So, where is Right of Succession?

I know I said Right of Succession would be published in 2013. First, I said June. Then, I said September, and then, I said just by the end of the year.

Murphy seems to be getting back at me, because it's not going to happen. I could try to rush it, rip my hair out in frustration and stress, and fall behind with Contented Comfort. But I would rather take my time and make the last three and a half chapters the best they can possibly be, even if that means not hitting publish until sometime in 2015.

Artwork from Joy's Designs showing a woman reading "Surviving Murphy."

Writer Fail, Lion's Club BBQ Recount, and a Rebirth

Yes, I know. I promised I'd have Right of Succession published at the end of last week. Sorry folks, I wasn't expecting the events of last week.

First, I threw my hip out of socket somehow on Wednesday morning. I couldn't sit at the desk, and it's next to impossible to type while lying flat.

I recovered from that just in time to set up for the Lion's Club BBQ Cook Off. I normally don't work events this late in the year. But it was a free booth, and I thought a tent would be enough to keep myself and the soaps from damage. I was wrong. I lost about thirty to forty sample soaps, even in the shade, and I wound up with heat stroke.

New policy: no outdoor events between mid-May and the very end of September. It's just too hot and humid here in the Tennessee Valley for items that start melting at 90 degrees.

Sunday Sides & Suppers: Homemade Granola

How do you make two fresh peaches and a cup of yogurt into breakfast for four? If you have cooking oats, a bit of butter and brown sugar, a bit of flour, and some cinnamon, you bump it up with some homemade granola for quick and easy parfaits.

Parfait, it's what's for breakfast!

I discovered the hows by accident. I got distracted one morning while making oatmeal bars, and I didn't add enough flour. The results turned out too crumbly for bars, but it did make for some good granola cereal.

Homemade Granola

3 Cups Whole Grain Oats

1/2 Cup Butter

1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

1/4 Cup Whole Grain Flour

1/4 Cup Milk

2 Tbsp. Cinnamon

1 tsp. Nutmeg

1 tsp. Vanilla Extract

1/2 tsp. Ground Cloves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, melt butter. Whisk in brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and cloves. Add oat and flour, and stir. Add milk if needed to coat all the oats.

Spread in a thin layer onto a greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for twenty-five to thirty minutes or until the oats have dried and browned.

Run a spatula under the oats to crumble, and break up any large clumps.

Keep it stored in a zipper bag for up to four days for a quick breakfast or snack.

Edited to add: I made a discovery about an hour after posting yesterday. Make sure to click here before trying the recipe to see how to bag your granola without the huge mess I ended up creating.

Get Surviving Murphy for 15% Off

Surviving Murphy: Keeping It Together When Everything Goes Wrong is on sale 15% off until January 15.

If your resolutions for this year center on bettering your time management skills, saving money, cutting back on your exposure to additives, budgeting better, getting healthier, or even just learning to cook, Surviving Murphy can help. It's a compilation of five years of research and experimentation that has helped Hubby, the girls, and me make it through rough times and come out ahead.

Simply click on the link above and enter the coupon code: RESOLUTION305 when you order.

Surviving Murphy Released

I know I haven't been posting much lately. That's because I've been extra busy making sure I could make "Surviving Murphy" available before the end of November.

"Surviving Murphy: Keeping It Together When Everything Goes Wrong" is now available for purchase in paperback, and it will be available as an e-book as soon as the cataloging process is completed.

For those of you who aren't long time readers, let me tell you what the book's about. Over the years, Hubby and I have gone through a lot of things: chronic medical issues, seasonal job loss, pay increases, having our income nearly cut in half, and then cut in half again, having children, and household and vehicle nightmares. "Surviving Murphy" is our survival guide. It's a compilation of the recipes, budgeting strategies, time and money saving tips, and just common sense stuff that tends to be forgotten that got us through all of that without completely wiping us out.

It's more than five years worth of research and trial and error boiled down, clearly explained, and told with humor.

Thank you to all of you who have been following my journey in writing this book, and thank you most of all to the wonderful men and women spoken about within it's pages both for the inspiration you've given to me and for allowing me to include your recipes and ideas.

Surviving Murphy Cover

I feel a bit different heading into publishing preparations for "Surviving Murphy" than I have for any of the other works I have published over the years. It's my first book for one. Everything else has been 13,000 words or shorter. It's the first bit of non-fiction I've published other than the essay, "Where Has the Time Gone?" I published back in my freshman year of college. But most of all, it's the only thing I've self-published.

I have all the control on this one, and it's both freeing and frightening. If it flops, it's all on me. But, the book was originally meant only for family members, and it is likely the only non-fiction book I will ever publish.

As such, there were no fancy designers for the book cover. We didn't even have a professional model, or a professional grade camera for that matter.

Hubby gamely agreed to pose for the cover art. We found a place with good lighting and snapped a few pictures. Then, I put the cover art together, and here it is.



What do you think?

"The Cookbook" Finally has a Title!

Come on, you didn't really think I'd be calling it "The Cookbook" forever did you? No, I was just having a difficult time coming up with anything good enough to be a real title. It's a pattern. I tend to go through four or five working titles until I find one I love, so I've stopped trying to give a piece more than a descriptive title until I finally find the one.

Now, for those of you who are new to the blog, it's not actually a cookbook so much as a book of tips. In truth, only about a forth of the book is made up of recipes. The rest is the story of our little family and how we've managed to save money and hold on to enough of our savings to buy a house, even while technically living under the poverty line. In the writing of it, I noticed we seem to be one of Murphy's favored punching bags.

I know we're not actually more prone to things going wrong than anyone else, but it can certainly feel that way when you're going through it. That idea is where the title comes in.

"Surviving Murphy: Keeping it Together when Everything Goes Wrong"

The cover art is still a work-in-progress, and I will post the full cover once I have it in hand.

Surviving Murphy is heading into final revisions now. If all goes to plan, it will be fully proofed and coming to Amazon and Etsy in November. Watch here or over on Facebook for more details as they become available.

Taco Bowls

Please excuse the picture on this one. My camera is awful for trying to take these kinds of shots, and we gave away all the little individual portion, oven safe bowls we received with some of the cookware from our wedding shower because I thought we'd never use them. Then I discovered French onion soup and concocted this recipe. We had to make do with a microwave. It was still really tasty, but nuking it makes it look a little...blah.

Actually this one started out as a failed attempt to make veggie burgers. The patties grilled up pretty, but the flavor and texture was all wrong. They did, however, make for some awesome low carb taco salads. So I took out the binders, and so was born the taco bowl.

Taco Bowls

1/4 - 1/2 lb. Pinto Beans (dried)
1/4 - 1/2 lb. Black Beans (dried)
1/8 - 1/4 lb. Navy Beans (dried)
1 cup Baby Carrots
2 Tbsp. Ground Red Pepper
1 1/2 Tbsp. Garlic Powder

Separate out any broken or bad beans. Wash and soak overnight. In a crock pot, cover beans with water and cook on high for four hours or on low for eight. Add baby carrots for the last one or two hours, just long enough to soften them. Drain, reserving some of the soup to moisten if needed, and place beans and carrots into a food processor. Add spices and pulse until well blended, adding the broth as needed to moisten the mixture.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line oven safe bowls with the refried beans and place on a cookie sheet. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the beans just begin to crust. Top as desired.

Now, you don't have to use those exact bean types, though I would suggest using either pintos or red kidney beans to make sure you get an expected refried beans taste from it. This is one of those recipes I use to clear out any left over dried beans I have sitting around in the pantry.

You can top it with anything you like. The nutritional information given is for the toppings our family tends to favor: bell pepper, onion, spiced stewed tomatoes, cheese, torn spinach, and a dollop of unsweetened, plain Greek Yogurt.

It also makes a lovely bean dip if you up the spices to 3-4 Tbsp. ground red pepper, to taste, 2 1/2 Tbsp. garlic powder, and 2 Tbsp. onion powder.

Here's the nutritional information for the refried beans alone.

* Nutrition information is once again courtesy of Spark People Recipe Calculator.

Black Bean Salsa

I've had this recipe up before, but that was before I had pictures or nutrition information. So I thought I'd rerun the recipe. Besides, I've since improved it, so why not give y'all an update?

Once again, this is a very chunky salsa, and a favorite in our household. It works well as a condiment for baked chicken, steak, or a baked potato, but it works equally well to turn nachos into a meal with a little shredded spinach, grated cheese, and Greek yogurt up on top.

Black Bean Salsa

1/2 lb. Dried Black Beans
1 Large Onion (Diced)
2 Large Bell Peppers (Diced)
1 Can Whole Kernel Corn (Drained) * Optional
2 Cans Diced Tomatoes with Green Chilies (Drained)
2 Tbsp. Garlic Powder
2 Tbsp. Chili Powder
1 Tbsp. Ground Red Pepper

Wash and soak the black beans the night before. In a large crock pot, cook the beans on high for four hours or on low for eight hours. Dice the onion and bell pepper and roast at 400 degrees for thirty minutes or until tender. Drain the beans well and pour them back into the crock pot. Add onion, bell pepper, corn, tomatoes, garlic, chili powder, and red pepper. Mix until well blended and heat on high for an additional half hour. Serve hot.

Makes roughly twelve servings.

* The picture is courtesy of The Aardvark's Plumbline's Dread Dormomoo, and is shown without the corn.

Who Do I Think I Am?

With all this talk regarding "The Cookbook," I wonder if I'm starting to give folks the impression I think I'm some new Martha Stewart. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Actually, if you want a pop culture comparison to my life, I'm much closer to a weird mash up of Bree, Lynette, and Susan from Desperate Housewives minus the racier and more outlandish dramas in their lives. I shoot for Bree's professional drive and success, and I can even manage it in little spurts, but overall my life ends up looking the most like Lynette's. More often than not, I'm a frazzled mom struggling to keep her family healthy and happy and the house in a state of balance. Every now and again I get to pull out the event planning and copywriting skills I picked up in the two years I spent working on site, but my bread and butter is cleaning other folks houses one day a week. Like Susan, I have been published in the past, but it's been a while. Though unlike her, I am still tapping away at the keys. It's just slower going these days.

The past couple of days have been something of a low point for me. The two to three weeks of insomnia I tend to get every three or four months has cycled around again, and as usual, I'm starting to feel the effects by way of depression trying to settle in again. This hasn't been helped any by the aura I fought to keep from turning into a full blown migraine all of last week, the dishwasher that decided rinsing before drying is now optional, and old injuries that love to protest the start of blackberry winter. And last night Hubby turned to me and asked, "What right do you have to write a book telling other people how to keep their house up and manage their time when you can't keep control of yours?"

That's just it though. This ebook isn't meant to be a treatise on how to keep your home looking spotless, serve a gourmet meal every night, and save a thousand bucks a month. It's not. As much as we would like to, we can't control life. Sure the some stuff can be predicted, but life has a knack for tossing a tree across the tracks or changing lines when you're only halfway past the switch, and it's so easy for everything to get stacked up or completely derailed.

Did you know I'm keeping a copy of this ebook for myself and my family? With all the computer issues I've had in the past few months, I can't rely on bookmarks to keep track of all the information I've compiled over the years. The information in this book is my maintenance crew and their equipment. When life is running smoothly, the tips and tricks in it really do help keep life chugging along on schedule like a well oiled machine. But when life happens, and everything gets derailed like it has in the past week or so, it becomes the crane needed to get our lives back on track.

* The picture is a screen shot of Susan and Lynette from Desperate Housewives. Check out ABC's site for more information.

Sunday Sides and Suppers

This recipe is based off a Sundrop cake. Sundrop is actually a local brand of soda, so those of you outside Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, and parts of Georgia probably haven't heard of it. Think Mt. Dew with about six times the citrus flavor. Anyway, Sundrop cakes are incredibly moist, flavorful, and lovely.

I wanted something a little out of the ordinary to take to a potluck a few years back, and decided to riff off the old recipe using dreamsicles as my inspiration.

I'm afraid there's no nutritional information available for this one currently, but needless to say, this one isn't a health food.

Dreamsicle Cake

1 Box Orange Cake Mix
1 Large Box Vanilla Instant Pudding Mix
2 Tbsp. Orange Extract
8 oz. Orange Soda

Icing

8 oz. Cream Cheese (softened)
16 oz. Powdered Sugar
1 Tbsp. Vanilla

Preheat oven according to the directions on the box of the cake mix you're using. Prepare cake mix according to the directions on the box. Stir in extract, packet of pudding mix, and soda. (Note: Be careful on the soda measure. Too much added will make the cake turn out gummy. If the weather is very humid, you may want to omit an ounce or two.) Pour into two greased 8 inch round pans and bake according to the directions on the box. Let cool thoroughly before frosting.

To mix frosting, warm cream cheese for about forty-five to sixty seconds on high in the microwave, or until it can be easily stirred. Pour in powdered sugar and vanilla and blend until smooth and even. Refrigerate for fifteen minutes or up to a day in advance if covered. If you wait more than half an hour, stir before frosting.

Makes roughly 12 servings.

* The picture is courtesy of my mother-in-law, who made this one with the girls' elder cousin one afternoon this fall.

Sunday Sides and Suppers: Make Your Own McGriddles

Today's recipe is one of several copycat recipes I have. I mean, why go out and pay more for something if you can make it at home in very little time for less while simultaneously controlling what goes into your food? Now, I have to admit, having the griddle Hubby bought for us on Thanksgiving morning makes cooking these puppies up a whole lot easier than it would be if I just had the one big skillet. But it can be done either way.

They are equally good with bacon, but today's nutritional value is with the sausage since that's what is shown. Also, you can use all whole wheat flour, all plain white flour, or half and half. The nutritional information is for half and half on the flours and with skim milk and the flax seed.

Make Your Own McGriddles

2/3 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
2/3 Cup Plain Flour
2 Tbsp. Milled Flax Seed
2 Tbsp. Brown Sugar
1/4 Cup Syrup
1 Cup Milk
1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
1 Package Sausage
6 Large Eggs
2-3 Ounces Cheddar (Thinly Sliced)

Mix flours, flax seed, brown sugar, syrup, vanilla, and milk in a large bowl until completely blended. Pour into rounds roughly 2-2 1/2 inches in diameter onto hot griddle or skillet. While pancakes are cooking, cut and shape sausage paddies and scramble the eggs in a separate bowl. Once all the pancakes are cooked, place sausage paddies onto the hot griddle and pour eggs into a separate skillet. (We find it helpful to either use a large skillet, or only cook half the eggs at a time.)

Allow the eggs to cook without stirring until they are able to be flipped. Flip and cook on the other side before turning them onto a plate. Use a canning jar lid or glass to cut rounds into the egg. Thoroughly drain the cooked sausage paddies and pat them down with a paper towel to remove any excess grease.

Build your McGriddles by placing egg round on top of a pancake followed by cheese and sausage, and top it off with another pancake. Makes approximately eight sandwiches with a few leftover silver dollar pancakes.

Update on "The Cookbook"

For those of you who haven't been reading for long, I'm working on an ebook lovingly referred to as "The Cookbook," even though it's as much a collection of tips and tricks as it is a grouping of recipes. About a year ago, I decided against writing it, and then I started it up again as a Christmas gift idea for several young couples in our family. I was typing away on the last chapter back in December when my laptop hard drive died, and my flash drive would no longer open. So I lost the whole kit and caboodle, and I had to start over with the new year.

So, I've had to give out IOUs to the couples, and I've been writing up short articles, recipes, and tips to send out via email to them over the last few months. These I intend to gather up and edit together during the rewriting process and put together with the larger how to chapters I'm not sending through messages.

Anyway, here I am typing away about budgeting, and ways to stay or get fit and healthy, entertain, and maintain a nice home even with tight budget or time constraints, and I'm failing at it myself. I know the tips and tricks work. When I use them, our house stays nice, other than a maelstrom of toys to be picked up before lunch and the girls' bedtimes. I manage to fit in my workouts, and we eat amazingly well on a limited budget. Yet, I'm horrible about letting things get in the way.

Most times it's something medical. Either the girls are sick, I get run over by a migraine, or an old injury acts up and everything starts running in slow motion as a result. Lately it's been the time I've been donating to help the school Hubby works for with a revitalization and rebranding project. Not that I can't fit all the work in, but I forgot the time management tips and tricks I've picked up over the years. I just kept pushing on with one project until I was so worn out, I didn't have the strength or energy to move onto anything else.

The worst part of computer work is it's tendency to sap energy. But if you alternate between an hour working on the computer and an hour doing more physical labor, be it gardening, housework, cooking, or even fitting in a workout, not only do you have more energy throughout the day, but your computer work ends up being of a higher quality.

So I've realized I'm writing this book as much as a reminder for myself as I am hoping it will be helpful to other people. It's not about making life into this idealized fantasy but remembering ways to get the most out of ourselves and what we have at hand.

Sunday Sides and Suppers: Peanut Butter Ball Cookies

Okay, so they're neither a side nor a supper, but I think you'll enjoy these tasty treats. Hubby and Mom are big fans of peanut butter cookies, so when I had tons of leftover candy making supplies after Christmas this year, I experimented with adapting the family peanut butter ball recipe into a cookie.

I was surprised at how pretty they turned out, and they were enjoyed so much I made them again for Hubby's birthday and our anniversary. I just have to remember to stay out of them myself, and I usually don't care for peanut butter cookies!

You can use either half and half whole wheat and white flour or all plain white flour to taste. You can leave the glaze off as well if you like. Nutritional information is per cookie and based on half whole wheat, half white flour with the glaze included.

Peanut Butter Ball Cookies

2 Cups Rice Krispies Cereal (crushed)
1 Cup Smooth Peanut Butter
1 Cup Flour
1/2 Cup Salted Butter (melted)
1/2 Cup Skim Milk
1 Tbsp. Ground Cinnamon

Chocolate Glaze

1 Cup Powdered Sugar
2 Tbsp. Cocoa Powder
2-3 Tbsp. Water
1 tsp. Vanilla Extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small saucepan, melt butter and peanut butter together, stirring occasionally until smooth. In a large mixing bowl, roughly crush cereal. Mix in flour and cinnamon until well blended. Add peanut butter and butter mixture as well as milk and fold together until combined. Roll tablespoons of batter into balls and flatten them. Space on a greased cookie sheet half an inch apart and bake for 10-12 minutes or until mostly firm. Cool thoroughly before adding glaze.

For glaze, combine powdered sugar, cocoa powder, water, and vanilla in a small mixing bowl. Spoon into a piping bag, and drizzle over cookies once fully cooled.

Yields roughly 30 cookies.

If you're using a cooling rack, make sure to put some paper or tin foil under the rack to make clean up easier. The glaze dries quickly, but it tends to run off the sides of the cookies as you apply it. It's a pain to try to wash off if it dries before you're ready to clean up.

Tuna Boats

Our family is fond of tuna. Actually, it's our go to quick meal, so I try to have a couple ways of fixing it up my sleeve. We were running low on bread one day, and the girls were clambering to eat right then, so I decided to try using celery in place of the bread.

So, instead of chopping up a couple ribs of celery and mixing them into the tuna, I simply cut them into four inch slices and added some spices to the usual tuna salad sandwich filling. The extra punch added by the spices gave it enough flavor to stand up to the celery.

Now, you can dress up the "boats" with pretzel masts and cheese sails, but my girls are happy with these little canoes.

Tuna Boats

10 oz. Tuna (drained)
24 4" Celery Stalks
3 Tbsp. Light Mayonnaise
2 Tbsp. Pickle Relish
2 Tbsp. Onion (finely diced)
2 Tbsp. Bell Pepper (finely diced)
2 tsp. Garlic Powder
2 tsp. Ground Red Pepper
1 tsp. Rosemary (ground)
1 tsp. Thyme (ground)

Wash and cut the celery into roughly four inch pieces.

Drain the tuna well. Add garlic, red pepper, rosemary, and thyme. Mix well. Add in mayonnaise, pickle relish, onion, and bell pepper and stir until just blended. Spoon into the grove of the celery and garnish if desired.

* Don't let Boo Bear's expression fool you, she loved the tuna boats. She just wasn't crazy about Hubby snapping pictures while she was trying to eat.

Berries and Cream Oatmeal Bars

I have lots of variations on these make ahead and reheat breakfast bars. They keep in just a Ziploc baggie for up to four or five days, reheat in thirty seconds, and travel well. It's an ideal solution for Hubby most mornings. He doesn't want to spend a lot of time preparing his breakfast, so he has time to enjoy it with a cup of coffee before heading out the door.

The girls like them because it's oatmeal that's really easy for them to eat. Plus they like helping me make up new flavors.

Berries and Cream Oatmeal Bars

3 Cups Rolled Oats
1 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1 1/2 Cups Skim Milk
1/3 Cup Water
3 Tbsp. Milled Flax Seed
2 Tbsp. Light Brown Sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp. Baking Powder
1 1/2 Tbsp. Vanilla Extract
1 1/2 Cups Sliced Strawberries
1 1/2 Cups Blueberries
Zest from One Lemon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, combine oats, flour, flax seed, brown sugar, baking powder, and lemon zest. Stir until evenly blended, making sure to break up any lumps. Stir in milk, water, and vanilla. When wet ingredients have been incorporated, gently fold in berries. Spread in a thin layer on a sprayed cookie sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. Makes 12 servings.

* I know they look a little craterific. The berries shrank up more than I expected. Cutting them finer than I did should correct the problem if the appearance is a bother. And that's a toddler sized plate in the picture. They aren't gigantic.

Summer Spaghetti

Today's recipe is one of those discovered when you grab everything that sounds good and throw it into the pot. I wanted a way to prepare spaghetti that was healthier than your run of the mill marinara or meat sauce. I was also looking for a way to use some of the vegetable broth I'd made up a couple weeks before and froze.

I baked some chicken, cut up a bunch of veggies, and then roasted them. I thickened up some of the broth with spices, and the rest is history. The family gobbled it up. Even the baby and the suddenly uber picky preschooler were pleased there were lots of leftovers.

Summer Spaghetti

3 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breast halves (Baked)
1 lb. Whole Wheat Spaghetti
1 pint Vegetable Broth
1 c. Onion (diced)
1 c. Bell Pepper (diced)
1 c. Celery (diced)
1 c. Broccoli (chopped)
2 cans Diced Italian Tomatoes (drained)
2 Tbsp. Garlic Powder
1 Tbsp. Basil
1 Tbsp. Oregano
1 Tbsp. Rosemary

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place vegetables together in a large casserole dish, cover with tin foil, and roast in oven for 20-30 minutes or until tender.

In a medium sauce pot, heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil over high heat. Stir in two or three tablespoons flour and cook for about two minutes, just enough to loose the uncooked flour taste. Pour in vegetable broth, add in garlic, basil, oregano, and rosemary, and lower the heat. Allow to simmer, stirring occasionally until thickened.

Cook pasta until just shy of al dente while you cut the chicken to half bite sized pieces. Drain pasta. Drain and add vegetables. Add in chicken, and pour the sauce over. Toss until well combined. Makes roughly 12 servings.

I've added a new feature this week. Click on the dish name to see nutrition facts via Sparkpeople Recipes calculator.

* Sneak's not the greatest fan of pasta. She mostly picked out the veggies and chicken, but I'm not complaining.

Sunday Sides and Suppers: Vegetable Broth

Today's post really isn't so much a recipe as it is a general guide. Vegetable broth is extremely easy to make, and there are several reasons to do so.

1. It helps get the most mileage out of vegetables.

Instead of tossing out the scraps you trim from veggies when preparing them, put them into a freezer bag and freeze them until you have a gallon sized bag stuffed with leftover vegetable scraps. Any vegetables will do. We usually end up with celery leaves and ends, bell pepper centers and veins, onion and carrot ends, odd chunks of potato, and broccoli stems just because those are the vegetables we eat most often.

2. It can add a lot of flavor to you dishes without adding fat.

You can replace or cut chicken broth by half in recipes that call for it to cut calories while retaining taste and maintaining texture. Remember the spaghetti dish in Wordless Wednesday a couple weeks back? I made a thickening agent with a tablespoon or so of extra virgin olive oil and flour, and used that to reduce a pint of vegetable broth with garlic, basil, oregano, and rosemary to make a flavorful and lean sauce. It works well in risottos, beans, soups, and dips too.

3. Add a nutritional punch to starchy vegetables.

Nutritionists and cooks on talk shows are always talking about how the vitamins leech out of vegetables when you boil them. This is a big advantage of making vegetable broth. Cook rice in it or cut the amount of cream in mashed potatoes in half with the broth to lower fat, keep taste, and add vitamins and minerals.

So, how do you make vegetable broth? Save up those cutting board scraps until you have a full gallon sized bag. Fill a large pot with the vegetables and water and let them simmer for two or three hours on medium high heat. Toss in some herbs if you like, but it's not necessary. Then simply strain, bag, and freeze.

I like using pint freezer bags just because it's a good size to use for our family.

Sunday Sides and Suppers: Ultimate Cream of Chicken Soup

I have a two for one for you today. I mentioned the fact we use the pairing of our version of cream of chicken soup and herb biscuits as a cold remedy and just to keep our immune systems running at their peak when I posted the biscuit recipe this morning. Now I'd like to pass along our cream of chicken soup recipe.

Like the biscuits, it started as an experiment with the old chicken pot pie recipe, trying to thin and crisp the crust. The crust never did get as crisp on the bottom as we would have liked, but we've found we rather like crumbling a biscuit or two into the soup.

I originally chose the herbs used because we enjoy their flavor, but when we started noticing colds tended to clear up in a day or two as opposed to a week when we'd make a big batch at the start of the symptoms, I realized I'd filled both recipes with herbs commonly used in medicines throughout the ages. I suppose I ought to add sage throughout cold and flu season for it's purported use as an antiviral, but none of us are that fond of the taste.

When I was researching ancient herb lore for "From the Ashes," I supposed a lot of what I would find would end up being mostly superstition; however, science is proving the validity of several old remedies. In any case, cooking herbs tend to be packed with antioxidants and micro-nutrients, which not only add flavor but a nutritional punch to your dishes.

Ultimate Cream of Chicken Soup

1 Can Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup
4 oz. Low Fat Sour Cream
1 1/2 Cups Skim Milk
12 ozs. Low Fat Chunk Chicken (flaked) or 2 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts (baked and shredded)
2 Cups Frozen Mixed Vegetables (thawed and drained)
1 Cup Frozen Sweet Peas (thawed and drained)
2 Tbsp. Garlic Powder
1 Tbsp. Basil
1 Tbsp. Oregano
1 Tbsp. Ground Red Pepper
1/2 Tbsp. Ground Rosemary
1/2 Tbsp. Thyme
1/2 tsp. Dill

In a large soup pot, combine condensed soup, sour cream, garlic, basil, oregano, red pepper, rosemary, thyme, and dill until blended. Pour in milk and whisk until smooth. Simmer on low heat as you add in the mixed vegetables, peas, and chicken.

If you decide to use skinless baked chicken, you may want to add a teaspoon or so of salt. If you use the canned chunk chicken, that should add enough salt, but you can salt to taste. This recipe is designed to work well for a low fat, low sodium diet as is.

Once all ingredients are added, raise heat to medium and simmer until heated through.

Makes approximately 6-8 servings as shown above. It will keep, covered in the refrigerator for up to three days, but it does not freeze well. Reheat on the stove for best flavor and consistency.

Sunday Sides and Suppers: Herb Biscuits (Improved Blend)

Those of you who've been following the cookbook's development or the Sunday Sides and Suppers segments here probably remember the herb biscuit recipe I put up a few months back. I spoke about them as an experiment in adapting a homemade chicken pot pie recipe to have less of a crust. Beyond this, we noticed the biscuits, especially when combined with a ramped up cream of chicken soup, make for an effective cold remedy.

Seeing as Hubby works in education, and we all have allergy issues, I make a batch of cream of chicken soup and a pan of herb biscuits every month or so, just to keep our immune systems up and running at full power. I was mixing up a double batch for us to share with Hubby's parents, when I had a memory hiccup and changed the herbal blend. Thankfully, it was for the better, so I decided to share the updated recipe with you today.

Herb Biscuits

2 cups Self-Rising Flour
3/4 cup Shortening
1/4 cup Milk
2 Tbsp. Garlic Powder
1 Tbsp. Ground Rosemary
1 Tbsp. Thyme
1/2 Tbsp. Basil
1/2 Tbsp. Oregano
1 tsp. Black Pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, rosemary, garlic, thyme, basil, oregano, and pepper until well blended. Cut in shortening until pea sized granules form. Stir in milk a little at a time until the dough just combines. It may require a bit more or less. On a floured surface, roll out dough and cut circles. Bake at 350 degrees for ten minutes. Brush with melted butter if desired, and allow to bake another 2-4 minutes or until golden brown. Makes roughly 6-9 biscuits.