What's Cooking?

So, I love my crockpot and happened to stumble on to a great blog of Stephanie O'Dea's. She spent a whole year using her crockpot everyday and blogged about it. She has a ton of recipes there and I thought I would try one.

Chicken Salsa and Black Bean Soup

1 pound chicken (I used leftover cooked chicken)

* 1 cup dried black beans (or 2 cans drained and rinsed - I used canned)

4 cups chicken broth (I only had vegetable, so I used that)

1 cup sliced mushrooms (I used a small can)

1 cup frozen corn

1 16oz. jar of salsa (I used a can of my homemade black bean & corn salsa)

1 1/2 tsp. cumin

1/2 cup sour cream (to stir in at end)

Toppings - shredded cheese, avocado

*Soak the black beans in enough water to cover and another 2 inches overnight. In the morning, drain the water and rinse the beans.

You need a 4 qt or larger crockpot. Drain and rinse beans. Add to crockpot. Add in chicken, broth and salsa. Pour in corn and mushrooms and add cumin. Stir, but don't disturb the beans, they should stay on the bottom. Cover and cook on high for 9 hours (takes a long time for the beans to soften.)

I actually started this last night before I went to bed and just put it on low. Smells so yummy in here already. Would it be wrong to have black bean soup for breakfast?

I love soups, stews, and chili kind of meals, so I'm sure I will like this. And Charlie loves beans in general, so she should be an easy sell. Not so sure about Joe, but I know he will at least try it. I think I will sweeten the pot with a fresh loaf of beer bread to go with it.

A Day of Baking

We spent Friday baking...one of my favorite things and a lot of fun with a 2 year old! Joe's mom and her sisters (and some extra cousins and daughter-in-laws) get together each fall and make enough Poppy Seed Kuchens for the Thanksgiving and Christmas family get-togethers. We make 12, half for Thanksgiving and half for Christmas...enough to feed the roughly 90 people that get together. We have done the baking at my home the last few years and I love it!

Not sure when the recipe and task will be passed on to the next generation...I think it depends on which auntie you ask. As of now, it's pretty top-secret...definetly not something that gets shared outside of the family. I don't personally have a copy of the recipe they use, but could probably come close to re-creating it.

Kelly rolling dough with Charlie's help.

Poppy Seed Filling.

Sugar Crumble Topping.

Charlie was a big help and had a lot of fun.

Here, she is 'clumping' the crumb topping.

Baking takes concentration...

...and is hard work!

Just out of the oven and cooling.

It takes 2...to get a kuchen out of a pan...they are heavy.

We don't just slave away in the kitchen all day...

We chat...we have lunch...we have coffee.

We nap.

We get our eyebrows waxed.

We make sweet rolls out of the extra dough.

Thankful Thursday

What a blessed life I have!

I'm thankful for 2 healthy girls!

I'm thankful that I got to marry my best friend!

I'm thankful to be a stay at home mom!

I'm thankful to have a warm, safe place to call home!

I'm thankful for the Lord's saving grace!

Ideas???

So, I need some ideas.

I am assuming some people are actually reading this little blog of mine and just not commenting (mom?). Big thank you to Tina for commenting...always makes me feel good to know that someone checked it out.

I will continue to blog about the girls...they are some of my favorite people after all!

But what else would keep you coming back? What else do you want to see here?

I am thinking about doing a special post of sorts each week...but what to do?

Recipes?

Scripture or something from my Bible Study?

More Photos...Photo of the Week?

Your idea here !?!

So, here is what I need from you and I'm willing to pay for it. Leave a comment at the bottom of this post about your ideas or what you would like to see or hear about. Everyone who leaves a comment will get a Target gift card.

Happy Anniversary to My Rock

Today we celebrate 4 years of married bliss! Praise the Lord that we get to go through this life together! I am truely blessed to have found my hubby and have the pleasure to raise our family together! I love you Joe and am looking forward to a million more years together!

My Grown-Up Girl

My grown-up girl is giving timeouts (notice giving not taking) and using the toilet!

I hear Charlie talking (to herself?) in the living room and go in to see what she is doing. She has a broom on the chair and is talking to it. I overhear...in timeout, hitting me naughty, stay here. I couldn't help but laugh. Apparently, the broom hit her (she hit herself with it?) and a timeout was necessary.

Not sure if it will help, but I took the opportunity to point out how nicely the broom was 'taking' its timeout and staying put and that she should do the same next time she ends up in timeout. We will see, I'm sure we will have another chance to test both mom and Charlie on the art of a proper timeout!

She is doing it! Charlie has been in underwear since last Thursday. It is going pretty well...still having accidents but overall ok to deal with. Afternoons are going better than mornings...maybe just that the more times she goes during the day the more she remembers that she needs to get there in time. Bribery is working sort of. Last week she was all happy that she got to call daddy during the day after she successfully peed in the toilet. Chocolate worked yesterday. She got a hershey kiss in the morning after peeing. Then later in the day, when she had a BM in the toilet, she tells me...I get chocolate, not small one, big one daddy got at store (Joe had gotten a bunch of Halloween candy...so she knew there was bigger pieces of chocolate in the house).

Off to get some things done...busy rest of the week...our anniversary tomorrow, Bible Study on Thursday, Poppy Kuchen making with Joe's aunties, mom, and cousins on Friday, and Neaton girls getting together on Saturday to meet the newest baby, Audrey Jean.