Pantry Dinner and Pumpkins

The weather has been quite icky out (thanks Hurricane Sandy) and since I knew there was a chance of flooding and/or losing power last night, I decided to make an early dinner. Problem was we didn't have a lot in the house for groceries and I had no idea what to make. After a few minutes browsing the web I came up with a healthy, warm, satisfying dinner that we had everything at home to make!

First I made some bread. I love making homemade bread, but I rarely have the time to do it the "right" way. I found this recipe that was super easy and GREAT with soup! The only change I would make is to try putting the herbs and seasonings right in the bread dough instead of only on top.

We very unceremoniously ripped pieces off of the loaf, so it doesn't look the greatest, but it had awesome flavor! This would be great to dunk in any of your favorite soups and it only took 30 minutes total.

The main part of our meal was thanks to kraftfoods.com, and it was the Chicken Tortilla Soup. I made ours with pork instead because we have so much of it in the freezer, and it was great! I am NOT a soup person, but I just let this simmer away a little longer than the recipe said and it thickened up nicely. I also added some hot sauce and a few spices (cumin, chili powder, and garlic powder I think) The hubs had 2 1/2 servings and probably would have eaten more it there had been any left ;)

As you can see I served ours with a sprinkle (handful!) of shredded cheese and a spoon of sour cream. YUM!

This weekend we finally got around to decorating some pumpkins. We bought them locally (and cheap!) and stopped off at the local hardware store for our supplies. I had decided to try paining pumpkins this year instead of carving them- much less messy!

I love the black on the pumpkins- I think it really makes them special! I was surprised at how easy it was too- I am not very artistic, but I managed to do the designs I had in my head and I think they came out pretty darn good! The only problem was that the hardware store didn't have tiny paint brushes, so I was trying to write the words nicely with a thicker one. Oh well :)