Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. The night before Thanksgiving my sisters get together and we make small cookies to put in cornucopias by our plates for Thanksgiving. We had a good time and listened to Christmas music and watched "27 dresses".

We went to my parents house for Thanksgiving and had some of my moms side of the family over. We had a good dinner with plenty of good food.

We left to go visit Robs family after dinner and had a good time. Robs sister Jen, was there with their new little daughter and she was sooo cute. I was not able to hold her, because of a little cold I am getting over. Bummer, but we will see them this next week. This year has been a tough year for us, but we have received so many blessings and have much to be grateful for. We are so excited for the holidays, since we missed everything last year. I am grateful for the trials we go through to help us become stronger, and grateful to my Heavenly Father who never leaves our side. I am grateful for a loving husband, who is so PATIENT and ENERGETIC. He just makes me laugh. I am super grateful for good health.

All-Time Favorite

My favorite meal is Broccoli and Potato Soup, I was grocery shopping yesterday and bought some fresh broccoli and potato rolls. I had some red potatoes in my fridge that were still good(I don't ever cook with potatoes) so I thought would make potato soup. It has been more than a year since I have made it and with it being cold and rainy and dreary outside, I thought it was the perfect opportunity. It turned out better than I have ever made it so far. Mmmmmmmm!!!! Soo good!

If any of you want to make it, it is really easy, here is the recipe.

Broccoli and Potato Soup


Cut up about 6-7 medium potatoes and put them in a pot and boil for about 20min. Cook until you can poke a fork in the potato and it comes out easily.
While that is cooking, you will also cut up some broccoli in bite size pieces and cook until tender.
While the broccoli and potatoes are cooking, you will make the white sauce.

White Sauce - (6-7 potatoes)
1/4 cup butter
dry onion
MELT above ingredients together in pan and do not burn.
1/2 cup flour
MIX enough flour in until moistened with the butter.
1 cup cold milk
WHISK while pouring. Mix until there are no butter/flour chunks.
1 cup milk
1 1/2 cups water
STIR on medium until thick.
1/2 cup hot water
2-3 tsp. chicken boullion
MIX water and boullion together and then add to white sauce.
1/2 cup grated cheese
HEAT through good and then add grated cheese.
Take off heat and when potatoes and broccoli are done, add sauce to soup.

I like to keep my potatoes and broccoli in separate pots and just add the sauce to each pot. Then I can mix how much potato or broccoli soup I want to my own bowl.

Eating dinner with my HUBBY!

We haven't ate at our dining room table very much since we bought it. We have been eating in the front room for quite a few months. So, I have been trying to eat at the table from now on. And one of the best things about eating at the table is that I get to sit across from this hansom cheesy smiling face. I absolutely love it. He is so cute.

I am so lucky.
Since he is feeling better, he has been happier than I ever remember. Its the Happy in LOVE happy. He just makes me feel so good!
Love ya, honey!

Trying new recipes

Lately Rob and I have the hardest time thinking of what we can have for dinner, so I have been trying some new recipes. I found this enchilada recipe on the back of a food storage paper for dry beans that I got in Relief Society a few weeks ago. It was really good. And better still, Rob liked it!

Enchiladas

1 pkg. flour tortillas
1 medium onion
1 can enchilada sauce
1 can tomato soup
1 (8 oz.) can tomato sauce
1 can refried beans
1 lb. ground beef

Brown meat, season and add a little chili powder. Add 1/2 of the soup and 1/2 of both sauces to the meat. Into tortillas put 2 tbsp. refried beans, 2 tbsp. meat mixture, some grated cheese, and chopped onion. Roll and lay flap down in a casserole dish or cake pan. Combine the rest of soup and sauces and pour over enchiladas. Sprinkle with remaining cheese and onion. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes.

I also found it useful to spray the pan. It stuck pretty good. Enjoy! I halfed the recipe and still had a ton.

The next recipe I tried was from the Kraft Food and Family magazine. I love this magazine, because there are easy recipes with simple ingredients.

Taco Soup

1 lb. extra lean ground beef
1 onion, chopped
3 cans (15 1/2 oz. each) mild chili beans, undrained
1 can (14 1/2 oz.) whole tomatoes, undrained
1 can (14 1/2 oz.) corn, undrained
1 can (8 oz.) tomato sauce
1pkg. (1 1/4 oz.) Taco Bell Home Originals Taco Seasoning Mix
1 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 cups cheddar cheese

BROWN meat with onions in large saucepan, drain.
ADD all remaining ingredients except cheese; stir, breaking up tomatoes. Bring to a boil. Simmer on medium-low heat 5 min., stirring occasionally.
SERVE topped with cheese.

Enjoy!

Canning Chicken

They had chicken on sale at Macey's for 1.19 a pound. You had to buy 40 lbs, it came all in one box. There were four separate bags inside. So I got some on Tuesday. I had to cut all the fat and stuff off of it. So Wednesday morning I started and only got about 10 lbs. cut, then I started to get hungry and sick feeling from the poultry smell. So I stopped and did some more later after work. Wednesday night I went to my moms right after work and cut some more and started the canning process. It is alot easier canning when you have a gas stove. I had to wear my apron, so I did not get any chicken goo on me.

For canning chicken all you have to do here in Utah is cut the chicken into strips. I washed the canning jars in the dishwasher so they were freshly clean. I squished the chicken in the pint size jars to about an inch from the top. You don't need to add water. They will make their own juice while cooking. Then you put the lids on and put them in the pressure cooker with a couple of inches of water on the bottom. The first batch I did, I got 18 pint jars in the canner. After all the jars are in the canner, put the lid on and latch it down. The stove should already be on. The vent at the top should be open and once the steam starts coming out really good, then you set the timer for 10 minutes. After the ten minutes, just pop the vent down and start watching the pressure, get it up to 13 and a 1/2 pounds and then set your timer for 75 minutes. Whoa! Get a chair out and sit down, it is going to be a long time.

This is the part I remember as a kid when my mom would sit a stool in front of the stove and watch the pressure gauge. You cannot let it get below 13 1/2 lbs. or you have to start the time over. You don't want it to get to high either.


So, here I sat for an hour and a half last night watching this gauge.

During this process, my mom had gone to class and so my dad made some spaghetti for dinner. There was some french bread leftover from a previous dinner so he decided to make garlic bread. He buttered and seasoned the bread and I turned on the broiler to LOW, and moved the rack up. We stuck it in and a little later I realized somebody better check it(you really should watch it, doesn't take very long), I asked my sister to check on it and you probably guessed it. They were a blazing, my dad rushed in and pulled them out of the oven and blew the flames out and ran outside. The smoke detectors did not even go off. Amazing! Well, no garlic bread for dinner. That is okay, everything else was good.

When the 75 minutes were up, I turned off the stove and my dad moved the pressure cooker to another burner to cool down. This takes a little while. Probably about a half an hour. When the pressure gets down to zero, I took a fork and lifted the vent a little to see if there was any pressure left inside, there wasn't, so I lifted the vent all the way up and waited two minutes. I then lifted the lid off and lifted all the jars out to cool down and seal. They all sealed, yeah!
From start to finish it took around 3 hours. Today is Thursday and I just finished the last of the chicken and got 16 more jars full. I had never thought I would cut up so much chicken and I am glad I am finished. I also thought I was done canning this year, I think now I am really done for the year.

Here is all 34 jars of canned chicken!

Cute

I found this cute stuffed animal at Sams Club the other day and just had to get it for when we have kids. It is built to sit on and can hold up to 140 lbs. of weight. I love it!

Fun with our nephew

My sister in law came down for some photo shoots and brought her son, he was able to stay the night of the 17th with us and we had so much fun having him over. Saturday morning we were expecting to wake up around 6:30, and I was surprised to wake up at 7:40 and Brian was still asleep so we went in and woke him up. We asked what he wanted for breakfast and he said waffles, so waffles it was. As I was making waffles Mike(Robs brother) came over and ate breakfast with us, they had fun playing MarioKart, and then we headed to the park with Robs gas powered remote control truck. That truck moves fast. Brian loved to just run after the truck, even though he never could catch it with it moving so fast.

We also played on the playground. The only slide he went down was the blue twisty slide, the others were still wet from the cold mornings.

Mike left about 12:40 to pick up Heidi from class. We then made Brian a PB and J sandwich with some apples. We went outside and Brian had fun going back and forth to what I was doing and what Rob was doing. I got a lot of my garden taken out with Brian's encouragement that I was doing good. When Rob and I were putting up some stuff to seal the garage door Brian was entertaining himself. He had fun finding rocks and then cleaning them off with the water in the back and then lining them up in a row. He had a process that they go threw of drying. It was fun.

Then we sat out on the lawn and ate an icee watching for Grandma Taylor to come. Grandma Taylor played Mario Cart with Brian and they had fun, then grandma had to leave so Brian continued to play. It was time for dinner so we asked Brian what he wanted, he didn't want spaghetti, but he saw a box of hamburger helper in the cupboard and decided he would like that. So, we made the Bacon Cheeseburger Hamburger helper. I also made some corn. He ate it all up and then mom came and Brian was sad to go. We had a fun day. We were able to talk with Heather for a while and then they headed home. Thanks for a fun day Brain.

Girls Night with my mom and sisters!

A month ago my sister wanted to see the play "Little Women" and she wanted to get tickets early so we could get good seats. So, last night my mom drove and picked all of us up and we went to Firehouse for dinner. I love Firehouse. I got there garden salad with foccocia bread. Yum. After dinner, we headed to the Theatre and found our seats. We sat on Grand Tier 5, the front balcony to the side. I really enjoyed the play and even almost cried in a few parts. The play ended a little after 10:00p.m. We decided we would head over to Maceys to get a ice cream cone and got there and they were closed up. So we wandered around and it was getting late so we were acting silly. It was late so we headed home. My youngest sister was sitting in the front seat(she is the smallest), and I was sitting in the middle in the back with my other two sisters. Squishy, Squishy, we had a good night and it was fun to get together and chat and enjoy each others company. If you want to see a good play, then go see "Little Women," plays until the 27th.

Garden is No More

Our garden is officially dead. As of Friday morning's frost, everything died. The only thing that was still thriving were our zucchini plants, and we already had a ton of zucchini in the house so I just let it go.

Most zucchini recipes call for two cups grated zucchini, so I grated all the zucchini and put them into bags. I ended up with 8 bags of zucchini. Whoa! So I found a zucchini recipe and made a batch. It turned out really good. I got six small loaves from one batch. Yum.

This week must have been my bread making week, thursday night I made wheat bread (did not rise very well, but still tasted good), and Friday morning I made Oatmeal bread, and then yesterday afternoon, I made zucchini bread while it was super windy and snowy/rainy outside.

Crazy 8's

8 Favorite TV SHOWS... (don't have TV, but I do have a few I love to watch)
1 - MONK
2 - Psych
3 - Chuck
4 - Stargate Atlantis

8 Favorite MOVIES. . .
1 - Iron Man
2 - The Princess Bride
3 - Enchanted
4 - August Rush
5 - Chronicles of Narnia
6 - Anastasia
7 - Monsters Inc.
8 - Cars
Love good disney movies!

8 Favorite RESTAURANTS . . .
1 - Costa Vida - shredded chicken salad mmmmmm. . .
2 - El Sol - whenever my family went out, this is where we went.
3 - Chili's - guiltless chicken sandwhich with fresh veggies and black beans, so good.
4 - Papa Johns - favorite pizza place
5 - Subway
Thats All

8 things that HAPPENED YESTERDAY . . .
1 - Took TONS of cucumbers to my parents house, and left with more than half of them.
2 - Made a dental checkup appointment.
3 - Watched Chuck with Robert!
4 - I exercised while Rob watched Heroes (not into that show at all)
5 - Hung two paintings I bought for the kitchen. Took forever to get them both evenly aligned.
6 - Rob was so happy and excited!!!!!
7 - Went to work
8 - Shopped at Ross, did not find anything.

8 things I'm LOOKING FORWARD TO . . .
1 - Thanksgiving
2 - Christmas
3 - handing candy out on Halloween
4 - Spending time with family
5 - Spending a weekend away with my hubby.
6 - Rob says : flying his helicopter
7 - Rob says: getting things back to normal
8 - Rob says: receiving a package in the mail that he has been waiting for.

8 things I love about FALL . . .
1 - crinkle of leaves under my feet
2 - crispness in the air
3 - Apple crisp
4 - wearing layers of clothes
5 - going shopping for winter clothes
6 - spending time with family
7 - cuddling up in a blanket with a good movie, and my husband
8 - all the changing colors

8 things on my WISH LIST . . .
1 – Repainting our basement family room.
2 – Getting furniture for our basement family room.
3 – A BAby
4 – An organized house that stays organized. (and clean)
5 – "Salt Lake Temple with red leaves" painting for above my mantle.
6 – Blinds and Drapes for my family room window.
7 – Panoramic Logan Temple picture
8 – New clothes

8 people I TAG . . . 1. Whoever!