Broccoli Cheddar Soup and Ham Rolls

We tried a new recipe tonight for Broccoli Cheddar Soup and it came out soup-er good :) I'm not gonna lie, I found the website through pinterest and you can find it here. I used her exact recipe with one change: I didn't use all half and half, I only used one cup and the other 3 cups were 2% milk. To go with it I made Ham Rolls that my momma has been making for years. It's a Flatley classic. But lets not get too ahead of ourselves. Here's DL on the soup:

You'll Need:

• 2 T. Butter, melted
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1/2 c. butter, melted
• 1/2 c. all purpose flour
• 1 c. half and half
• 3 c. milk (or all half and half if you want it extra-creamy)
• 4 c. chicken broth
• 1 lb. fresh broccoli
• 2 cups, grated carrots
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 1/2 t. nutmeg
• 16 oz sharp cheddar cheese, grated

Saute onions in 2 T butter and set aside. Next, add 1/2 c butter and 1/2 c 

flour and whisk occasionally until your concoction is blonde in color:

 

Add milk and half and half (or all half and half) to butter and flour slowly. 

It will be really thick at first (that's good! Flour is a thickening agent) 

and then it'll look like you just put milk in a pot. Let it simmer

--not boil-- for 20-25 minutes.

 When the time is up, add your chopped broccoli, carrots and onions. 

Simmer an additional 20-25 minutes, or until the veggies are tender and 

the soup has thickened.

 

 Puree with an immersion blender (or carefully transfer to a blender) 

until desired consistency is reached. Add cheese, salt, pepper and nutmeg &

 whisk until incorporated, and BAM! You're done.

Now on to the Ham Rollz, ya'll:

This is a super secret family recipe.... so I'm a gonna post it on this here blog. It's  outrageously simple and to-die-for good. Here we go.

Ingredients:

• 1 small onion, chopped fine
• 3 tbsp mustard
• 3 tbsp poppy seeds
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• ham
• Swiss cheese
• dinner rollz

What you do:

         Mix the first four ingredients up in a bowl. Cut dinner rolls in half, spread all of mixture on bottom half of rolls. Put a layer of cheese, then a layer of ham, then a layer of cheese. Top with upper half of dinner rolls. Bake in oven at 375 for 20 minutes or until warm in the middle and the cheese is all melty-delish. Eat. Love. Eat some more.

You don't see any poppy seeds in the picture 'cause I ran out and didn't realize it until I was searching through the cabinets calling out for them in vain. But they were still really yummy.

That's all for today! Have a great Saturday & come back tomorrow to learn how to make super simple homemade yogurt.

-Kaitlin

Apple Pancakes

We had a rough start to our day due to a certain toddler having a tantrum over what to wear (She's two. Isn't it early for her to be demanding what she wants to wear??) and then being denied entrance to Early Intervention play group because we were one minute late. You heard me right, one minute. So after a not so pleasant exchange we went home and changed our day around. We made apple pancakes.

Apple pancakes are super easy to make, all you need is your regular pancake batter and an apple. First, slice your apples and cut out the core.

 Make sure none of your slices get swiped by a certain someone in the process...

 Coat the slices of apple with the pancake batter

 Put them in a skillet over medium-low heat. I cooked them for a longer time on a lower heat setting than regular pancakes to get the apple more tender in the middle.

 Flip 'em when they're golden

 Finished product:

 Feed them to a girl who refused to take off her snowsuit for a good 2 hours...

Eat them while they're hot with some nice maple syrup or caramel sauce. You can also add a little cinnamon or nutmeg in the batter to make them extra yummy. 

 Let me know how they turned out if you made them! I'd love some feedback on my blog :)

-Kaitlin

Playdate at Layna's House

Today Aislyn and I spent some time at Layna's house. It was a lot of fun! It was so nice outside we were able to go to the playground. Almost 60° in February in Massachusetts is unheard of. If this is global warming I'm not complaining! The girls loved going on the swings and going down the slide. It was packed because it was school vacation week and it was a little hectic keeping an eye on both of them but they both had a great time. Afterwards, we had lunch at my house and played for a bit. Then we went outside and fed the chickens. Layna was super excited and the girls were such good helpers! I wish I got some pictures of them at the playground and feeding the chickens, but I did get this one:

And then Aislyn decided she absolutely would not have anymore pictures taken of her... so I gave up. You pick your battles, right?

Quick Chicken and Dumplings

I have a yucky sinus infection thing going on right now so I'm not in the mood to cook a very elaborate dinner. Since I have some left over chicken from cooking a whole one in the crock pot a few days ago I've decide to make some quick chicken and dumplings for dinner. 

Here's your ingredients:

 4 cups of water

 3 cups chopped cooked chicken

 2 (10 3/4 oz) cans cream of chicken soup

1 chicken bouillon cube (ignore that there's two in the picture)

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 (7.5 oz) can refrigerated buttermilk biscuits

First, bring first five ingredients to a boil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat, stirring often:

Meanwhile, while the pot is heating, cut your buttermilk biscuits in half like this:

 And then roll them up into balls. You should have 20.

 Drop them one at a time into the boiling chicken mixture.

 They should rise to the top at first. Cover, and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Stirring occasionally.

 When they're done, they'll sink a little bit.

That's it! You're done! The finished product:

Getting Started

Hi everyone!

I'm completely new to this blogging thing, but I'm going to dedicate a small portion of my week to trying it out. I have a lot of ideas on some upcoming posts and I'm thrilled to share it with you. I started this blog to keep out-of-state family up to date on our hectic life, to share recipes and household tips, and to document my family's life and lifestyle. 

To give you some background information: My name is Kaitlin, I just turned 24 yesterday, and I have an amazing fiance Mike. Together we have a wonderful, smart, semi-short tempered two year old named Aislyn. Mike and I are currently looking for a home (and we think we found one!) to buy and hopefully we'll be all moved in and settled by September at the latest...hopefully. I'm currently attending college for Elementary Education and I teach Irish Step dance a couple of nights a week. Mike works at a big electric company and also goes to school at nights for his Electrical Engineering degree. 

I guess you could say I'm "earth friendly," for lack of a better term, although girls from the breastfeeding group I participate in call it "earthy crunchy." Haha. I just hate spending money on commercialized products (although I will splurge on quality food ingredients). I love the feeling of satisfaction you get from making a homemade batch of laundry soap, cleaning products, shampoo and conditioner, and of course, meals from scratch. I'll be blogging about all of these things and more in the upcoming weeks. I hope you join me on my blogging adventure! I'm excited about it!