Creamy Cheesy Potato and Ham Soup

Ingredient List: 

• 9-10 Medium potatoes - peeled and diced
• 1 Broccoli crown - chopped very fine
• 2 celery stalks - diced
• 1/2 red onion - chopped
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 1 cup chopped ham
• 1 cup shredded cheddar
• 1 quart of chicken broth
• 8 oz cream cheese
• 1/2 cup half and half
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 2 tsp dry mustard

Step 1: saute your celery, onion, minced garlic and butter together.  As soon as they look finished, remember that your toddler is sitting on the potty chair and run through the house yelling "I'm sorry, bubby!!"  This will add the necessary time for the perfect amount of caramel color.

Step 2: Add chicken broth, chopped veggies and ham. Add water just to cover veggies. Bring to a simmer and cook until veggies are tender.

Step 3:  Scoop half of the cooked veggies and ham into a blender and blend until semi smooth. Return to soup. Make sure to spill approximately 1/2 cup of blended mixture onto the dog's head, as this reduces the blended amount to the perfect ratio of creamy and chunky.

Step 4: Reduce heat and add cheddar and cream cheese. Cook on low heat until smooth, mashing out any large lumps of cheese. Turn off heat and add cream.

Step 5:  Set the table and wait an hour while your husband works overtime, let the ice melt in the glasses and serve with watered down lemonade. ENJOY!!!

Caffeine Free

According to my sources, it takes 7 days to break a caffeine addiction, but only 2 days to create one. Scary, that.

I've gone more than 2 weeks without caffeine now and I'm still craving it.

Okay, so not *entirely* without caffeine. I have had a diet pepsi, a diet coke and a chai latte in the last couple weeks, but compared to coffee and Mountain Dew on a daily basis, that's relatively caffeine free.

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3-year-old Maddi just walked up to me and said "My butt is sore."  No explanation, no solution -- simply a fact that had to be shared.

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I've found that I talk just as much without caffeine as I do with, but that I don't type as much.

Blogging is hard, I haven't written a sentence of internet material and my facebook has been pretty neglected.

I've been tossing around the idea of doing NaNoWriMo, but I don't know if I can do it without afternoon iced coffees. I find so much inspiration in iced coffee.

I did start a Book of Gavin. I got the idea from Quinn's aunt who kept a journal for each of her boys as they were growing up. She would write in things they said and did that caught her attention, record conversations they had, write down decisions they made, etc. Both of her boys are married and gone now, but they still love to get together and look through their journals.

So I bought a nice, heavy, spiral bound journal and started writing. Now it lives on our piano and Quinn and I are both resolved to write into it.

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Revival was last week: Pastor Jay from Rochester came down with his wife, Linda, and we had meetings Friday and Saturday night and Sunday morning. Quinn usually works evenings so his schedule didn't let him attend the evening services, but I hauled Gavin to them all by my lonesome. Friday night was kind of a bust -- he was a sleepy wiggle worm and only lasted for about a half hour of the song/prayer service, then was fragile and temperamental for 30 minutes in the Mommy area, then a complete meltdown meant that we went home before the service ended.

I did manage to catch the drift of the evening, though. It was based on the verse "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."

Saturday night went a lot better. Gavin got a good nap and the service was an hour earlier than Friday night, so Gavin lasted through all but the last 10 minutes.  It was a real blessing, and visiting after the service was lovely.

Then, of course, Sunday morning was pretty wonderful. I love our Sunday services every week, but it's always nice to change things up with a guest speaker/song leader. Fellowship afterwards was nice, too. Someone set up the volleyball net and most everybody played volleyball for a few hours. It was gorgeous weather for it.

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Current addictions:

Lemonade

Open windows

Johann Sebastian Bach radio on Pandora

Sushi

iCarly

RZIM.org

NCIS

Super Simple Southwest Soup (20 Minute Dinner)

I made the easiest soup ever. It took 20 minutes, start to finish, though it would have taken longer if I hadn't had pre-cooked chicken.

And it is a recipe that I WILL repeat. I promise. It's super yum with endless possible variations.

That's my favorite kind of recipe. The kind that can be different EVERY time you make it.

Here it is, folks:

Yeah. It kicks patooty.

I know. 

Here's the low down: 

Southwest Chicken Soup 

Step 1: 

Simmer together in 1 cup of chicken broth for 5 minutes: 

1/2 onion, chopped

1 tsp minced garlic

Step 2:

Add

1 can Rotel of your desired heat.
3 cans of rinsed and drained black beans
2 cans of whole kernel corn
1 tablespoon of tomato paste
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1-2 cups chopped chicken
1 cup salsa

Step 3:

Simmer for 10 minutes.

Step 4:

Top with any wild variety of toppings that you want. Me, personally?  Sour cream, Monterrey jack cheese, fresh guac (made in the 10 minutes that the soup is simmering) and a sprinkling of fresh cilantro and a side of tortilla chips for scooping the black bean goodness right into my mouth.

Makes about a gallon of soup.

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Yep. It's that easy.   Now the deciding factor with this recipe is the salsa you use. I used the Herdez medium heat that you can get at Walmart because I wanted to save my On The Border salsa for chips.  It's a decent salsa with a mild cilantro taste and a decent little Serrano kick. Make sure you use a salsa that you like, though. You don't want your whole pot of soup tasting like ketchup with chili peppers. Ew.

Bagel Tutorial

Note: Fresh and hot out of the oven these had a yeasty, buttery taste that was pretty wonderful. That said, as they cooled I found that they tasted more like dinner rolls than bagels. This recipe that I found when researching the soured flavor of "real" bagels uses water instead of milk and malt syrup instead of sugar. My next project? Make AUTHENTIC bagels. In the mean time, these are pretty darn yummy. 

I don't typically do food tutorials for a few reasons: 

1. I have ugly countertops.

2. I tend to think food tutorials are gross.

3. I had a lousy camera that took yellowed pictures of everything making my food tutorials even grosser. 

More gross. 

Whatever. 

BUT, this week Quinn and I went through 2 bags of bagels in 8 days. That gets expensive really fast. I mean, I buy the fresh bagels from Wal-Mart's refrigerated section and they're only $1.50 a bag, but that's $12 a month on bagels that could be used elsewhere... 

...and if you splurge on Sara Lee then you're talking $20-30 a month... 

SO I decided to make my own. We pretty much only buy the plain ones because we love to use them for sandwhiches, so that's what I went for.   I dug around on Taste Of Home looking through their bagel recipes but most of them were full of fruit and spices. Then I found a basic bagel recipe with really good reviews, except a few people said it was kinda bland. 

So I altered it a bit. I added extra salt and sugar and used unbleached bread flour instead of all-purpose flour for the sake of a tiny bit of healthyness. I didn't use egg white to brush on when they were finished because I didn't want them to be sticky.  And lastly, I boiled them a full minute on each side because the first few I boiled just didn't seem quite right. Next time I want to boil them even longer... 

So here's the recipe as it was when I finished: 

• 1 and 1/4 cup warm milk 
• 1 tsp active yeast
• 1/2 cup butter (REAL butter, this is where the flavor lies) softened
• 1 egg yolk
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1 and 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 cups of unbleached bread flour

I used my bread machine on the dough setting and pulled the dough out after about 35 minutes of its first rise. (The recipe at Taste Of Home calls for 6-8 minutes of hand kneading. My machine does about 15 minutes of slow, gentle kneading before rising. I'm sure that would work with a stand mixer as well) 

Don't over-flour your work surface or they won't shape well, but punch the dough down on a floured surface and cut into 12 pieces. Shape each piece into a ball then use your thumb to punch a hole into it. 

Stretch the dough into a wide ring. Seriously. I could fit my hand through the center of each. They'll spring back into the right shape. Cover them with a towel and let them sit for 10 minutes. 

Drop two or three at a time into boiling water and cook for 45-75 seconds on each side. Remove with a slotted spoon and let them drain on a clean towel (or paper towels) before placing them on a greased cookie sheet. 

Bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes until golden brown. 

Feast and enjoy.

My favorite bagel sandwich:

1 bagel, split in half
Spread generously with cream cheese
Add fresh avocado slices
Salt and pepper
Add thin slivers of onion
A thick slice of tomato

YUMMO.

If you want bagels and lox then try this without the salt and pepper and with a layer of smoked salmon. Heaven on earth, that.