soup for a group...

so i kind of combined a couple of soup recipes and came up with the pot of yumminess last night...

so here is the recipe...

2 lbs chicken boneless skinless chicken breasts

(mine were from star meats. i buy ALL my meat at star's meat market on tharpe. SUPER prices and WONDERFUL fresh taste.) you could use rotisserie chicken also and skip this step.

i cut the chicken into little pieces. added a good dousing of cumin and cayenne pepper (about a tablespoon of each) and cooked it on the stovetop with a little oil in the bottom of the pot for about 10 minutes. i then took it out of the pot and kept in in a little bowl while the next few steps happened...

while the meat is cooking dice up...

2 onions

2 green peppers

some garlic

add all those fresh veggies to the pot with a little bit of oil and cook that for about 10 minutes till it looks all mushy and the onions are translucent.

now add to those veggies...

4 cups of chicken broth

2 cans white corn (drained)

2 cans rotel tomatoes (drained)

3 cans white beans (drained)

and a packet of taco seasoning.

now throw the meat back in and let it all simmer for a while.

then close to eatin' time add 

12 oz cream cheese

and stir it around till it melts and melds with all the soupiness.

i served it with

grated white cheddar cheese

and a hunk of

corn bread

crumbled up in your bowl.

i would NOT have had the corn bread if i had not put the all call on facebook that i had a TON of soup. one neighbor brought some corn bread that she picked up on her way home and joined us for dinner. i would advise you to make this, invite a neighbor or two or three... and have them bring corn bread. 

i also had another neighbor that was home sick with a nasty cold and her son came and picked up a couple of bowls of soup for her and her family for dinner. feeding the masses via facebook! 

so the 5 of us ate this. a neighbor came over with cornbread. i sent 4 servings to my sick neighbor. and i still have some left over. a good bit left over. i would say it feeds 12-14. 

enjoy... 

time machine. in a cup...

every winter i start to crave this russian spiced tea that my mom would make around Christmas time. 

i take a sip and i can close my eyes and pretend i am 10 years old again. it is like my own personal time machine. in a cup. 

it is so easy. and makes a great gift. in fact the raa pto moms made little baggies of the mix for all of the teachers (based on my suggestion. i am so influential.) i usually make a batch of it around thanksgiving and give it to mrs. gardner who hosts my weekly Bible study. not because i am a really nice person but because i like to drink it at Bible study. and all my Bible study ladies (or which i am the youngest by a good decade) remember making the mix back in the 70's. then they can climb into their cup sized time machine and visit the years of polyester pants also.

i made up another batch of it today because i gave the rest of my stash to my dad. he hadn't had any in years. he needed a cuppa time travel...

and maybe you do too. or maybe you just need a cup of yummyness. either way here is the recipe.

i tweaked the original recipe a little bit. here is my version...

lea's spiced russian tea mix

2 cup powdered tang (which is really the whole plastic container. so don't measure.)

1 cup powdered lemonade 

2 cups unsweetened instant tea (or the whole glass canister of tea. no need to measure. this isn't a real defined kind of thing.)

1 cup sugar (or less if you like less sweetness)

1 heaping teaspoon ground cloves

2 heaping teaspoon ground cinnamon

in a large ziploc bag, combine all the ingredients. make sure that bag is sealed and then shake well to mix. pour into storage container. to use, stir 2 tablespoons powder into about 8 ounces of hot water.

a cruise ship recipe for you...

they served a chilled soup as an appetizer every night and millie ordered one EVERY night. along with her RARE sirloin steak. her iron level is fine. not sure about her cholesterol level.

her favorite was the first night, a chilled coconut nutmeg soup. 

i found the recipe online. is a recipe with ice cream in it really called an appetizer? hmmmm...

no wonder she licked the bowl clean. i have promised to make it for her sometime soon. since it makes enough for 40 i will either cut down the recipe or invite everyone who reads this blog over for chilled coconut nutmeg soup...

the maasdam's chilled coconut nutmeg soup

this recipe below serves 40: (so you might want to adjust the proportions down unless you are REALLY HUNGRY. or making this for millie.)

1 US quart Coconut Ice Cream 

24 oz. Canned Cream of Coconut Milk

1 US quart 1.5% Milk (WHAT?!?!? is that skim milk? i think i will use skim milk.)

32 oz Plain Yogut

1  1/2 Quart Lowfat Milk Tetra Pack (this is the same as evaporated milk. thank you google.)

3 oz pure vanilla

2 ounces ground nutmeg

1 1/2 lbs flaked coconut

Combine all the above ingredients into a large blender (ummmm, who has a blender THIS LARGE?) except the nutmeg and flaked coconut. Blend well until smooth. Remove and place into the refrigerator and cool well (at least overnight).

Ladle soup into chilled soup cups and garnish with coconut and nutmeg. 

eat 40 bowls of it. enjoy...

a dinner story...

here is what i forget every summer... 

and it is the reason why we don’t eat very well in the summer. because i don’t cook much in the summer. because i don’t have a plan.

once i have a plan, i am GOLDEN. i get it done. i will check off those boxes or die trying.

pretend that is an actual photo of me cooking. ​

and once i have a general overview of the week, then i will make a more specific plan for the meals. then i execute that plan. i actually procure the groceries. and i cook the dinner. whenever people ask me what is the key to cooking dinner every night, i tell them something that i read once that i have found to be SO true...

know what you are having for dinner by 10 a.m. that morning. 

dinner begins in the morning. or it doesn’t happen. at least round these parts. once 2:40 hits and i begin driving in circles all around the town with kids in the car, dinner better be settled in my mind and ingredients ready to go (or in the crock pot) or it is going to be another cereal night. or as i like to call it “d.i.y.” dinner. we do that a lot in the summer. great on the grocery budget. great for clearing out the pantry. but it is hard on the family time and health quotient. and after several nights in a row, it just gets old. you need a hot, planned, all together at once, eating the same thing dinner.

if i know, if it is planned, if it is written down down somewhere, then it gets made. and eaten. and enjoyed.

and cleaned up by my kitchen crew of three. they are excellent at kitchen cleaning.

i am not a last minute kind of gal. well, not a spontaneous cook at least. i have to have a plan. and once i do... watch out world. 

i have recently come to realize (i really should have realized this YEARS AGO, it would have really helped me get things done) that i do much better with external motivation (a list, a plan, something written down, a reminder) than internal motivation (just the feeling that it has to get done isn’t enough for me). 

i think that is why i have quotes and poems and Scripture up all around my house. external motivation. 

why i have schedules printed up and laminated. external motivation. 

why i set alarms to go off on my iphone for all my things that have to be done. external motivation. 

why blogging is good for me. external motivation. 

why every night as i make myself fold all the laundry i keep repeating, “no laundry left behind”. external motivation.

 why after i clean something, i take an extra look and  say, “stick the landing” and do something extra. external motivation. 

or why the website “home sanctuary”  and it’s thematic little “fun” task of the day is so much fun for me. external motivation.

you many not need so much external motivation. but i do. in fact this whole blog post is a result of external motivation. i got a nice email from a friend of my parents who reads the blog (most likely to check up on me and make sure that i haven’t gone totally CRAZY) and it was so motivating because she says that she misses it when i don’t blog. so i was externally motivated to add another entry this week! see how effective that external motivation is for me!

and for an externally motivated gal like me, isn’t it great that God externally and internally motivates us. He is ALL things to ALL people. His Word read daily externally motivates me (especially when i memorize Scripture) and His Spirit internally testifies to the Truth.

so are you internally or externally motivated? and how does that factor into your day...

the sweet nectar of summer...

the BEST part about our kids going to camp in north carolina is the opportunity for purchasing cheerwine on our sojourn to the mountains. we buy a case for each kid (and one for mom) and then try to ration our cheerwine consumption over the next year. 

so this year, all on his own, maxx came up with a cheerwine chart. with little cheerwines to take off and add under your name whenever you indulge.

they may never go to harvard. they may never keep their rooms neat. they may grow up to be the kind of people who don’t make their bed everyday. they may never write a pulitzer prize winning anything. they may grow up to be even GREATER failures than their mother. they may move as far away as possible and talk once a week to an expensive therapist about their mother and all that she did to totally RUIN their lives (and they will have plenty of stuff to talk about). and they may not even become functional members of society....

but my children can make a cool chart. 

sigh. sometimes a mother can be proud of those little accomplishments. sometimes it is all she has to go on that she has influenced these children in ANY way at all other than for their detriment.

to celebrate the last night before school began (and by “celebrate” i mean “i cried a little bit”) we made cheerwine floats. they were SUPER yummy and reminded us of all the GREAT tastes of summer. 

and then we put our cheerwines on the cheerwine chart. legalistic little chart checkers that we all are.... yes, the therapist might need to cover that one day...