Recipe: Kabocha Squash Soup

Yesterday I was watching repeat of TV show “Seinfeld” with my husband. And they are showing the episode of “Soup Nazi”. One of the best episode of Seinfeld!(You can see the short clip of it here)

Seinfeld “Soup Nazi” Clip

That was so funny and made me wanna eat a bowl of nice soup
And I found a Squash in our fridge.
The squash I used for this recipe is called “Kabocha”.
You can see the image of Kabocha squash here.
(http://www.recipetips.com/glossary-term/t--35847/kabocha-squash.asp)
In Japan, we eat this Kabocha squash for fall/winter season. It's sweet kind of squash.
Here’s how I made the Kabocha squash soup. You can make this soup in 20-30min.

Ingredients:
-kabocha squash 1/4
-milk 1 cup
-onion 1/4
-celery 1 stick
-butter 1 table spoon
-chicken flavor bouillon 1/2 teaspoon
-salt, pepper, sugar a little
-bay leaf 1

1.Cut the squash and scoop seeds out by spoon.

2.Wrap the 1/4 of squash by plastic food wrap and microwave it between 5-8 min. Duration will be depends on your microwave and how thick the squash is.
Poke a tooth pick to check how soft it gets.
If the tooth pick goes through the squash easily, it’s cooked perfectly!

3.While you are microwaving the squash, start to chop 1/4 of onion and 1 stick of celery.

4. Put 1 table spoon of butter in the pod and start the heat.

Once butter starts to be melt, you can put chopped onion & celery.

5.When the squash is cooked, scoop the orange part from it’s skin.
You can put it’s skin into the soup if you like, but the color of the soup would be yellowish green. Probably it’s healthier to put the skin into the soup nutrition wise…but soup looks better without the skin to my eyes...

6.Put the squash into the pod, then add 1 cup of milk.

7.Add 1/2 of chicken flavor bouillon, bay leaf, and a little bit of salt, pepper, and sugar.
Check the taste and if you need more spice, add some more.

8. Pick the bay leaf out from the pod and put whole soup into the food processor, or juicer to puree. You can eat without pureeing it. I just prefer to have a smoother texture soup. 

THAT’S IT!!!!!

Now ready to eat it!

Today I also made some dinner rolls.

BON APPETIT!!!!

(As the garnish, I add some cream and parsley on top of the soup)

Even though I didn’t buy a soup from the Soup Nazi, my tongue and stomach was so satisfied with this soup

New products on my Etsy shop

Today I am so happy that I could spend several hours to make new products for my Etsy shop!
Here's the new products!

 Needle Felted An Orange Flower Brooch

 Needle Felted Brooch A Blue Flower

 Needle Felted Brooch A Lavender color Flower

All of those flowers are made of 100% wool.
They are soft yet solid and give you warm, cozy feeling.
It fits the fall / winter season for sure :)

Besides, those flower brooches, I also made a brooch for upcoming fun event; Halloween!!!!!
I love Halloween! It is one of my favorite event!!!
And here's the finishing product.

Needle Felted Brooch Jack-O-Lantern

I am going to make more Halloween related jewelry / accessories to celebrate it.

If you are one of the Halloween lover, please stay in tune on this blog ;)

Needle Felted Brooch: Skeleton

Wow, it's already September!!!!!
I was quite busy past few months and there's no time & energy for writing my blog nor adding new stuff on Etsy.
Finally today I add a new product of mine on my Etsy shop! Hooray!

Needle Felted Brooch：Skeleton

Actually I originally made this for celebrating the opening of "Pirates of Caribbean" 4.(http://hirokohandmade.blogspot.com/2011/05/pirates-of-caribbean-is-back.html)

I tried to finish this as a brooch and wear it for the movie, however I didn't have enough time to finish it.
In the end, I've never wore it and it stayed in my unfinished project box.

Now I realize that it is good time to finish it because HALLOWEEN IS COMING!!!!!!
And here it is! The finishing product of skeleton brooch!!!!

You can put it on your scarf, or

You can put it on your cool hat. Wherever you like :)

I am going to switch my gear from "Summer vacation mode" to "Going back to my regular life".

That means more handmade stuff are coming up here and my Etsy shop!!!! (I hope...)

Transform: Summer dress–> Apron

Do you have any particular shop you like to shop at?
I have a bunch. And ANTHROPOLOGIE is one of my favorites.
Their designs are so unique and pretty. Every time I go into their shop, I easily spend an hour or two to check all of their merchandise.
Of course I love their clothes, but I also adore their aprons.
You can see their great designs of their aprons if you click here –> http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/catalog/category.jsp?popId=&navAction=push&isSortBy=true&navCount=264&pushId=&id=HOME-KITCHEN-APRONS
It is very inspiring and would be fun to cook, wearing it.

Today I was cleaning the clutter out of my closet, and found a summer dress which has several holes. I guess I washed it in the washing machine many times, and it got holes.
That gave me an idea: “Why don’t I transform this dress into an apron?”
And here’s how it looks.

The bottom part was a summer dress originally.
I added the top on it with some vintage lace.

I wish I could have better matching fabric for the bottom… but this bird printed fabric was all I had that was close to the color of the bottom.

Tonight I started to cook, wearing this, and somehow it made me more motivated for cooking. Maybe my husband will be happier than I, because of this apron

Transform: T-shirts

Last week, I purchased something I've wanted for quite a long time.
That is a MANNEQUIN!!!!
Well, actually I wanted a dress form to do some sewing, but I found a second-hand mannequin of my size, so I thought, "Why not?"
To celebrate it, I transformed a T-shirt as follows:

BEFORE

AFTER

You may remember this T-shirt from “Tutorial: stencil on T-shirts”(http://hirokohandmade.blogspot.com/2011/05/tutorial-stencil-on-t-shirts.html),originally it was a plain, pale pink T-shirt.
I stenciled some birds with white paint on it about 2 weeks ago.

And today I cut out around the neck wider and attached a motif of a feather. Cutting wider around the neck is not easy to do on the table. Definitely having my mannequin helped me cut it out evenly, nice and round.

Now it’s my turn to wear it!

What do you think? Does it look good on me!?

More and more strawberries!

This year, the weather in LA is very strange. We had some rainy days in May. That is very unusual in LA.
I am still wearing long sleeve shirts every day. Why it's not quite hot yet!?
What is going on with the weather these days!? I really hope nothing's gonna happen in 2012...

Even though the weather is strange, my strawberries are growing very well :)
They are small but they are so beautiful, aren't they!?

The other happy thing that happened to me was: I bought a CD of Ingrid Michaelson, whom I discovered through the internet radio station, Pandora.

I loooooove listening to her CD while I am driving my car. Her CD makes me happy & stress free, even though I am stuck in the traffic. That's very important, when living in LA :)
Here's one of her songs I really love:

"You and I"

And here's the live version, which Jason Mraz joined her. How nice!!!!

The Lyrics are very cute and nice, too.
I would like to share the lyrics of the first verse and chorus with you ;) 

don't you worry, there my honey
we might not have any money
but we've got our love to pay the bills

maybe I think you're cute and funny,
maybe I wanna do what bunnies do with you,
if you know what I mean

Oh, let's get rich and buy our parents homes in the South of France
let's get rich and give everybody nice sweaters
and teach them how to dance
let's get rich and build our house on a mountain
making everybody look like ants
from way up there, you and I, you and I, you and I,

 Check out the rest of her songs on her albums! You would like them!

Pirates of the Caribbean is back!!!!

Tomorrow Jack Sparrow will back on the screen!!!
Yes!!! "Pirates of the Caribbean : On Stranger Tides" will be released tomorrow, 5/20 (Fri)!!!
I love this movie series, even though I have a hard time understanding what they're talking about... Ha ha.
Is it just only me!?

To celebrate this movie's release, I made a skeleton with wool:

Needle felted Skeleton

I am going to make a brooch with this, and wear when I go to see the movie :)
Not only a brooch for me, but I'll make one for my husband, too!!!! I hope he doesn't mind to wear it with me to share the excitement! (Pirate voice:) "Arrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!"

And next weekend, another movie that I am interested in will be released!!!

That is.... "Hangover 2"!!!!!

Should I make a needle felted beer bottle next time!?