Christmas Confetti Bean Soup in a Jar

What is on your "I Really WANT to Do" list for the holidays?

Really, is there such a thing as a list of Things You Must Do For the Holidays?  Kinda takes the fun out of it.

Besides listening to more seasonal music, I really wanted to make "soup mixes in a jar" for gifts.  It was unbelievable how many sites came up on a Google search for just this topic.

Here is the one site I settled on at this link because it was COLORFUL, EASY, and HAD LABELS.

Needed: 12 wide-mouth pint (2-cup) canning jars with lid and rings 14 pounds assorted dried peas, beans and lentils (at least 8 different varieties):

•  pink beans 
•  black beans 
•  baby lima beans
•  lentils
•  red lentils 
•  black-eyed peas 
•  red kidney beans 
•  pinto beans 
•  split peas 
•  great northern beans 
•  small red beans 
•  white beans 
• 12 Italian-flavor or beef flavor bouillon cubes 
• 12 bay leaves

Just put half cup of each bean layered in the jar topped with a bouillon cube and bay leaf and tie on a the printed label.  Like this!

I like soup, and almost any kind of flavor.  How about you?

If you made the soup exactly as directed, it would be pretty bland.  I'm thinking of giving a package of ham hocks along with the jars of beans, reminding the bean recipients that they will also need to add spices for a heartier, tastier version of this bean soup.

(Just had to add the Soup Nazi picture from the Seinfeld days.)

Linking to A Sheltering Tree ... because soup is something that can nourish a body and soul!

A Pause In Advent

Joining in with Floss in France who has offered to sponsor a Christmas Blogger Event Termed "A Pause in Advent," where we stop a moment and reflect on the spiritual season, this article from the late 1980's gave me pause to think about a different turn on Christmas. Perhaps you will like it too.  An excerpt...

I direct a Christian theater company and this Christmas season we have a play running called "0, Little Town of Bagels, Tea Cakes and Hamburger Buns." The play is about the contemporary experience of Christmas based on the fact that the people to whom Christ came that first Christmas are the same kinds of people that we are today. Bethlehem means "house of bread." Bread means bagels, tea cakes and hamburger buns. Christmas is not a remote event. It is not a memo tucked away in a history book and forgotten. It is a celebration for right now — for the people who are now, as were the people who were then — some of them hurting, some of them alone, some of them angry, some of them tired, some of them separated from their family, some of them ill. Unto those people, God sent his Christmas card.

Click on the highlighted title to read the entire essay O Little Town of Bagels, Tea Cakes and Hamburger Buns by Jeanette Clift George.  It is a thoughtful writing.

You can read others' Pauses in Advent here.

source

click here to join in the pause

Silk Painting: Poppies

A few hours to make the correctly sized frame to hold the fabric taut, two weeks to paint, a bit of a mess in the kitchen, two hours to steam the painting, and meticulous ironing of the silk resulted in this painting:

Dimensions: 33" X 22"

Close up of the flower in left upper corner

I am pleased with the results and learned more about using the gutta resist. This will go to our local frame shop (today?) to be protected by some sort of plastic overlay.

Thanks to the husband for finding the wood for the frame and for putting up with me in the kitchen while completing this project.  He still managed to make some wonderful meals while working around the paints on the counter tops.

Prior posts on my silk paintings can be found here and here.