Cheesy Broccoli Soup

Not completely accurate title because broccoli isn't the only vegetable in this one, but who cares what it's called because it is delicious---by far my favorite cheesy soup recipe...don't get me wrong, the cheesy cauliflower soup is also delicious, but this one is just a bit more substantial.

This is what we had for dinner last night along with some french bread from Wal-Mart (have you had their french bread? It's pretty good!). Recipe comes from my MIL, who I was very grateful was home last night when I couldn't find this recipe and had to call to get it again! Thanks!

Cheesy Broccoli Soup
4 - 5 C. potatoes, peeled and cubed to bite-size pieces
2 C. carrots, diced
1 C. onions, finely diced
4 - 5 C. water
6 Tsp. chicken bullion


Boil above ingredients for 15-20 minutes, or until vegetables are tender.
Stir in 10 oz. frozen, chopped broccoli, 1/4 tsp. dry, ground mustard, and 1/2 tsp. pepper.

Cheese "sauce"
In a sauce pan, melt 1/2 C. butter or margarine and add 1/2 C. flour to form a roux. While stirring constantly, slowly add 2 C. milk until it begins to thicken---DO NOT BOIL, while continually stirring, add 1 lb. cubed velveeta. Once velveeta is melted and sauce is smooth, add to the soup.

Coffee Cake Muffins

Does anyone remember that great coffee cake that was served with school lunch in elementary school? You know, with the pink glaze and a drizzle of cocoa colored swirls on the top? Man, I loved that stuff! Just reminiscing here, the recipe I will share isn't like that cake.
On Sunday morning I was in a rare mood. I woke up to a completely clean kitchen and in the mood to make something delicious for breakfast. The original plan was to make crepes, but Ry and the kids were ravenous and couldn't wait for 15 minutes to eat, I decided to let them go ahead and eat cold cereal while I made one of my favorite breakfast treats that takes a little longer so that by the time they were finished, they would be hungry for 2nd breakfast (yes, we're hobbits!); Ryan and the kids were grateful.

Coffee Cake Muffins
Combine the following ingredients together and set aside:
1/2 C. brown sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 Tbs. flour
2 Tbs. melted butter


Mix the following according to the directions below:
1 1/2 C. flour
1/2 C. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 C. milk
1/4 C. shortening
1 egg
1/2 C. water


Combine dry ingredients. Cut-in shortening. Mix water and egg together and add to the dry ingredients. Stir just until moistened. Line muffin pan with paper or foil baking cups. Put in small amount of batter, sprinkle on brown sugar mixture, put on another layer of each. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.

Breakfast Cake

If you don't have time to make the Coffee Cake Muffins, this is a little bit faster option and it feeds more (if that's an issue). This comes from the SU! employee cookbook that was given for a Holiday gift nearly 6 years ago. This particular submission comes from Dave Baugh (if you care).

Breakfast Cake

Ingredients:
1/2 C. vegetable oil
2 eggs, beaten
1 C. milk
3 C. flour
1 1/2 C. sugar
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt


Topping:
1/2 C. brown sugar
2 Tbs. flour
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 Tbs. butter, melted


Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine ingredients, and place in a 9 x 13 greased pan. Mix topping ingredients and sprinkle over the cake. Bake for 25 minutes.

Halloween

Ellie & Ben were really looking forward to Halloween this year. Ellie was Alice in Wonderland (thanks for sewing the costume, Mom) and Ben was a soldier (he did have fatigue pants as well but they were WAY too large). The pics aren't too impressive, though, because the kids were too excited to hold still very long, but "Statue of Liberty" one is totally funny!

Friday was "Party Day" according to Ben and "the best day EVER" according to Ellie because of multiple Halloween happenings. Ben had his party at preschool that morning and had so much fun (he loves your Halloween CD, Teacher Wendy, especially "Ghostbusters") and Ellie had her Halloween parade and party in the afternoon. After Ellie got home from school we headed to Grandma's to play with Payton for a little while before going to Grandpa's house to see Grandma Suzy's witches and then went to my sister Angie's house for the Hansen Halloween party.

After all the fun on Friday, I was totally not feeling "Halloweenie" on Saturday and if we would have been able to talk the kids out of trick-or-treating and doing something else instead, I would have been all for it! It probably didn't help that I had a pinched nerve in my back all day Saturday and pretty much just spent the day lying around with a heat pack on my back. It wasn't so bad, though because the doorbell stopped ringing around 8:30 so we turned off the lights and put the kids to bed before I fell asleep not too long after.

Doesn't November feel like such a relief after all the craziness at the end of October? I would like to enjoy November instead of feeling compelled to begin all the December craziness. I'm sure it doesn't help that lots of local radio stations beginning playing Christmas music on November 1st. My choices of stations to listen to has been greatly diminished because of this; don't get me wrong, I LOVE Christmas music, but if I begin listening to it too early, by the time Christmas rolls around, I find myself absolutely exhausted from all of it. If only more people would boycott the stations who play the 'tunes' so early then it wouldn't be an issue.

The Face Of Concentration

This is what Ben looks like when he learned how to play a few classic games such as Pac-Man, Pole Position and Rally-X.
And to my family, he doesn't just get this trait from me, Ryan does it as well!

And this is what my boy looks like when he figures out what I'm up to!

I love little boys!!

Fall Update

Not too much happening lately. Just thought I would post some pictures from FHE last night. I hate carving pumpkins so we decided to paint them this year; the kids absolutely loved it!



I caved and let Ryan take a picture of me, simply because I've never had this big of a belly at only 24 weeks along----it's kind of a novelty.




P.S. Oh yeah, Ry got the pumpkins planted a little late so they didn't completely ripen up in time. Oh well.

The Help

by Kathryn Stockett. Loved it! Read it. The End.

Well, if you insist on a little more information, then I will include the synopsis from the author's home page, but I really don't think that the synopsis did it justice It did take me a couple of chapters to get into the book and fall in love with the characters, but please press on because it's worth it. I've got two words for you that you will understand after you read it: "Terrible Awful!"

Synopsis:

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.
Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.
Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.
Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.
Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.
In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women--mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends--view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.