Recipe

I made this soup last night from melskitchencafe.com It's Chicken corn chowder. Try it... it's very good. I made a few modifications (in red text below) to my tastes but you can make the original or do what I did.

INGREDIENTS:

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 stalks of celery, finely chopped

1 red bell pepper, finely chopped

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 jalapeno, finely chopped, seeds and membrane removed (this is important for flavor – but doesn’t add heat because the seeds and membranes are removed and it is cooked with the other veggies) Not a fan of jalapeno's so I didn't include it.

1/4 cup thinly sliced or cooked chopped ham

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 (14-oz.) cans chicken broth

3 tablespoons flour

3 ears of fresh corn kernels or 1 1/2 cups frozen corn kernels (I used frozen)

2 large chicken breasts, cooked and shredded (I just put 2 chicken breasts in the crock pot for a few hours and shredded it)

4 oz. softened cream cheese (Again not a fan of cream cheese so I left this out)

1 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon salt (I added another 1/2 tsp salt as I thought it needed more, so 1 tsp total)

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (I left this out as well but Chris sprinkled his on top)

2 small potatoes diced - I think chowder should always have potatoes in it so I diced some up in smaller chunks and added it after putting in the broth and milk and let it cook for about 20 minutes then added the chicken and corn.

Can you tell I don't care much for cheese?

DIRECTIONS: Place olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Saute celery, bell pepper, onion and jalapeno until tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic and ham; cook for another 3 minutes. Whisk the broth with the flour in a liquid measuring cup or bowl and then stir into the soup. Add diced potatoes, cook for 20 min. Stir in the corn and chicken. Bring to a low boil and reduce heat. Whisk together the cream cheese and milk in a large bowl until smooth (I had a difficult time getting my cream cheese to completely whisk into the milk so my soup had some minor small lumps but next time, I’ll soften the cream cheese until almost melted in the microwave). Whisk the cream cheese/milk mixture into the soup along with the salt, pepper and cheddar cheese. Simmer on low until ready to serve.

The soup freezes well too. I froze the leftovers last night and had some for lunch today. Yummy

Oh and here is a cute girl.

Halloween fun

We had lots of fun the week before Halloween. The neighborhood moms put on a little Halloween party for all the kids with games/activities.

Here is Sophie at the party with our neighbor River

Sophie and her friend Max at the party. Sophie loves to play with Max they get together about once a week to play.

Heading in to the Haunted forest
Waiting for the next activity. Don't they look thrilled to be there.
We carved pumpkins with the Cindrich's


Sophie with her cousin Chloe
More Cousins
Checkin out the pumpkins

Chris took her out trick or treating to a few friends in the neighborhood before Soph and I headed to Provo to my dads for dinner and trick or treating down there. It was such a nice day and warm night for trick or treating.

When we woke up the next morning we had snow!

Recipe

I found a great website for recipes. It's called www.melskitchencafe.com

I made her pancakes since Sophie wants pancakes every morning and we were just making them from bisquick. This recipe is healthier and tastes really good. http://www.melskitchencafe.com/2009/09/oatmeal-pancake-mix.html

I've also made a few other things and all of them have been very tasty. Try it out if your looking for something new!

Anniversary

Happy 14 years to us! We were finally able to get a sitter Friday night and celebrate our Anniversary that was earlier this month. We went out to Cucuina Toscana and had a nice quiet dinner.

Sundance Hike

On Saturday Chris went out with the Cobra club driving all day. It was such a nice day, I thought I'd take Soph and go on a little hike to enjoy the fall colors. We drove up to Sundance near a small neighborhood of cabins where I used to live for about a year when I was 9. From there I knew it was a short little hike that Sophie could do to Stewart Falls.

Starting our hike

Crossing the bridge, Sophie got a little scared when it started sinking as she walked on it

We're hiking all the way to the falls

Just after the start of our hike Sophie needed a snack, we took a little break in the meadow and Soph enjoyed her cheese and crackers.

We made it to the falls! Sophie did so good, she hiked the whole way.

She enjoyed playing in the water with her "Fishing pole"



We hung around at the top for a while then hiked back down. She walked most of the way then I had to carry her the last 1/4 mile.

Halloween Fun

This past week I've been trying to keep Soph entertained with some Halloween activities. They had these little kits for .99 cents at the craft store, Sophie had fun glueing them together.

And we made Halloween cookies

Snow

How is it we go from 95 degrees in St George and a few days later go to 30 degrees and 5 inches of snow at home? It's depressing. Sophie loved it though, when she woke up and saw the snow she had to go out and play in it, even before breakfast...

Here she is still in her pj's checking out the first snow of the season.

She wanted to ride her bike and when it got stuck in the snow promptly got her shovel out and dug out her wheels. She must remember winters past of our cars getting stuck in the driveway.

After school it was time for round 2 out in the snow
We built a snow man.

Driving home from Sophies school, we noticed our neighbor down the street slid off his driveway. There are some steep driveways up here. They had to use a crane to get it down.

Round 3 of going out to play in the snow


Sophie loved eating the snow too. Yuck!

Round 4 of wanting to go out in the snow. This time I made Chris go out with her. I need summer back!

Today for church I blow dried Sophie's hair and let her wear it down for the first time. She looks so grown up. The snow is almost melted too!