After Christmas

And a Recipe 

We had a good Christmas Day. After opening presents here in the morning, we headed to Ward's father's house in VA to spend the day with his family. There were 19 of us, with ages ranging from 89 to 10 months. It was a lot of fun. Yesterday was a relaxed day with puzzle working and crafting. 

Today we need to add back some more of the food groups to all of the holiday chocolate we've been eating. We have leftover ham, so I'm hoping Wally will make his potato ham soup before he leaves today. Below is the post it first appeared in.

Until next time...

______________________________________________________________

Wally Makes Soup

Wally likes to eat. No, let me correct that. Wally loves to eat. However, he doesn't like to cook. But today, he did just that. I asked him to help me with some potato soup by peeling the potatoes. One thing led to another and in less than an hour he had created a delicious potato ham soup.

True to the family tradition, he didn't follow a recipe. He looked at couple of recipes, took inventory of ingredients on hand and started cooking. For better nutrition he added carrots and used low-fat cream cheese. He didn't use onions as a favor to Ward and he added his own special optional ingredient at the end--Stubb's Spicy BBQ Sauce. The result was a very delicious soup that reminded me of scalloped potatoes with ham. I hope this successful cooking adventure is the beginning of a new trend.

Below are basic instructions for making the soup. Detailed recipe at the end.

Chop potatoes, celery, carrots and ham.

Saute celery, carrots, and garlic before adding potatoes and water. Cook until veggies are tender. Add cream cheese and ham.                                     

Garnish with cheddar cheese and/or Stubb's Spicy BBQ sauce. Serve and enjoy!

Wally's Potato Ham Soup

Ingredients:

Oil, 1 T

Celery, 2 stalks chopped

Carrots, 3 large chopped

Garlic, 3 cloves minced

Potatoes, 7 medium--5-6 cups chopped

Water, 4 ½ cups

Chicken bouillon cubes, 2

Low fat cream cheese, 8 oz, softened and cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes

Ham, 2 cups chopped (¾ lb)

For garnish:

Shredded cheddar cheese

Stubb's BBQ Sauce, 1 teaspoon/bowl

Saute celery, carrots, and garlic in oil until celery is starting soften.

Add potatoes, water, and bouillon cubes. Bring to boil and boil until vegetables are tender. Approximately 10- 15 minutes.

Lower heat or turn off heat on electric range and add cream cheese. Stir until melted.

Stir in ham.

Note: I added a little of Stubb's spicy BBQ sauce into my bowl. It gave the soup just a hint of spicy hotness without overwhelming the other flavors.

My mom and dad just put a little shredded cheese on theirs.

Everyone was happy. I hope you like it too.

Merry Christmas!

 ^"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill towards men.^"

"...And that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown." 

 "A Charlie Brown Christmas" 

Thankful Sunday

I am thankful for joys in my life.

 I look for something to smile about every day. A good joke, a flower, a wave from a stranger, or a call from my son all make me happy and bring a smile. But true joys are fewer and farther between. 

I can't show you the neighborhood dogs, but I can show Miss Landers' dog
joyfully playing ball in the river.

However, I am blessed that I have an opportunity for a joyful activity most mornings. A golden retriever, Max, lives across the street, and every morning at 7 am, he has a visitor, Frodo - a smaller black dog. Frodo's owner lets him off the lead, and Max comes out to play. They romp, run, and wrestle. They exude joy as only dogs can, and it is contagious. They play for about 15 minutes while Frodo's owner stands quietly on the side. And then they all go on their merry ways. It's a great way to start the day.

Tonight, I had a rarer joy- Christmas carolers. For a few years now, the kids in the neighborhood have gotten together and gone caroling. Tonight we were serenaded by 16 kids ranging in age from preschoolers to teenagers. The older ones took care of the younger ones and pulled them in a wagon from house to house. The group had music to which they sang 4 songs. There were shy kids who hid behind others, there were bouncy ones who danced to every song, and there were serious singers who sang from the heart. Watching and listening to those kids was pure joy for me. They represented the spirit of the season in every way. And not to mention, they were too cute for words.

I can't show you the neighborhood kids, so I'll show you Charlie Brown and the gang caroling on our doormat. (Along with my toes.)

So for the free spirit and joy of playing dogs and the caroling of children, I am thankful.

Instead of...

 Or What I'm doing instead of blogging.

I haven't been showing up here so much recently because I've been doing other things. So let's see if I can remember any of them.

1. Celebrated our wedding anniversary with a trip to a B and B. Elegant surroundings with a delicious 3-course breakfast. 

The sitting room with our bedroom at the B&B.
Can you tell we were in the turret of an old Victorian house?

2. Put up Christmas decorations. And why is it that every year, after we put the lights up outside, half of one of the strands decides to go bad? And maybe LED lightbulbs will last forever, but the wires with them don't. Bah humbug!

3. Cooking more often. Cooking has never been my thing, and it takes a real effort to do it consistently. 

4. Writing our Christmas letter and sending it out. 

5. Buying and making gifts.

6. Coordinating Christmas dinner for Ward's extended family.

7. Working and enjoying the regular storytimes I am doing for the under-5 set.

8. Working on my Storyworth stories. You are probably seeing commercials for this everywhere now as a gift you should give. I got one last year. How it works is they send you a question every week for a year that you write about, and after a year, they publish it into a book. A keepsake kind of thing. I haven't written something every week, but I do have 40-some and hope to do a few more. After the year, you have a little time to edit, and then you're done. So my deadline is coming. Anyway, if I have time to do some writing at the computer, Storyworth is getting priority these days.

9. Helping Miss Landers with some projects.

10. Doing year-end tax planning. Fun stuff. :)

My time's up, so that's what you got off the top of my head in no particular order or importance.

Until next time...

Thankful Sunday

 I am thankful for my curious kitties.

I have old cats. They move slowly, sleep a lot, and groom little. They look and act very much like the 19-year-old cats they are. But yesterday, their younger selves emerged when we brought out the Christmas decorations. They sniffed, pawed, and otherwise tried to dominate the different Christmas containers and bags. And for this spark of curiosity that I saw in Annie and Leo, I am thankful.

(And I'm also thankful that they aren't knocking all of the ornaments off the tree, or knocking it over, for that matter.)