Cheesy Chicken Potato Soup

So, I am trying to get back into doing the house-wife duties... Having a little trouble, 5 out of 7 of the meals I made this week were NASTY! But I did make some really yummy soup, its so darn cold here all I can think about is hot chocolate and warm soup. Most the time I want to wear my coat and gloves in the house! I don't think Rikard mentioned this when he asked me to move to this country, its just not right...How cold it is!

Anyway onto the recipe!


Ingredients:
 - 4 medium potatoes diced
- 1 qt. Chicken broth (you can use water, I just like the richness of the broth)
- Butter (as much as you want... I prefer at least a stick)
- 4 Tbs. Flour
- 1 Cup Milk
- 1 1/2 Cup shredded cheese (We don't have orange cheese here in this country so I used a pizza mix so what ever you have in the fridge)
- 1 Onion Diced really small
- 2 Sticks Celery
- Paprika
- Salt and Pepper
- Chopped Chives

Directions:

- Boil the potatoes in the chicken broth until tender, don’t drain.
- In frying pan cook onions, celery and butter until soft.
    -Add flour and mix
    -Add milk and stir until it thickens and remove from heat.
    -Stir into the potatoes and broth.
    -Add shredded chicken.
- Season with paprika, salt, pepper, and season salt.


I added ½ cup of sour cream just to make it a little creamier. Rikard says it’s the best he has ever had… and really simple. By now I am sure he is getting sick of all my soups but I am tackling Chicken noodle tomorrow! YUM!

Love,



Dawnie

Baked Beans (Dena's)

I hope you don't mind me just taking your stuff and posting it, but these are so yummy and every time I make them I get a request for the recipe. So here goes, please feel free to tweak this post however you want to :)

1 lb ground beef
1 onion diced
2 cans beans (one dark one light kidney beans work well)
1 can tomato soup
Mustard powder ~ 2 tbs
Brown sugar ~ 2 tbs
S&P to taste

Adjust the mustard and sugar to how ever you like things to taste. As usual, I also add some garlic.
Brown beef, drain and add onions (and garlic if using) cook until onions soften. Add the remainder of the ingredients and heat through.

Baked Oatmeal

Ok, I cannot claim this as my own, but it is way too yummy not to remember. Dawnie even made it for Rikard while he was here for Christmas and they loved it. I got this off a friends Facebook suggestion; so thanks to Susan for sharing.
http://www.mrbreakfast.com/superdisplay.asp?recipeid=1893



Baked Apple Oatmeal
(6 servings)

3 cups rolled oats (quick or old-fashioned)
2 cups chopped apples
2 cups milk
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup melted butter
1/3 cup applesauce
1 large egg - beaten
1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt
Prepare a 2-quart baking dish with a light coating of cooking spray.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine the oats, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.

In a seperate bowl, mix together milk, egg, applesauce, butter, and brown sugar.

Stir the liquid ingredients into the dry and pour into prepared dish.

Bake for 20 minutes.

Stir the oatmeal, fold in the chopped apple and bake 20 more minutes until top is lightly browned.

Spoon into serving bowls and serve with milk and a little extra brown sugar.


You can replace the apples with equal an equal amount of blueberries or other fruit.


Mr Breakfast would like to thank DixieChick for this recipe.


Here's what I did to make it friendly to my kitchen. First I omitted the butter, exchanged cows milk for coconut milk (this was just because I had coconut milk - in the future I will probably use almond milk) I added more cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla and left out the chopped apples and used more applesauce instead. If I were not trying to get my kids to eat it I would have used chopped apples, but what they don't know is in there they will usually eat. It was delicious, but needed some milk poured over the top. I also think you could omit the sugar with the additional applesauce it was plenty sweet.
Enjoy!

Mexican Black Beans

Ok, so my favorite thing is Mexcian food... Ever since we moved to Sweden I have had a very hard time finding the right ingredients to make any good mexican food. Plus its a pretty big turn off when you go to buy the black beans and they are called svart bonors here... no joke! ha
Yesterday I decided to get creative and try out a idea I had... loe and behold they were pretty tasty! So, I'll share the idea.
Ingredients:

• Canned Black beans rinsed (or if you are in Sweden a can of Svart bonors! I just cant get enough of saying that)
• 1 can of chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro chopped
• 1 small onion chopped
• 1 clove garlic minced
• juice of 1 lime

Directions:

• drain and rinse the beans
• sautee the onions and garlic for 2 minutes
• add broth, cilantro, lime, and beans
• Bring to a boil

Now everytime you have black beans think of what they are called in Sweden! its just plain funny! Yummy!

Love,

Dawnie

Frozen Rasberry Cobbler (By Dawnie)

This was a huge hit a couple of weeks ago when we had a dinner party. Its so easy but Shhh dont tell. Let everyone think you are an amazing cook and worked all day to make this dessert! Its especially good with vanilla sauce all over the top.

The best part is I always use frozen berries... its so much cheaper!

Ingredients:

• 1 Stick butter
• 1 1/4 cups Sugar
• 1 cup Flour
• 1 teaspoon rising agent (Baking powder)
• 1 cup milk
• 2 cups rasberries or any berry (frozen or fresh)

Instructions:

• melt the butter in the microwave.
• In another bowl stir together 1 cup sugar, rising agent and the flour
• Slowly add milk to sugar and flour mixture
• finally adding the melted butter
• Now butter the baking dish and dont be stingy the butter is the best part!
• pour the batter in the dish
• sprinkle the berries over the top of the batter (I sometimes push the berries down into the batter a little so I can get as many as I can!)
• Sprinkle the remainding 1/4 cup sugar over the top
• bake in a 350 degree oven for an hour or until perfectly golden and bubbly
• I sprinkle a little more sugar ten minutes before its dont to make it a little crispy! YUM!

ENJOY!

Love,

Dawnie

Pumpkin Cookies

Halie's preschool teacher made these in class the other day and the kids adored them. In fact, she made them the year Sierra was in preschool too, and this was the first pumpkin thing Sierra ever ate, and she still loves them.

Adventure Preschool Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
1/2 c Butter
1 1/2 c Sugar
2 eggs
1 c Pumpkin Puree
1 tsp Vanilla
1 tsp Baking Soda
3 c Sifted Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
1 tsp Nutmeg
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 c Chocolate Chips
Mix wet ingredients in one bowl and the dry in another. Combine and mix in chocolate chips. Bake at 350 for 15 mins.  Makes 3 dozen.
Halie's job this year was to do the butter :)

Fertilizer

I read about this a while ago, and have been excited to try it. The idea is to make a tea type fertilizer for your plants from dandelions. Apparently you can also use comfrey and horsetail, but I don't have either of those so I stuck to the dandelions. Which thanks to my no weed and feed policy we have plenty :) Dandelions are full of vitamins, and minerals and apparently all this stuff seeps into the water during the tea process and then can easily be added to your plants.

I set out with my new favorite garden tool, the dandelion picker, with high hopes of filling one 5 gallon bucket about half way. Needless to say, I filled nearly 2 and I did not even get all the dandelions I could see. I figured I'd leave some for next time.

So after the weeds are in the bucket, I weighted them down with a rock and covered with water. This first batch got to sit an extra long time because it was rainy and the soil did not need any more moisture added.

So after about a week I took out the rotting weeds and added them to the compost pile and what was left was a foul smelling grey-ish liquid. Believe me when I say it was foul smelling, for the next day every time the kids would walk in the back yard they would ask what stunk!

Admittedly I wondered if I was doming my garden to death by pouring this stinky stuff all over it, but I did not have enough for the whole garden and I figured that even if I did kill most of it I would still have a few tomato plants left. But after about a month, it looks great. I have another batch rotting, and I plan on using all my dandelions this way.

There are so many things I love about this. First I love that we are making something use full out of something that is most often though of as a nuisance. Second  I love that it is free! Third I love that it is earth friendly. Although I am not sure if it is considered organic, I like that it is not chemically prepared!

So sorry to my neighbors if I am stinking you out!