A Slow Cooker Kinda Day

   Hi Friends!

   Yesterday I woke up to the best text ever from my coworker:

best.message.ever.

   I love my job, but I love unexpected days off even more!  That's one of the perks of being a teacher, you still get to feel like a kid when schools close due to the weather.  We didn't get a whole bunch of snow but we did get some freezing rain which resulted in bus cancellations and some school closures.  I'm so glad that mine was one of them.  I was not looking forward to my drive in to work if I had to deal with slippery roads.

   I spent a good chunk of my morning trying to go back to sleep, giving up, and then cuddling with my Patchie girl while having a FaceTime session with my Godson.

Patchie's idea of cuddling: staring me down until I get out of bed and feed her.

   Whenever I have a "free" day off I always face the dilemma of what to do.  Do I treat it like an extra day where I get to do whatever I want or do I use this day to catch up on everything I didn't do during the weekend?

   Because truth be told I did nothing this weekend except for maybe this:

Girl Time!

   My sister was watching her friend's daughter this weekend so I went over to her apartment and we had some good old fashioned girly fun.  We watched movies (Parent Trap: the Original), ate junk food (chips and salsa), and did our hair and nails.  Actually, I did our hair, and the little one's nails.  She returned the favor by playing with my hair, too.  Did I mention that I've secretly adopted her as my little sister?  She is too cute.

   Anyway, I decided that I would do a bit of both: a tiny bit of chores, followed by whatever else I felt like doing including: not getting out of my pajamas, reading magazines, taking a bath, and watching a movie (Elizabethtown <-- I'm probably the only person who loves that movie.).  I also felt like cooking.  It was a soup kind of day so that's what I made.  But, I wanted my whole apartment to smell like soup so I turned on the slow cooker and threw all the veggies in there.  Mission accomplished:  my whole apartment smelled amazing.  I love using my slow cooker but I think I'm one of those people that should only use it when I'll be out for the day.  I must have checked on it a thousand times before it was done.  Don't worry, I didn't remove the lid.  <--- I had to add that because it's something that I would probably do and I know my mom would ask me after reading this.  Ha.  You know the saying "good things come to those who wait?"  I don't think I got the memo.  When I was little I used to sit in front of the oven waiting for cookies to finish baking.  That is, until my mom would tell me to get up off the floor.  But that's another therapy session story.
Read on for my recipe:

Root Vegetable Soup - Slow Cooker Style
Makes 6 servings

It's party time!

Ingredients:
1 tbsp oil
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 cup carrots, peeled and chopped into bite-sized pieces
1 1/2 cups celery, chopped
2 cups parsnips, peeled and chopped
1 sweet potato, peeled and chopped
4 cups vegetable broth
1/2 tsp herbamare (or sea salt)
1/4 tsp each: dried oregano, thyme, and rosemary
cracked black pepper to taste
2 cups kale, chopped
1 large tomato, chopped

Directions:
Place the oil, carrots, onion, and celery in a 4-quart slow cooker. Cover and cook on high to soften slightly while you prep the remaining ingredients.
Add the rest of the ingredients, (except for the kale and tomatoes) and stir.  Cover and cook on high for 4 hours until the veggies are tender.  Carefully stir in the kale and tomatoes and cook for 10 minutes.  Turn off slow cooker and serve.  Enjoy!

*By the way, next time I would cook this soup on low for longer but like I said above, I'm not really good at waiting!

Til next time...

Love,
Ves xx