What's Cooking in the Wildwood House

Hello folks! These neato little kitties arrived today in a box... they're salt and pepper shakers. Miss kitty is reading "The Talon Cutter". I think they might find themselves as a cake topper on our wedding cake. I'm not sure if they'll crush the cake though.


And here's a shot of Mr. Jake swiftly making history of our dinner, sweet potato soup! This recipe is so simple and delicious that I have to share it with you. We make it for two people, but you could certainly adjust it for more.

The Wildwood's Sweet Potato Soup:
ingredients-
-2 large sweet potatoes
-2 garlic cloves
-1/8 to 1/4 vidalia onion (depending on how big the onion is)
-pinch of cinnamon
-pinch of coriander
-small amount of fresh basil (optional)
-fresh parsley (optional)
-salt and pepper to taste (optional)
-hot water... enough to cover the sweet potatoes

Combine all ingredients and cook until the sweet potatoes are tender (about a half hour). Put in a blender and voila! It should be thick but not too thick... if it comes out like mash potatoes, add some more water. The key is the sweet potatoes, garlic, coriander, and cinnamon... if you have to do without some of the other ingredients, it will be ok, I promise. Salt is totally optional... I only add it about half the time. You can also modify this recipe and add a squash instead of sweet potatoes, which we do when squash is in season. Yum! We add cheese and sometimes a little bit of sour cream on the side, but if you don't, it's totally vegan.



I've also been cooking up some needle felted designs. My mom got me a bunch of wool at the Harvest fair so I ordered the tools with the hopes of making some little animal/critter type things. But I figured I should play around with it first... The brown one is my first attempt... I was just playing around with shapes to see what I could do. I cut out circles from felted sweaters for the backgrounds. The cream one I think I might turn into an ornament or pin. I'm still getting the hang of it, but it's pretty fun and not as hard as I imagined. Working three dimensional might prove more difficult. The little brush thing in the picture is what you jab the needle into... you can also use styrofoam, but it just breaks down over time, so I figured I ought to get something I could keep using. I'm thinking it might be fun to figure out how to make some slippers out of shrunken sweaters and needle felt into them.

Anyone have any delicious soup recipes or projects they've been cooking up? We're always looking for more vegetarian soups to add to the weekly line up.