king ranch chicken casserole

What's for dinner tonight?
My favorite magazine is "Southern Living". 85% of my recipes come from there and I love their decorating ideas. I love southern style living!! This recipe is listed as one of their most popular and favorite chicken cassoroles. And I agree completely! It's one of our favorites. Todd asks me to make it all the time. So you won't regret trying it!
To simplify the recipe a little bit, don't worry about cooking a whole chicken with celery and carrots, although that is awesome. Just use chicken breasts(maybe put your carrots and celery in there) and then use a can of chicken broth.

Ingredients
1 (4 1/2- to 5-lb. ) whole chicken

2 celery ribs, cut into 3 pieces each

2 carrots, cut into 3 pieces each

2 1/2 to 3 tsp. salt

2 tablespoons butter

1 medium onion, chopped

1 medium-size green bell pepper, chopped

1 garlic clove, pressed

1 (10 3/4-oz.) can cream of mushroom soup

1 (10 3/4-oz.) can cream of chicken soup

2 (10-oz.) cans diced tomatoes and green chiles, drained

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon Mexican-style chili powder*

3 cups grated sharp Cheddar cheese

12 (6-inch) fajita-size corn tortillas, cut into 1/2-inch strips

Preparation

1. If applicable, remove giblets from chicken, and reserve for another use. Rinse chicken.

2. Place chicken, celery, carrots, and salt in a large Dutch oven with water to cover. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat; reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer 50 minutes to 1 hour or until chicken is done. Remove from heat. Remove chicken from broth; cool 30 minutes. Remove and reserve 3/4 cup cooking liquid. Strain any remaining cooking liquid, and reserve for another use.
3. Preheat oven to 350°. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion, and sauté 6 to 7 minutes or until tender. Add bell pepper and garlic, and sauté 3 to 4 minutes. Stir in reserved 3/4 cup cooking liquid, cream of mushroom soup, and next 5 ingredients. Cook, stirring occasionally, 8 minutes.

4. Skin and bone chicken; shred meat into bite-size pieces. Layer half of chicken in a lightly greased 13- x 9-inch baking dish. Top with half of soup mixture and 1 cup Cheddar cheese. Cover with half of corn tortilla strips. Repeat layers once. Top with remaining 1 cup cheese.

5. Bake at 350° for 55 minutes to 1 hour or until bubbly. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

*1 tsp. chili powder and 1/8 tsp. ground red pepper may be substituted for Mexican-style chili powder.

first day of school

Brenna 4th grade

Emma Grace 1st grade

We got there in Todd and Brenna style....20 minutes early. It was so hot that everyone was drenched in sweat. I really needed to just come home and shower again but I'll wait until after all of my housework is done.
Brenna and Emma Grace were both so anxious and excited. They were a little nervous of course but they were able to calm themselves down pretty good. Only one visit to the bathroom!

Anyway, now I'm home with just half of my kiddos and my mind is racing with all of the things I'm going to do today with two less children to worry with.

I will miss them today and can't wait to see them this afternoon.

bran muffins

bran muffins

You may want to half this recipe. It's huge!

2 cups boiling water
5 tsp baking soda
1 cup shortening(I've tried making it with butter and they are just not the same so I've never even gone the route of applesauce for all you really healthy wonderful people...wink, wink...Michelle!)
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 quart buttermilk
5 cups flour
1 tsp salt
4 cups All Bran Cereal
2 cups Bran Flakes Cereal

Directions:

Add soda to boiling water and set aside. Whip shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs slowly. Mix well. Add the buttermilk, flour, salt and mix again. Add the soda water very slowly. Gently fold in the cereals.

Muffin mix MUST sit in the refrigerator over night before baking. The next morning just stir the muffin mix around to combine all of the cereal into the batter. Bake at 350 for 23 minutes. Muffin mix will last one week, covered and refrigerated.

I love making the full recipe and having them warm for breakfast for several mornings in a row. They are best smothered in butter. Gosh, we are just the picture of health around here. I also like to mix raspberries in the batter. Just bake them for a couple of minutes longer. Yum!

chewy granola bars

Chewy Granola Bars
2 1/2 c quick rolled oats
1/2 c rice krispies
1/4 c coconut
1/2 c mini chocolate chips
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c butter, softened
1/4 c honey
1/2 tsp vanilla
Add all of the ingredients and mix together until combined. Press into a square 8x8 pan.
Bake at 350° for 18-20 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes and score into bars.
Let it set completely and then cut into bars.

pioneer crafts

Here is a little miniture handcart for children who are a little bit older.
Supply list:
1 small jewelry box
1 small piece of twine
4 wheels(craft store wood section)
1 barrel(craft store wood section)
3 boxes(craft store wood section)
small square fabric pieces for "blankets"
1 miniture popcicle stick
glue
paint

This is a cute little pioneer necklace for younger children.

Supplies:

1 dowel rod (cut into pieces, drill a hole, lightly sand each piece so the children don't get splinters)

twine

paint

letter stamps

black ink

pioneer day

We celebrated our Pioneer Heritage this year by taking a small pioneer trek around a local nature preserve. We had stories, music, games, crafts, and food. I feel so strongly that I want my children to learn about their heritage and always remember their ancestors. It was so wonderful to reflect upon the lives of wonderful people who sacrificed so much so that we could have the gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives today. To learn more about the journey of the Mormon Pioneers go to our church website.
Here are a few fun pictures showing how much fun we had.


Yep, Missy even got to go!
That's Brenna's good friend Holly with us.

fun in flagstaff...

We went on a little family "get-away" to Flagstaff last weekend. It's unbelievable that the weather can be so nice just two hours from here. We enjoyed every "outside" moment. We hiked, played on the playground, swam, oh heck we just stood outside and dreamed of the other eight months in Arizona.

So we stayed in this great condo that was just remodeled and owned by Todd's previous employer. They were so nice and gracious to let us use it! The back of the condo looked out onto a golf course. The girls didn't think that was all that great! They kept making comments like, "why don't they go golf somewhere else?". They just couldn't understand why in the world they couldn't play on that nice open space of green grass.

Here I am handing over the "goods" to Todd...if I had only gotten to Boardwalk first!

The condo was stocked with every classic game you can think of. Brenna really wanted to play Monopoly. Who knew that Todd and I would actually get into it. Todd won both nights that we played while torturing Brenna and me. At times Brenna and I thought we had him but in the end we turned all of our money and property over to him.

Very close to the condo was a really great playground, a swimming pool, and some really cute bridges that I could have taken pictures at all day if my children would have indulged me. I'm trying to take better pictures. So I've been doing some practicing. I need to go to some workshops. I feel like my pictures have really been lacking the past several years and I need to figure it out!!


So here are a few that I thought turned out pretty good while the children were cooperating a little bit.