PUMPKIN SOUP!!

We made yummy yummy pumpkin soup tonight! Go homemakers.

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons margarine, softened
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 4 slices whole wheat bread
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 2 (14.5 ounce) cans chicken broth
• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F(200 degrees C). Combine butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Spread butter mixture evenly over one side of each bread slice. Place bread, buttered side up, on a baking sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes, or until bread is crisp and topping is bubbly. Cut each slice of bread into 8 small triangles or squares.
2. Saute onion in butter in a medium saucepan until tender. Add 1 can chicken broth; stir well. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes.
3. Transfer broth mixture into the container of a blender or processor. Process until smooth.
4. Return mixture to saucepan. Add remaining can of broth, pumpkin, salt, ground cinnamon, ground ginger, and ground pepper; stir well. Bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally..
5. Stir in whipping cream and heat through. Do not boil. Ladle into individual soup bowls. Top each serving with Cinnamon Croutons.

GIRLS NIGHT

It's a good thing we love each other... it was a right car ride up. Ashley was an awesome driver.

We loved visiting the Family Tree Center in Park City! Hayley and I wanted to find out exaclty how we are related... we didn't really get to but it was really fun. The two senior misisonaries were really nice :)


They even took our picture

We thought it would be fun to take pictures... like the really sweet ones on christmas cards. This is our version of a "Family Portrait."

C'mon, I couldn't be posting on this blog without including a picture of food... this is what we had for breakfast. Hayley knows how to make killer waffles and syrup. YMM

Hello Ladies!!

The garden wasn't a total bust! Ashley and I enjoyed a very red and delicious tomatoe the other day! Out of the six plants in our garden, only two of them produced ONE tomatoe each. Therefore, we decided to take many pictures of our tomatoe seeing as they are very scarce. We are waiting for Jessica to get back North Carolina to pick the other one (which by the way is THIS WEEK!!)

So us girls decided to plant the garden mostly for fun but also as a learning experience. We thought we could try it out and see what we could learn by trial and error. The main lesson for this season: Plant a garden in the SUN.

Kinda Lonely :(

Ashley and I picking the tomatoe.

Yummiest snack ever: Tomatoe with salt and pepper.

very mary chicken casserole

so called because this recipe is from my aunt mary. and yeah, i've been a huge slacker lately (but hopefully my work schedule will be much more regular starting next week and then i can re-organize my life). also, i've misplaced my camera somewhere in the last hour, so pictures will have to wait. but here is the chicken casserole recipe. as promised.

-3 to 4 pounds of chicken (but we just used 3 breasts and it works out fine)

-1 can cream of celery soup

-1 can cream of chicken soup

-8 oz sour cream

-8 oz pkg Pepperidge Farm herb dressing (stuffing)

-1 cup chicken broth

-1 cup melted margarine

Boil chicken in small amount of seasoned water (can use onions, celery, leaves, salt, pepper, poultry seasoning, garlic, salt, etc.) Remove meat from bones. Place meat in bottom of a 9x13" casserole pan. COmbine soups with sour cream. Pour over chicken. Press dry herb dressing lightly over the cream mixture. Slowly pour the melted margarine over the dressing. Top casserole with cup of chicken broth. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes covered. Then uncover and continue baking about 15 minutes until top is crispy and hot. Become addicted to the creamy, savory goodness. 

*also, don't get me wrong, i love h.a. with a large portion of my heart, but i feel like we are lacking in organization lately (probably mostly because of me and my crazy schedule the last 3 weeks) but i want to work on this so that we can live up to our fullest domestic potential!

Mushroom Chicken and Oreo goodness

So my mother-in-law makes this delightful chicken dish that I believe everyone should know how to make. It's fast, easy and absolutely delicious. I secretly hope everytime we go over there for dinner that she's making it. I decided to learn how myself! This was our attempt.

Directions straight from her:

• First brown your chicken with mushrooms and a little onion and garlic salt. (Mushrooms can be canned ones or fresh, either works great).
• Add 1 can of crème of mushroom soup, about 2 heaping tablespoons of sour crème, and add crème or half/half instead of milk to the soup mix.
• Salt and Pepper to taste.

On another note, last night my sister brought dessert for father's day dinner. To my surprise, this was one of the yummiest treats i've ever had and apparently really easey to make. I call them Oreo balls of goodness.

Ingredients:

• bag of Oreo's
• box of cream cheese
• chocolate chips

All you have to do is mix the Oreo's and cream cheese in a blender. When you have a dough-like substance, roll into balls. Then dip the balls in chocolate (michele had then so that the top part of the ball was covered, but I imagine you can put as much chocolate as you want). Put in the fridge until cool. Trust me, these are delicious!!

pretty as a picture...

So I'm pretty technologically impaired and I can't figure out how to go back into previous posts and add pictures. However, I promised a certain married woman that I would post these tonight, so here goes. And then maybe Jessica Day can show me how to fix this later :)

This is pretty much the best crust I've ever had- curtsey of Jessica. I will definitely be using the recipe again.

Ok, so maybe we're fatties. But we're happy fatties :)

And now for the not-so-secret garden...

We meant business.

Evidence of the onion-lawn.

This one always manages to get something smeared on that nose.

The after math. Yes, we get down and dirty and we wear cute shoes while doing it.

Banana Cream Pie

Monday, the first of June, we made banana cream pie. This was in part a celebration of Nicole and Casey being married for a month.

Actually what happened, was the previous week Casey complained that we needed to stop planning for our financial futures and start baking some pie.

So we did.

Banana Cream Pie is a tradition in my family, as well as one of Casey's favorites. Every Christmas, my family makes four banana cream pies. Two for Santa (a little excessive, right?) and two for the big family meals. Ashley and Nicole had never made a homemade custard filling before, so it was alot of fun showing them what my mom taught me.

We also did some cleaning, and fixed the vaccum. What power we hold.

Banana Cream Pie

Pie Crust

This pie crust recipie is good for two shells
2 1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
13 1/2 T butter
4 1/2 T ice water

Cut the butter into tablespoon size slices, and place into bowl. Add flour and salt. Using a pastry knife (or if you don't have one, a fork...or I just use my freshly cleaned hands) cut the butter into the flour until blended. Mix in the water, one spoonful at a time. Continue to blend crust until managable, being careful not to add too much extra water. Divide the crust into half, and place onto a floured surface to roll out. Once rolled and placed in the pie pan, using a fork poke holes in the bottom of the crust (to keep it from bubbling while baking). Bake at 324 degrees for about 10 minutes, or until golden brown around the edges. Place aside to cool.

Custard Filling-this recipie fills one pie shell
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
2 cups milk
3 egg yolks, beaten
2 T butter
1 1/4 tst vanilla

6 bananas, sliced

In a saucepan combine sugar, flour, salt and milk and cook on medium heat. Stir gently the hole time, until it begins to gently bubble. At this point, take a cup of the mixure out of the saucepan and add it to the beaten egg yolks. Mix well, and then add the egg yolks back into the saucepan. Continue to cook on medium heat and stir well, for a couple minutes until thick (think pudding). Be careful not to have the heat too high, and to be stirring so the bottom doesn't burn. Take off the heat and add the butter and vanilla.

Place some of the sliced bananas on the bottom of the pie shell. Cover with custard filling. Set aside to cool. Once cooled, top custard filling with remainder of bananas, and cover with whipped cream.

Enjoy!

How the Amish Make Friends

AHHH bread!!

Ashley gave Jessica and I a starter for friendship bread and after a week of sloshing and stirring and adding the specified ingredients, we were ready to make it into bread. First we had to make a trip to Macy's. Being a newlywed, my apartment wasn't exactly stocked with sugar, flour, vanilla and the like to be so culinary. On that same trip my husband called me with a very very important request. I was to pick up batteries. See, Casey usually works monday night but this particular monday was memerial day and he had worked all morning. He used this opportunity to catch up on his gears of war with his friend we call boone. Anyways, I come to find out he didn't actually need the batteries right then. Oh no, the batteries were only in case his controller died. He gave me some analogy about when the day of judgement comes, the day to prepare is gone... something like that. Anyways, he apparently went all boyscoutie and wanted to be prepared. Obviously we also had to get my husband enough diet coke vanilla to last him through the night.

Moving on, we each got our bowls and started baking away. By the end of the night there was flour and sugar everywhere. We found out my oven sucks. Half of the oven is hotter than the other. From now on we will need to rotate our baking experiments if we would like them to cook somewhat evenly. The bread was delicious and we been working on the tasty treat for a week.

We're not ashamed

Sometimes the feminist in me weeps when I have a strong urge to feed everyone around me. When I think about pie crusts instead of reading Women in Society (True story. Women's Studies was a bust) I feel ashamed.

But enough!

I won't be ashamed anymore!

I will plant gardens and embroider any scrap of fabric that is fortunate enough to cross my path! I will beat egg whites to perfection! I will make the lightest, fluffiest pastry this side of the Mason Dixon line! I will go yard saleing for my kitchen, and I will discuss color palattes for my living room! I will be the best homemaking feminist that has ever happened, and I'm taking Ashley and Nicole down with me.

Now that I got that off my chest, I'll start talking about the garden.

Nicole woke up Monday morning and decided right then that she would plant a garden. Nicole is a woman of action, so when she decides to do something it usually gets done that day. So Monday evening Nicole, Ashley and I went to get some gardeny things. We got tomatoe plants, green beans, sugar peas, cilantro, carrots, and zuchinni. We then made our way into Nicoles back yard where we weeded and de-rocked the portion set aside for the garden of the century. Fun fact about Nicole's back yard: she doesn't have grass. She has onions. Everything we pulled was an onion. It was incredible. I had never seen so many onions. Anyways, we got the soil ready for planting, and started. We made the cutest little mounds you ever did see, got super muddy, and ate creamy popsicles.

After we were done squealing and freaking out about how cute our garden was, we decided to make this a regular thing. See, Nicole is a newly wed. Like, the ink is still drying on her marraige certificate. She is an awesome wife, but feels that her cooking skills could be augmented. Ashley felt the same way, and I happen to know my way around the kitchen. Ashley can sew and make anything, and Nicole and I really want to learn that from her. Nicole is the most orginized person in the world, and her life is in such order. When she makes a plan it happens efficiently and quickly, so Ashley and I decided that we needed that skill. We decided to meet regularly to help eachother grow. Thus, Homemakers Anonymous was born.

To help us become better humans, we also take time after our lessons to read the words of the Prophets and Apostles. This particular Monday, Garden Monday, we read the talk " Personal Preperation for Temple Blessings" by Elder Russel M. Nelson. We talked about the stages of our lives that we are in, and how the temple plays a huge role in where we are, where we are going, and where we want to be.

Pictures will follow.

Homemakers Anonymous

Once upon a time Jessica Day (a founder of this "club") texted me on my way home from my honeymoon and asked me if we could get together. This is significant cause such an act is unusual for Jessica. Of coarse I said yes and Jessica and Ashley joined me in planting a garden. The rest is history. We now have plans for the rest of forever to enrich our lives and do things a little out of the ordinary that will help us learn and grow. We will blog these activities and show everyone our progress and how much fun we are having being domestic and becoming better homemakers.