Maria’s quick and easy chicken soup

I made this today right when I came home from work.
It's quick and so easy to make.
Smells great and tastes so yummy.

2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup of chopped carrots
1 small onion chopped
left over cooked chicken shredded about 2 cups (white part)
or 2 large chicken breasts (not cooked) Place in a saucepan covering chicken
with water and boil for about 20 minutes, discarding foam.

heat the olive oil in a saucepan
then add the carrots, onions and chicken
saute for 5 minutes
fresh chopped parsley can be added or dried

two 900 mls chicken broth

stir and let cook for about 5 minutes covered with a lid
then add 2 cups of little frozen ravioli or fresh ravioli
or pasta of choice such as orzo (1/2 cup)
½ cup rice can be substituted for the pasta

let simmer for 10 minutes covered with a lid
add salt if broth tastes bland


Top each serving with grated Parmesan, if desired

PHILADELPHIA Chocolate-Vanilla Swirl Cheesecake

I made this cheesecake last week and it is so good. I did take a picture of the one I made but didn't quite look as pretty as the picture I have included here. But never mind, it still tasted delicious.
I didn't have oreo cookies and I used the regular graham type crackers and just crushed 'em up and added the melted butter.
Also I didn't have squares of chocolate but I did have half bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips and used that to melt.

PHILADELPHIA Chocolate-Vanilla Swirl Cheesecake


Prep Time: 15 min
Total Time: 5 hr 25 min
Makes: 16 servings

What You Need!
20 OREO Cookies, crushed (about 2 cups)
3 Tbsp. butter, melted
4 pkg. (8 oz. each) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup BREAKSTONE'S or KNUDSEN Sour Cream
4 eggs
6 squares BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate, melted, cooled

Make it!
heat oven to 325°F


MIX cookie crumbs and butter; press onto bottom of foil-lined 13x9-inch pan. Bake 10 min.



BEAT cream cheese, sugar and vanilla in large bowl with mixer until well blended. Add sour cream; mix well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing after each just until blended.



RESERVE 1 cup batter. Stir chocolate into remaining batter; pour over crust. Top with spoonfuls of reserved plain batter.



SWIRL batters with knife. Bake 40 min. or until center is almost set. Cool. Refrigerate 4 hours

Maria's Chili Recipe

2lbs lean ground beef
1 cup diced onions
1 cup diced celery
1 cup diced green or red peppers or combination to equal 1 cup
2 tsp minced garlic
1/3 cup corn
1/2 tbsp oregano
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 tbsp cumin
4 tbsp chili powder
Salt and pepper to taste
284 ml or consomme soup or beef broth
540 ml canned tomatoes
156 ml tomato paste
1 tsp oil
1 can 540 ml red kidney beans drained

Saute onions, celery, peppers, and garlic in the oil until tender but not browned.
Remove from the pot.
Add meat to the pot and brown, breaking up the meat as it cooks. Cook thoroughly. Drain fat.
Return vegetables to pot along with other ingredients except the kidney beans and corn.
Bring to a boil then simmer for one 1 hour
Add kidney beans and corn and more seasonings if desired.
Simmer another 15 minutes
Serve with toppings such as sour cream, grated cheddar cheese, green onions.

Margarita Time

Andrea came over last month and we had a little afternoon Mexican Fiesta. The strawberry margaritas were so very good.

1/2 cup orange juice

3 to 4 tablespoons of frozen limeade

1/2 cup Mott's strawberry daiquiri mix

2 cups of crushed ice

2 ounces of tequila (if making a daiquiri, 2 ounces of rum)

1 ounce of triple sec

blend all in blender for a few seconds

Delicious!!

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

These cookies are really good. I made them this afternoon and hard to not eat them all.

I didn't have enough peanut butter cups to make 2 cups as suggested by the recipe but I did have 1 cup and it still turned out delicious.
More Peanut Butter Cup Cookies Recipes here.

Here's the recipe.

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

INGREDIENTS
1 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
2 cups chopped peanut butter cups

DIRECTIONS
In a large mixing bowl, cream butter, peanut butter and sugars. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Combine flour, baking soda and salt; gradually add to the creamed mixture. Stir in the chocolate chips and peanut butter cups.
Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls 2 in. apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees F for 10-12 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Cool for 2 minutes before removing to wire racks.


Click to enlarge.

Some New Photos and some Old

Well, I really can't shake my winter blues. I have tried to and so has Stino but I can't shake it. I feel sometimes mad or just depressed. Usually the cold spell is all of February but this year it started, I believe, the second week of December with horrible temperatures of -35 and sometimes higher with the wind chill (celsius). It's enough to bring anyone down that really doesn't like the cold and I HATE the cold.

For Valentine's, Stino got me a 26 inch flat screen tv for our room. He said he would never ever have a tv in the bedroom. But I know he sees how much I enjoy going up there and watching Dexter or a movie. It's just so cosy. I'm happy with the tv but deep down not thrilled. The price of it, would have paid for 2 airline tickets to Puerto Vallarta. That's what I really wanted.

But realistically I knew it wasn't going to happen as then we have to add airline tickets for the kids and the cost of hotel and food. Way too much this year. Well, enough blabbing and going to post some photos.

This one of me and Stino or is that Stino and I. I like me and Stino better. Anyways, this photo was taken on Valentine's day by Carlina. My smile is not a real happy one.

For supper we had lobster, crab, kiwi mussels, shrimp, and scallops. I was going to make rice and some of my home-made salsa but my mood was not in favor of doing all that. So we had only the seafood. But I will say, it was a delight to watch Anthony eat his shellfish. He loved it and I want to remember his cute expressions forever.


Not a very nice looking presentation but I can say it did taste so delicious. What I did was to a very large pot, I added Portuguese Mild Pepper Paste, with tons of chopped garlic and a nice amount of butter, some black pepper or white pepper and some salt. Let the butter melt and I even added a tad of extra virgin olive oil. Added the lobster and crab. Covered the pot with a lid and set the stove to medium and let it steam. To another pot, I added the same ingredients but added the scallops, mussels and shrimp and let that all cook on medium. What a smell!! We just love it. Well, almost all of us love it, except Carlina whose taste buds just don't care for flavorful food.

Did some garlic toast and baked up some jalapeño poppers which Anthony loves. I made Carlina and Anthony some virgin strawberry margaritas. For Stino and I, I added 1 and a half ounces of jose cuervo tequila and 1 oz of triple sec. Ummm very nice.

The virgin margarita I make for the kids has the following ingredients:

1/2 cup of orange juice
2 or 3 ounces of frozen limeade
1/2 cup of mott's strawberry daiquiri flavoring
16 ice cubes that I put into a bag and hammer the heck out of it just so it is nice and crushed.

I add this to either the shaker or blender.

if not making this for kids then to the blender or shaker add 3 to 4 ounces of tequila (if making a daiquiri then add 3 to 4 oz of rum) and 2 ounces of triple sec.

you can substitute the mott's strawberry mix with 2 cups of fresh strawberries.

Any ways, Stino and I winded up putting away our margaritas and drinking a bottle of Baby Duck instead. I haven't had that for years and you know I really enjoyed it. It's a cheap bubbly slightly sweet wine but I don't care. It went down very well.

Dessert was to have been fresh strawberries with melted chocolate but we were all too full.

Sunday, we went out for a drive. I wasn't really much in the mood to go out but Stino can not ever sit at home on a sunny day. First picture is showing our part of our deck and then the second one is the sidewalk on the back our of house.



After supper on Sunday Feb 15th 2009, I was feeling just super sad and I went and took a shower just to escape for a few minutes. Stino, came in with two cockatails. At first taste, I thought 'wow this is strong' but by the third taste, I was really liking it.
Stino, made this drink that I had never tasted before and turned out to be a nice combination. I guess his bartending technique came back to him from the OLD days when he used to work at Club Soda.


I looked up the ingredients he used on the internet and found no cocktail with all of the ingredients he used, so I decided to call it:
Stino's Copa Cocktail
C for 1 oz of Contreau
O for 1 cup of orange juice
P for 1 oz of peach schnapps
A for 1 oz of amaretto
and he added ice to the shaker and shook it up good.
add a slice of fresh pineapple to rim or right inside the glass.
Now that was my drink so he actually doubled this recipe up for 2 drinks.
You think that would have snapped me out of my sadness but it didn't but I love my honey for trying and 'darn'that was a good drink.

Today, Monday Feb 16th 2009, I got up kind of late. I was up until 2am watching season 2 of Dexter. I watched 2 episodes and it sure is getting interesting.
It was a stat holiday here, Louis Riel Day. So, nice we're all home. Carlina wanted to make some pancakes. So, that's what she made for us all.

I definitely have to find a better recipe as it was kind of on the rubbery side. But still, I loved she wanted to make them for us.

My sister-in-law, Enza called and asked if we would like to go bowling at Academy Lanes. She spoke to Stino and at first I thought it would be a nice opportunity for me to stay home and deal with my self-pity but within minutes I changed my mind and decided I really should go.
I wasn't happy there although I really REALLY tried not to show it.
Here are a few pictures that were taken.



My little monkey, Anthony is entering the school science fair and his project is on volcanos and here is a picture of him and Stino working on the volcano.


I was going through a 2007 folder of pictures and thought I would add some here.




Here is the shed that Stino made from scratch a few years back. All his own plan.


and here is a Fall picture in 2007 of our deck. Do I ever miss sitting outside.


I wish I could remember the website I went to, to create these photos. I can't find it. I did have it bookmarked but after doing a reformat, I lost the website.
If anyone knows, leave me a note to where I can find it again.



and finally some halloween 2007 pictures. I wish I wasn't so behind. I used to keep up with printing out photos and now I'm one full year behind. But at least I have the ones I want printed out in a folder. I even resized them all to 4x6 because I noticed that when picking them up at walmart, that sometimes very important parts were cropped out so now I resize them all.



That's all I have to say and I think I said enough. Going to make myself some earl grey tea, kiss Stino good night and head on up to watch episode 12 of Dexter.

Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

I made this cake yesterday and it is so DELICIOUS. It is actually called Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Icing but I didn't cut it into bars so it became pumpkin cake.
The kids and Stino just love it too.

the recipe suggests to not grease the pan, which I didn't. But I totally suggest you do, as the cake was really stuck in the pan after baking.

Here is the recipe

Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting


4 eggs
1 2/3 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 (15 ounce) can solid pack pumpkin
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
ICING:
1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon milk

In a mixing bowl, beat eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin. Combine flour,
Cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda and salt; gradually add to pumpkin
Mixture and mix well. Pour into an ungreased 15x10-in. Baking pan. Bake at
350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes. Cool completely.
For icing, beat cream cheese, sugar, butter and vanilla in a small mixing
Bowl. Add enough of the milk to achieve desired spreading consistency.
Spread over bars

My Fall Photo Featured on the Weather Network

October 18, 2008 we picked up Stino at the airport at 11:30 am. It was such a beautiful day and off we went for a ride. First we stopped at top of garbage mountain but the sun wasn't in the right directions and so all the pictures I took didn't turn out.
Next we drove to Kilcona Park on Lagimodiere. Got out and we all took turns taking photos. I brought along two digital cameras but that wasn't enough at times as the kids each wanted to have a turn.
This is one of the first pictures I took at the entrance of Kilcona Park.



I liked this photo and uploaded it to the Weather Network and today (oct 19th) it was featured.


Before you click on the black arrow to view this 14 second video I took with my digital camera. Scroll down to the right hand side and click on the pause to stop the player from playing. Here's a screenshot of what I mean.


I was really excited. I have never entered any of my photos anywhere. At least I don't believe I have. So, this being my first time was pretty exciting.

Here's a few more pictures that were taken at Kilcona Park and a corn field along the highway.









October 19, 2008
This morning Carlina wanted to make pancakes from scratch but she wanted to do it herself. I told her that was fine but that also meant she had to get all the ingredients out and bowls, measuring spoons and cups. The kids have always just helped me out but this time I wanted her to do it pretty much all herself. I wish I had taken photos of her doing this along the way, but I'm surprised with myself that I didn't even think of it.
She did a good job and I was very proud of her. Minimal clean up too, so I liked that.
I did take a picture of her little pancakes.


Pretty nice day today and Stino and the kids were outside raking leaves.
Here's some of the pictures that were taken today.




On this picture, Stino was using the blower to get the leaves in a pile. Here you can see some of the leaves up in the air around Anthony.



I love this photo but it is blurry. I had the camera on a wrong setting which caused a slight pause when the picture was taken, thus a blurry photo. grrrrr.

Here's my Little Pajama Pirate Anthony


I was too lazy to get the pictures out of their frames and simply scan so instead I took pictures of them. Turned out crappy but decided to include them here as I just love these photos of Carlina and Anthony, taken on Oct 21, 2001




And finally I made a lemon loaf. So delicious. I could eat the whole thing myself.
The recipe didn't mention coconut, but I added it and I really feel it made it even better.





LEMON LOAF


515 g Duncan Hines lemon cake mix
106 g pkg lemon instant pudding mix
250 ml (1 cup) water
80 ml (1/3 cup) oil
4 eggs
(I added about half cup of coconut)(optional but a delicious addition)
Glaze
250 ml (1 cup) icing sugar
Juice of a lemon
Beat together loaf ingredients at low speed until moistened, and then at medium speed for 2 minutes. Bake in 2 greased and floured loaf pans at 350 F for 40 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.
For glaze, combine icing sugar and lemon juice in small bowl. Stir until smooth. While loaves are still warm, drizzle glaze over top. Cool completely before slicing.
Taste Tester Notes: If you don't mind using mixes, this is quick to make and turns out super moist. The fresh lemon juice adds a nice tartness to the glaze. I lined the loaf pans with parchment paper, which makes lifting the loaves out easy, and let them cool in the pan. Readers noted that this freezes well, and can also be baked as a bundt cake by baking in a greased bundt pan for 45-55 minutes. Drizzle glaze over cake after removing from pan.