Sunday, October 26, 2008

October trip to Utah

Here are a few pictures from my recent trip to visit Brittany and her family and Lauren. I'm not very good at remembering to take pictures! I know Brittany has a bunch more.

Gaven is tasting the cookie dough from the Halloween sugar cookies we were making. I wish I had pictures of them cutting out and frosting them! It was sooo much fun. Too bad we burned two whole cookie sheets so they were un edible!
We took a trip to the Hogle Zoo! It was soo much fun for me because I remember going there as a kid and taking some of you kids there when you were little! I asked Steven to take a picture of me and Reid. Aren't we so cute! I love that Gage is in it, too! Gage called Reid "Uncle Reid" the whole time we were there! Ha, ha!




This giant elephant sprayed water out of his trunk. It was kinda cold that day so Gage stayed far away from the trunk! Smart kid!



This is the lion's mouth water fountain right at the beginning. Watch out! Gage and Gaven!





Oh no! It's got you!
Not many pictures but it's fun to see how big the boys are! I had such a great time! I also got to see Lauren and meet her latest "beau"! His name is Vern and Steven, Reid and I went to dinner with them and tried sushi! He is cute and nice and very insistant on spending time with Lauren!! Steven and Chris went shooting the day we made the cookies. I know Steven had a blast! Thanks, Chris for taking him! Reid and I had a lot of fun together. Brittany said we were like teenagers! I hope it wasn't too bad! And, we still like each other after spending 5 days together! What's next?




Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Recipes!!

Ok, so I finally typed up some recipes. Yeah!! They're kind of a random mix, and probably not the ones you guys may have wanted first, because they're a little more time consuming, but the recipes were easy to get to which keeps Samantha sleeping, so here they are and I promise I'll get more out soon!!

Chicken Enchiladas

Ingredients:
1 lb chicken (can also use ground beef) ~2 chicken breasts
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 medium onion chopped (I use yellow)
1 4-6 oz can green diced chilies (if I want it a little spicier, I will sometimes use 8oz)
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 cup sour cream
cheese (I just kind of add this, so no real measuring)
1 can corn
½-1 cup uncooked rice, just depends on how much you like, I usually use ½ cup so it’s not as dry.

Directions:
1) Brown chicken, add garlic cumin pepper and onion
2) In sauce pan, warm green chilies, soup, sour cream and cheese to taste
3) In tortilla place chicken mix, rice, corn and sauce. I will usually combine the corn and meat mixture so its one less step.
4) Place enchiladas in 9x13 pan, cover with remaining sauce. I also add some more cheese on the top and bake at 350 for 30 min or until sauce is bubbling.

~Sometimes Jon will ask for them to be extra saucy. So, I will do 3 cans of soup, 1 ½ cups sour cream and more cheese. I’ll also make sure I do at least 8 oz of chilies, we like them spicy! If you want it to be less spicy you can also reduce the amount of cumin and black pepper.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Ingredients:
3 chicken breasts, cooked and cubed
1 can black beans
2 cups corn (one can)
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1-2 tsp cumin (2 for spicy)
1 large onion diced (I don’t like as much onion, so normally just do a medium)
3 cloves minced garlic
1 can Italian diced tomatoes
1 can Mexican diced tomatoes
6 cups chicken broth (can also substitute 2 of the cups with beef broth)
1 tsp salt
1-2 tsp pepper (2 for spicy)
2 tbs oil to sauté the onion

Directions:
1) Cook and cube the chicken
2) Sauté the onion
3) Combine all ingredients and heat till begins to boil

Toppings:
Sour cream
Crushed tortilla chips
Cilantro (this is really good in it!)
Cheese
Avocado
Lime juice

~I also sometimes serve corn bread on the side

Chicken and Broccoli Casserole

Ingredients:
1-2 chicken breasts (I usually use one because I’m cheap and we like broccoli, but it’s pretty skimpy on the meat)
Broccoli- no real measurement, just add till it looks right
2 cans cream of chicken soup
½ cup milk
¾-1 cup mayonnaise, make sure you don’t use miracle whip…it’s really yucky!
1 ½ cup cheese
1 cup uncooked rice

Directions:
1) boil chicken ~25 min, cut into pieces and place in 9x13 casserole pan
2) Add desired amount of broccoli, I pretty much fill the pan up
3) In separate bowl, combine remaining ingredients for the sauce
4) Pour sauce mixture over broccoli and chicken combo.
5) Bake at 350 for 30-40 min, until sauce begins to boil
6) While casserole is baking, cook 1 cup rice
7) Pour casserole over rice

Italian Delight

Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef
1 can creamed corn
1 can cream of mushroom soup ( I use cream of chicken, because I don’t like mushrooms)
1 cup grated cheese
1 ½ cups sour cream
1 pkg egg noodles

Directions:
1) Boil noodles till cooked through
2) Brown the meat
3) Mix the two together with remaining ingredients and place in 9x13 pan.
4) Bake at 350 for 35 minutes

~Jon likes Hawaiian bread with this on the side

Potato Cheese Soup

Ingredients:
1 lb potatoes (~ 5 medium potatoes)
1 medium onion, chopped
¼ cup butter
½ cup butter
½ cup flour
4 cups milk
1 cup chicken broth
1 ½ tsp salt
2 cups grated cheese

Directions:
1) Cut potatoes up into small pieces and boil till tender.
2) Sauté onion in the ¼ cup butter, set aside. (Lately I haven’t been adding the onion and we like it better….so you can decide!)
3) In large saucepan make a white sauce: melt the ½ cup butter over medium heat, then whisk in the flour until well blended.
4) Gradually stir in the milk, chicken broth and salt.
5) Stir constantly until mixture reaches a boil, this seems to take longer than I think, or want it to. Just a warning!
6) Once boiling cook 1-2 minutes until thickened.
7) Add potatoes and onion.
8) Stir in the cheese
9) Cook briefly over medium heat; try not to let it boil.

~This seems to turn out better when the potatoes are really soft, that way some sort of mush into the soup. Also, I sort of adapted this recipe from a few different ones, so you could also use broccoli instead of potatoes. I’ve never tried it, but one of the recipes was for broccoli cheese soup…so it should work. We like to eat this with French bread!!

Ok, so I'm realizing that maybe it would have been easier just to email you the word file. I thought this would be good because that way you can just copy paste the ones you want, but... recipes take up a lot of space. So, let me know if any of you want the word file and also how you want me to give them to you in the future. Love you guys!!!

Monday, October 6, 2008

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