blues, deep bright yellows, yellow orange, yes, I want them all! And I will happily play with them all after I finish the tax stuff today, finish cleaning up the desk and office that I took the strong arm to lat night and pushed everything on the floor. It's time for a clean fresh start so I can tackle my deadlines that have been pushed around due to being sick and be bright and productive and happy again.

It's been really cold for South Florida standards the last two days. Today it's bright and sunny, still cold but atleast it's sunny. Sunny is good.

I'll let you know my progress...stay tuned!