Chicken, Rice & Veggie Soup Recipe

In my continued efforts to overcome my dinner-cooking rut, I created a new soup recipe that was inspired by a recipe I saw on The Cottage Home blog. Alex seemed to enjoy it and Natalie chowed down on some after I put it in the food processor. Actually, it looked like her bib ate more than she did, but that's what happens when Daddy tries to feed her. Hehehe!

Chicken, Rice and Veggie Soup

Whole fryer (or 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts)
6 carrots
1 med onion
4 stalks of celery
2 cups long-grain brown rice
6 chicken bouillon cubes
salt & pepper to taste

Boil whole fryer for 2 hours. Let cool and remove meat from the bone. You could save time and cook chicken breasts in a pan and then cube or shred it if you preferred. Saute carrots, onion and celery in a pan with olive oil until carrots are soft. While vegetables are cooking, cook rice according to package directions (mine took about an hour to cook). I strained the chicken broth and then used it as a base to my soup, but you could use a few boxes of broth from the store. I added bouillon, salt and pepper for flavor. Once rice and veggies are cooked, throw them and the chicken into the broth and heat to a simmer. I pureed several cups of soup to freeze for Natalie, Alex and I each ate a bowl and there were 4 quarts of soup left over.

Pinterest Recipe Success

Like millions of other people around the world, I caught the Pinterest bug and can all too easily spend way too much time pinning diy project ideas and recipes and such that catch my eye. Unfortunately, I've had little success cooking most of said recipes - especially dinners. We just end up not liking the things that every other pinner supposedly declares to be "the best meal you've ever eaten!" Desserts have turned out great, thankfully! On top of that, I've been in this recipe funk for a while and just can't come up with meal ideas that a)sound appetizing and b)are quick and easy. So, as many a housewife have started to do, I turned to Pinterest for inspiration.

A few weeks ago, I made chicken that claimed to be coated in the exact KFC original recipe spices and was baked instead of fried. It was good, Alex claimed that he liked it better than the chicken fingers that I spend way too much on at the grocery store, but I wouldn't agree with the recipe creator who claimed to have figured out KFC's secret formula. I made a TON, so I froze the leftovers for a night when I just don't feel like cooking. All in all, I'd probably make the dish again, but because of the mess, it won't become part of a regular rotation. If you'd like to try it, here's the link to the recipe.

I also tried out these baked meatballs to accompany some homemade spaghetti sauce. Alex has been asking for homemade meatballs since forever, and I just hadn't gotten around it making some. These were ok, but my dad's are better. Maybe I'm biased, but I plan on asking for his recipe next time. (And, I know I should have just asked for his recipe in the first place, but I kept forgetting!) I also made a ton of these (like 50 or 60!) and froze the extras.

Earlier this week, I tried out these cheesy chicken, bacon, ranch foil meals. Now THIS is a recipe that I will make again and again (as long as my dearest husband doesn't change his mind as he is apt to do and decide that he's not crazy about this dish!). It was fast and easy and only dirtied 2 dishes (the cookie sheet that I baked the bacon on and a mixing bowl). My only "complaint" is that it turned out a little too salty, but I had improvised when making my ranch dressing, so I think it would have been less salty if I had had all the ingredients on hand to make it like usual.

So, that's it! Have you tried any recipes that you've found on Pinterest that were worth putting into your regular dinner rotation? If so, I'd love to try them, too!

Two New Recipes and a Prayer Request

My mom had knee surgery on Wednesday, so I took off work Thursday and Friday to help her out around the house. She had this exact surgery four years ago on her other knee and ended up with a staph infection, lots of pain, limited mobility and two more surgeries. This time around, we hoped for the best, but braced for the worst considering her history. Thankfully, God answered our prayers and she came through wonderfully. She could even take a few steps without crutches the day after surgery. Because of her speedy recovery, our time together was spent napping on the couch (pain meds did the trick for her, pregnancy did the trick for me! LOL), baking new recipes, shopping online and just hanging out. It was much better than being at work for those two days, although I almost felt guilty that I was actually having fun and not really having to do much to help my mom other than fetch the occasional ice pack or crutch that was left in another room.

On Friday, we made stuffed banana peppers for lunch and pull-apart cinnamon sugar pumpkin bread just for the heck of it. Here's the link to the bread recipe. It calls for rum to make a glaze to go on top, but we used vanilla extract instead because I don't care for the taste of rum. It seemed like it took all day to make the bread because it had to rise twice, but the actual effort to mix the ingredients and all that was minimal.

Here's the recipe for the stuffed banana peppers. Ladies at work made these for breakfast one morning and we couldn't get enough (they're not really a breakfast food, but these girls eat Ramen noodles and Chef Boyardee at 9 a.m., too!). I was in pregnancy craving heaven!

Stuffed Banana Peppers

15 banana peppers, sliced long ways with seeds removed (can be hot or mild variety)
8 oz cream cheese
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar
1 cup shredded monterey jack (we used a mix of colby and monterey jack)
1/2 cup real bacon bits (we cooked real bacon and made our own "bits")
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp chili powder (you could add more if you like a lot of kick)
1/4 tsp garlic powder

Mix ingredients and spoon onto the banana peppers. Bake at 300 degrees for 20-30 minutes and enjoy! Another great variation would be to just use the mixture as a cheese ball and eat with crackers. We had a little left over in the mixing bowl and ate it with garlic flavored pita chips from Aldi. It was awesome!

I wish I could take four-day weekends every week. Last week I was off Thursday and Friday because of my sinuses, so I'm kind of getting spoiled to the whole shorter work week thing. Speaking of shorter work weeks, the time is approaching for me to tell my boss my plans for after Natalie is born. She asked me to give her plenty of heads up on whether or not I'll be returning to work, so I've been planning to talk with her in the middle of October. I know in my heart what I want to do, and I also know what financial position we would be in, so I'm scared. I don't want to be, but I still am a little deep down. There are a lot of things to consider and I don't want to jump into anything without knowing all the ins and outs.

I'm speaking the Word over our family, our marriage, our finances, our health, and speaking life instead of death and curses over our future even though I'm afraid. God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). It's funny, but that scripture always came to mind when I started praying for Natalie after I found out that I was pregnant. I imagined that it was due to the fact that mental illnesses run in Alex's family and we wanted our family to be of a sound mind, literally, but now that I think of it, that scripture applies to this situation, too. I want God to be in control of my decision-making process, not my fear. I don't want to make God small in my eyes because He is able to do exceedingly, abundantly more than we could ever ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). "And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work" (2 Corinthians 9:8). I like the New Living Translation of that verse: "And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others." Whether God provides all our needs by me working full-time, part-time or working at home as a full-time stay-at-home mom, the truth is that He will provide. If you think of it, please pray for us as we seek God's will in this situation. I want to have peace about the decision, whatever it may be, and know without a doubt that we are following His will and not our own desires.

Chicken Divan....in a Pan!

Maybe it's because I'm pregnant, or maybe it's because I've been making the same dinners for the past two and a half years, but I couldn't take anymore of the same old foods. The thoughts of eating some of our "old faithfuls" practically brought back the morning sickness. I've tried four new recipes in the last week and a half when, until now, I hadn't tried a single new recipe in months. Granted, some weren't anything special or glamorous (french bread pizza, my first pregnancy craving!) and one was practically a bust (homemade chicken alfredo), but tonight, attempt numero quatro, was a winner!!!! Makes me wanna yell, "Winner, winner, chicken dinner"! Or not....but you see how excited I am about finding a new recipe that is more than just a "Oh, that was ok for one night, but I don't think I'll ever bother to make that again" meal and is actually something that I could put into a regular rotation?! Alex and I each had two servings and there's still enough leftover to take for lunch tomorrow and freeze for another dinner. It all started when a friend let me borrow this book:


Rotisserie Chickens to the Rescue by Carla Fitzgerald Williams

I looked through it and found a few recipes that I thought Alex and I would both like and got all the ingredients at the grocery store this weekend. Tonight, I made Chicken Divan, which is essentially chicken, rice and broccoli casserole, but this recipe changed it up a bit by cooking it all in a pan on the stove top.


I didn't use a rotisserie chicken, but cooked some chicken breast that I already had on hand while the rice and veggies were cooking. That's one thing I liked about the book - you don't have to use an expensive rotisserie chicken for all the recipes if you don't want to. In this case, it wouldn't have saved me any time making dinner if I had actually used the rotisserie chicken instead of cooking it myself. (Other recipes would definitely be more labor intensive if you cooked your own chicken.) Later in the week I'm going to try mac n cheese with chicken and broccoli. Usually chicken and I have a love/hate relationship, but seeing how it's less expensive than steak and I currently have an abundance of it in my freezer, I'm trying to find new ways to cook it that don't gag me. Literally.

If you're in a cooking rut, pull out those recipe books that are lonely, just sitting there in your cabinet, or ask a friend to borrow one of theirs and have at it! And if you have any good recipes that use ground beef, let me know! Besides making taco salad, chili and hamburgers, I have no idea what to do with the stuff and I have three pounds of it in the freezer!

Yummy Sausage Bread

Growing up, my mom often made her own whole wheat pizza crust for our traditional Friday night pizza dinners. Somewhere along the way, she started making sausage bread to change things up a bit. This stuff is so good! We even took it on long road trips to snack on in the car. Since Alex isn't sentimentally attached to the recipe like I am (read: he's picky!), I decided to make it for myself while he's out of town.

Sausage Bread - total prep & bake time: 30-45 minutes

1 pkg refrigerated pizza dough
1/2 lb ground sausage (or turkey sausage)
2 cups Mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup frozen chopped spinach (optional)
1 tsp garlic powder
Marinara sauce

Personally, making homemade dough without a bread machine (like mom did) sounds too complicated, so I opted for Pillsbury thin crust refrigerated dough. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cook sausage, drain grease from pan. Roll the dough out onto a rectangular cookie sheet. Sprinkle half the cheese longways down the center of the dough. Sprinkle sausage on top of the cheese, then add spinach and remaining cheese. Sprinkle the top with garlic powder.


Fold the dough over the filling and seal up the ends of the dough, forming a long roll. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Cut into slices, dip in marinara and enjoy! It looks like this baked a little too long, but once it cooled down, it wasn't even crispy. My mom's dough was chewy, which I liked better than the refrigerated dough.



Aren't my photography skills amazing?! It's almost embarrassing how sorry these pictures are...Anyway, there are so many different ways to change this recipe up. You could leave out the spinach and add peppers and onions, or use pepperoni instead of sausage. My mom always made a plain sausage and cheese one for me and my brother and one with veggies for her and my dad. A co-worker used Steak-ums and made a philly cheese steak version and dipped it in A1 sauce. There are endless possibilities! I hope you enjoy it like I do!

Apple Dumplins a.k.a. My New Food Addiction

Before Thanksgiving, I bought four Granny Smith apples to bake with. I originally intended to just fry them up as a side dish for dinner, but that never happened, so a lady at work suggested that I make "dumplins" instead (as a former New Yorker, I really want to call them "dumplings", but I will go with the flow here). At first, I thought the Mountain Dew/Pillsbury crescent roll combo sounded gross compared to from-scratch home-cooking, but I was wrong. Oh, how I was wrong! I LOVED them!!! I loved them so much that I had THREE helpings. And tomorrow I will finally break in my eyesore of a stationary bicycle to burn off all the extra calories. Here's the recipe:

Apple Dumplins

1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup butter
2 packages of crescent rolls
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 granny smith apples
1 12 oz can Mountain Dew

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Melt butter with sugar and cinnamon on stovetop. Peel apples and cut each into 8 slices. Put one slice inside of an individual crescent "triangle" and roll up, pressing edges together to seal the apple inside. Roll all apples up inside the crescent rolls and place in a greased 9x13 inch pan. Pour butter/sugar/cinnamon mixture over the top of the dumplins and then pour Mountain Dew on top of that. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until golden brown. Pig out!



I improvised a little because I had 4 apples and didn't want to use two whole sticks of butter (it's a precious commodity in our house at the moment. Long story.). I also had one package of jumbo crescents and one package of regular, so I wrapped 2-3 apple slices in each crescent. There was alot of juice in the pan in the end, but, since it was just for the two of us and not for company, I really didn't care. This is such a tasty treat for a cold Fall night. Or a Winter night. Or any night. They're just so good I'm going to have to go eat another one.

Autumn Baking Has Begun!

It seems like everyone around me has been anticipating the arrival of Fall for months now. I've never gotten that excited about decorating for the season, but perhaps that because orange and yellow are two of my least favorite colors and I couldn't care less about Halloween decorations. Now, my perspective has changed and I'm excited to make some Fall decorations for my house and have even enjoyed wearing Fall colors (usually I'm big into Spring and Summer colors). My favorite thing about Fall is making different foods. I'm branching out and trying new soup recipes and can't wait for holiday baking. I got my last issue of Taste of Home magazine in the mail the other day and found a few yummy cookie recipes that I'd love to try. One was a cross between a cinnamon roll and a snickerdoodle, both of which I absolutely adore! Oh I can feel the extra pounds around my waistline now! Ugh!

Alex had asked me to bake a carrot cake the other day, so I bought carrots and cream cheese and then ended up using the latter to make a cheese ball. Oops! A week later, I did bake him a cake from scratch. Thank you, Betty Crocker! I told Alex that I was Betty Crocker and he thought I'd said "Betty Crockett" as in "Davy Crockett". Hilarious! Anyway, for my first from-scratch cake, it turned out delish! I followed the recipe but instead of using 1 cup of oil, I used 1/2 a cup of sour cream and 1/2 a cup of oil to make it moist. I could have used a whole cup of sour cream, but then I wouldn't have had any for my taco salad later that night!



I probably added a little too much milk to the icing because it was ooey-gooey, but still oh so yummy! Making carrot cake wasn't as hard as some people make it out to be. I mean, they complain about shredding carrots, but that's what a food processor is for! We live in the 21st century and don't have to do everything by hand anymore! My mother-in-law bought me a big Black and Decker food processor for Christmas a few years ago and I've only used it a handful of times, but it's worth it. What kinds of things do you bake during the holidays?

Blueberry Bliss

So, after another long case of writer's block (or maybe I just lead a boring life?!), I'm back to try this again. Yesterday, my mom, mother-in-law and I went blueberry picking. It brought back memories of trips to a blueberry patch in Pennsylvania with my grandmother as a kid. After two hours in the hot sun, I only managed to pick 3 pounds of berries (and I only ate one single berry in the process!), but that was enough to freeze a quart and have some left for cereal and Blueberry Boy Bait. My mom used to make this coffee-cake type recipe when I was a kid as well, and she brought along the recipe so I could make it after we were done picking berries. It's super easy:

Blueberry Boy Bait

2 tsp baking powder
2 c flour
1 tsp salt
2/3 c shortening
1 1/2 c sugar

Mix ingredients together and set 1/2 cup aside. Add 2 eggs to 1 cup milk and 1 tsp vanilla. Mix well and add to flour mixture. Pour into a well-greased 9x13 pan and sprinkle 1 to 2 cups fresh blueberries on top. You can push the blueberries down into the batter if you want. Sprinkle crumbly mixture on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 40-50 mins or until toothpick comes out clean. You can also use other berries or peaches instead of blueberries if you prefer. The recipe states that wheat germ or bran can be added for more nutrients, but it used to drive me crazy when my mom did that when I was a kid! She tried to sneak it into everything!



I've now had three helpings of this treat and need to burn off some calories prepping the family room for new paint. I sense another blog entry in the making...