Recipes of the Week

Here are a few recipes I'd like to share...

The chowder is really good. It's meatless, but it would be good with some chicken added in. We liked it just fine how it was.

The apple pie dessert was amazing! I don't think I'll make apple pie again after making this. It was so much easier than making a pie crust. My pie crusts always look bad. I'm not too good at making the edges look nice and neat.

Cheese Enchilada Chowder (Crockpot)

Ingredients

• 1 (15 ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 (14 1/2 ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
• 1 (10 ounce) package frozen whole kernel corn
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1/2 cup chopped yellow bell pepper or red bell pepper or green bell pepper
• 1 jalapeno pepper, seeded, and finely chopped
• 1 (19 ounce) can enchilada sauce
• 1 (10 3/4 ounce) can cream of chicken soup
• 2 cups milk
• 1 cup shredded monterey jack cheese
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• sour cream
• guacamole
• tortilla chips

Directions

1. Add the black beans, tomatoes, frozen corn, onion, bell pepper, and jalapeno pepper to a 4 quart slow-cooker; stir to combine.
2. In a mixing bowl, add the enchilada sauce and cream soup; whisk together.
3. Gradually whisk in the milk until mixture is smooth.
4. Pour over vegetables in slow-cooker.
5. Cover and cook on LOW heat for 6-8 hours.
6. Add cheese and stir until melted.
7. Ladle hot soup into individual serving bowls and top with sour cream, guacamole and broken tortilla chips if desired.

Almost Apple Pie

Ingredients

Crumbs

• 1/2 cup softened margarine
• 1/2 cup white sugar *I used brown sugar*
• 1 1/2 cups flour

Filling

• 5 cups sliced apples
• 1/2 cup white sugar (more if desired, we go with the 1/2 cup)
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon, to taste

Directions

1. Whisk the crumb mixture together and pat half the crumb mix into an 8x8 baking pan.
2. Slice apples into a large bowl, add the dry ingredients, mix gently and place filling over the crumb base.
3. Put the remaining crumbs over the apples and pat in place.
4. Bake in a 350 oven 40 to 50 minutes or till nicely colored, times vary from oven to oven.

We made a little road trip yesterday to see Meemaw and Pawpaw. We met up in the happening town of Mattoon Illinois. We ate lunch at THE Burger King. It's not part of the chain and was around before the chain. There is some law that there can't be a chain Burger King within 30 miles of this place. The food was good and the shakes we even better. The boys had fun playing the car racing video games. Ryan paid money to play a couple games and then realized that they had just as much fun "playing" without the game actually running.

After lunch we went to the Douglas-Hart Nature Center for a little hike. It was a nice place that we'll have to stop at again.
On the way home, we stopped at Kickapoo State Park so Ryan could mountain bike a lap. I took the boys to the playground where we saw this:

I was kicking myself for not having my "fancy" camera with me. I only had my little camera that only has a 3x zoom.

Hudson had fun pretending he was a monkey on the playground, he was swinging around and making monkey noises.

Funny stuff

Last night Ryan and I had a date. We ate dinner at Bea One where we shared a yummy sushi roll and I had some awesome tuna. Just barely seared on the outside, nice and raw on the inside with a wasabi sauce drizzled on top. The only way I'll eat tuna is raw or just seared, I can't stand cooked tuna.

After dinner, we saw Brian Regan at the Long Center. He is sooooo funny! If you haven't heard of him before, you need to check out some of his stuff on YouTube. I laughed so hard my face hurt and Ryan was wiping away tears of joy. He's clean and has some great facial expressions. We ran into our pastor and lots of friends from church. Our pastor has mentioned Brian Regan a few times in his sermons, so that's how we first heard of him.

Tonight we met our new International Friend. Her name is Asa and she is from India. She is at Purdue getting her Masters in Computer Technology. She seems like a sweet girl and the boys had fun meeting her. We hope to give her a little taste of life in the US.

Still here

I'm still here...I guess it's been a busy week or I just didn't feel like updating the blog! Hudson did stay puke-free, although he ran a fever on Friday. He's cutting his eye teeth so maybe it had something to do with that because he was fine yesterday.

Ryan went on a mountain bike road trip yesterday, so the boys and I had some fun together. A coworker(thanks Joe!) had given me a bunch of apples, so we made apple crisp and apple bread. I borrowed my boss' apple peeler thingie (thanks Kristian!) and the boys had great fun with it. They called it a robot and Brooks had fun turning the handle. Hudson loved watching it, they really thought it was the greatest thing ever.

We took a walk around our neighborhood while the goodies were baking and found a yard sale. Brooks found a Thomas Train book and a Veggie Tales book, so it was successful! After naptime we headed to Goodwill for their quarterly half price sale. Everything in the store is half price! I missed the last one because I was in Guatemala, but the one before that Jess, Dan and I hit the stores and found lots of good stuff for cheap.

My mission yesterday was to find a breadmaker. My breadmaker had an unfortunate accident this past week. I dropped it while I was pulling it out of the cabinet (it bounced on the floor!) and it cracked and bent. The lid won't close anymore so it's no good. I was pretty bummed, I've had that thing as long as we've been married (9 years!) and it has been a good one. So I headed straight to the back of the store to look for a breadmaker. I came across one in the box, so I put it in my cart to take a better look at it. And that's when I noticed it was the same exact breadmaker that I had! It looks like it's only been used a few times, the pan looks new. And I only paid $7.50 for it! I looked around for some other bargains, but didn't find anything. It's harder to really bargain hunt when I have both the boys with me.

My sad old breadmaker

And the identical "new" breadmaker

All better?

Ick, so last week was not too fun at our house. I was sick with a nasty stomach bug Monday and Tuesday and then Hudson seemed to catch it. He threw up at least once a day for the past 6 days. It was so weird, he would be acting normal, then would lay down on the floor and then he would puke and then get right back up and start playing. No fever or any other symptoms. Well today was a puke-free day. I hope I'm not sabotaging it by posting this.

I did manage to take Brooks on another date this Saturday. We attended the LayFlats fest. Brooks enjoyed listening to all the different types of music. He especially enjoyed the dj who was doing some scratching. We had a fun couple hours together.


I'm taking a photography class. We had a field session Saturday morning downtown and these are some of my pictures. I felt like I wasn't too inspired that morning, but I guess some of the photos turned out okay. I have class again on Wednesday where our instructor will critique our photos for us.

"Big Bouncy Things"

Our church is celebrating it's 50th anniversary. Yesterday evening we had our annual picnic at church. There were a lot of activities for the kids along with "big bouncy things". This was the boys first time on "big bouncy things". They had a good time in the bounce house, but Brooks really loved the giant slide. He would have gone on it all night if we would have let him. There were also balloons all over the place so Hudson was happy to see those. He even managed to pop one after we ate dinner. The other people around us seemed amazed that he wasn't phased at all by the popping. Brooks seemed a little sad when we pulled into church this morning and all the "big bouncy things" were gone.





This afternoon we took a trip down to Indy. Our friends Mike & Robin were having a baby shower. They are expecting baby #2 in November. Brooks and Hudson had a fun time playing with all of Gabe's toys. Gabe has a train table so they were easy to please. On the way home we stopped at Guatelinda for dinner. Mmmmmmm! I had Huevos con Chorizo (scrambled eggs with Chorizo, tomatoes & onions) rice, beans, and fresh corn tortillas. Ryan had a pupusa, gordita, and a sope. We were the only gringos in the restaurant.

Back to Preschool

Brooks started back at preschool today. He was happy to be back and had no problems with me leaving him there. He happily played with the cars and gave me a hug and kiss before I headed across campus to work. When Ryan picked him up, he was outside "mountain biking" on the tricycle. He can't wait to go back tomorrow!

Hudson seems to be having a constant language explosion. This little boy has a lot to say! I was getting food out of the fridge this evening to make Fried Rice, when he got in there and pointed right at the jar of salsa and said "salsa" as clear as day and then said "spicy". Hudson loves salsa, especially if it has a little kick to it (I wonder where he got that from?!)

Happy Labor Day

Hope you had a nice relaxing Labor Day. We had our Bible study friends over for a cookout tonight. Good food and good fellowship. Here's some pictures from this evening....

Slam dunk of Maggie!

Hudson did not like the sprinkler....

Water fight!!