My First Post!

I have been thinking about making a blog for a long time now; the Pinterest Era, so to speak, has grabbed a hold of me as it has to so many others and I want to post things that could be helpful to others. 

A little bit about myself, I am a 2011 graduate of Michigan State University and was married that same year to my wonderful husband, Jonathon. After we were married, we re-located to Georgia per my husband's job and found out we were pregnant three months after we were married, yay!? After completing my Bachelor's Degree in the area of Education, MSU requires an additional year of an internship in a classroom in order to become certified. WELL, moving to Georgia and then finding out I was pregnant so soon after put finishing my certification on hold. I found a job at local pre-school and worked throughout my pregnancy; after having my son, my husband and I decided that we would be better off, financially, if I stayed home with him for a while rather than pay the daycare fees and work my $8.50/hour job.

I have babysat PLENTY in my teen years and lived on my for around four years prior to getting married which lead me to believe I would be well  suited for home-making. I was honestly looking forward to it, what could be better than staying home while my cooing little baby grew up? Baking pies, making crafts, having a sparkling clean home and a hot dinner on the table when my husband got home from work all seemed so---doable. Well, let's just say that while I do love my son unconditionally and absolutely adore watching him grow, it can get quite boring. Sitting around all day is definitely not my cup of tea and I need things to keep me busy. 

Besides the fact that I am a new homemaker, and even though my husband loves me dearly, he will be the first one to tell you that I cannot cook. I have a solid arsenal of recipes that I can make with my eyes closed but my husband telling me constantly that we eat the same things over and over has made me cheat on myself and go looking for recipes elsewhere. In turn, I usually try and fail a new recipe about 4 times a week. Once in a while I get one that squeaks by as edible; my husband eats silently and doesn't look at me and say, "Honey, I love you so much," which I know means, "This is crap but I am not going to come straight out and tell you." That takes me back to the drawing board and am constantly trying new things to make him simply eat silently and maybe say "yum" once in a while.

To make a long story short, I'm just a young momma and wife learning as I go. I hope that if you do read this and my subsequent posts, which will be about anything and everything, that you will be able to relate in some way and find them useful or at least entertaining as you laugh at my many blunders.

And now to the post. We are not well off in anyway, except for in love :), so I am always trying to make delicious dinners for a reasonable price. In Georgia, there is a restaurant called The Atlanta Bread Company and they have awesome creamy tomato basil soup. I wanted to try and make it at home so I looked up recipes on Google and Pinterest and realized that I had most of the ingredients on hand and got a good idea of how I was going to try and concoct my own recipe. Guess what?! This one wasn't too bad. 

Creamy Buttermilk Tomato Basil Soup with Cheddar Croutons

Soup

1 can diced tomatoes, drained
1 small onion, diced small
1 tbsp margarine or butter
5-6 basil leaves, julianned 
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp baking soda
Fresh cracked pepper and salt to taste

Crutons

2-3 pieces of bread

Butter or margerine

Shredded cheddar cheese

Garlic powder

Over medium heat, melt the margarine or butter in a medium sized soup pot. Add the onion and saute until soft. Add in the can of tomatoes along with the salt, pepper, sugar, and basil leaves. Let simmer on low for 5 minutes. Add baking soda and stir, the mixture will foam a bit but this step is important so the buttermilk doesn't curdle when added to the hot mixture. Let cook for 30 seconds and stir in buttermilk. Let simmer on low heat for 5 minutes and either leave it the way it is and serve if you like your soup chunky, mash with a potato masher (what I did) for semi-chunky, or blend in a blender and heat a little more in the pan before serving for creamy, smooth soup.

For the croutons:

Pre-heat the oven to 375F, cube the bread, spread out on a baking sheet and dot with butter. Sprinkle very sparingly with cheddar cheese; you don't want cheesy bread, you want crunchy croutons so be sparingly with the cheese. Shake on garlic powder lightly and bake for 15-17 minutes, or until the cheese is browned and the croutons are crispy.

Top the soup with the croutons and ENJOY!

I hope this works out for you. This is my first post so if I have ruined your dinner, I apologize. However, the name of my blog is Not So Suzy Homemaker, just remember this, haha! I cannot wait to post again! Thank you so much for reading!

XOXO,

Sara