Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup

Like I said in yesterday's post, this is a compilation of a few recipes. This amount feeds my family of 5 plus leftovers for hubby to take to work a couple days. I'll post the long way and the changes for the quick and dirty way.


Long Way
2 chicken breasts
1 small onion
5-6 potatoes - cubed
2 cups of carrots - sliced
2 cups of chicken broth/stock
1 tbs minced garlic
1 tsp garlic salt
1 cup of milk mixed with 1tbs of flour
8 oz cream cheese
1 pkg of Reamed frozen egg noodles
Salt and pepper to taste

Boil chicken breasts in just enough water to cover them until thoroughly cooked. Turn heat down to medium and pull out chicken to cool. Add veggies, garlic, salt, pepper, chicken stock and some water (I usually add about 2 cups). Cook until veggies tender. While waiting, cool and shred chicken. When veggies are ready add chicken back to pot. Add noodles. Wait until its boiling again and then add the flour + milk mixture. Watch the pot and stir or it will boil over. Lastly add the cream cheese in large dollops and allow to melt. Don't try to stir it in or it will separate and look nasty. Once it's all melted, stir, add water if necessary and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes before serving.

The quick and dirty method speeds up the time because there is no waiting to cook the veggies. You just add a can of diced potatoes and a can of sliced carrots. Then, you can quickly add everything else and serve.

Easiest Homemade Bread Ever!

I discovered peasant bread. Whip this up with homemade garlic butter and…oh my goodness is it yummilicious!!

Our Christmas Eve dinner was homemade creamy chicken noodle soup, this bread, and homemade peach pie. So good!! I'll post my creamy chicken noodle soup recipe tomorrow. It's a hybrid of various chicken soup recipes I've found. I served my mother in law on Christmas day the leftovers and she loved it too!

Peasant Bread
What's good about this is it takes about 1 hr from mixing to baking. And there's no kneading.

1 pkg of yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups of hot water
4-5 cups of flour
Melted butter
Cornmeal

Mix yeast, water, salt, and sugar until thoroughly mixed. Add flour a couple cups at a time. Cover with towel for 20-30 minutes (or longer if you have time). Then dust your hands with flour and throw a little on the bread and cut it into two round loaves. Dip bottoms of loaves in cornmeal (or flour if you're out of cornmeal). Then place on cookie sheet and brush with butter. Bake for 10 minutes at 425. Then turn oven to 375 and bake for 15-20 more minutes. Let it cool just a bit before cutting. Yum!!

As for the homemade garlic butter, I just throw ingredients together. I soften a stick if butter then add a spoonful of minced garlic, a smaller spoonful of parmesan cheese, a few shakes Italian seasoning, about 1/2 tsp of garlic salt and mix well. Then I use my Pampered Chef cookie dough/ ice cream scooper and make little balls of garlic butter and chill them in the fridge for a bit before dinner.

I'm graduating on Friday!!

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. There's probably 1.5 people still reading by now.

I've been finishing up my school work and assisting my husband in his school assignments for the last month or so. And I've started a little resale biz on eBay with my love of thrift stores.

And!! My mom has a friend on a quilt guild who is opening an upscale crafty place and my mom and I are going to share a spot. I can't wait!!

As for the title of my post…I'm walking the stage for my bachelor's degree on Friday morning. I'm getting nervous. I'm one of those people who are prone to falling on their face in public, especially while wearing heels. Wish me luck!!

I finally found this song!

This is an odd story...okay well not really, but whatever I'm telling it anyway.  As the few people who read this have probably realized throughout this blog, my husband is a HUGE Harry Potter freak.  Before baby #3, we were able to go to a lot more Harry Potter stuff.  Back when Half Blood Prince came out in the theaters, there were tons of parties and gatherings, blah, blah, blah.  We are some of the crazy people that dress up.  We usually go as Tonks and Lupin.  Anyway, so as other HP people know, there are wizard rock shows.  We went to a few of them, and at two of them was this band, The MudBloods, who consisted of one guy, Adam Dubberly.  We picked up his unmarked albums at one of this shows, and it wasn't wrock music, it was something else.  Hubby and I loved it.  I think at the last show we saw I was throwing out requests for these songs and asking him the names of the songs.  I just found him online again with a new band called Harvey Dowd, but I'm not sure if it's still in existence. I think he's a great lyricist. If you like their music, you can go to their site, Harvey Dowd, and download the entire album for free. I love all the songs on the album. We have a few more songs on that mystery album we bought that are just wonderful too.  

Here is one of my favorites in an acoustic version:

Here is Hubby's favorite. It even made him go read The Great Gatsby:

Look at these MUMMY jars!

Check out this tutorial for mummified glass jar candles from Crafting a Green World. 

I'm totally doing this to our walkway.  It's perfect as it kills 2 birds with one stone...clean out the fridge and add to my super cool Halloween decorations outside.  Aren't they adorable? And I have all the supplies in my house...when does that ever happen?

I need to take pictures of our Halloween house and post here.  It's like Glitter Halloween meets a little bit of scary. 

We have realistic skeletons crawling up the bricks, and a giant glitter spider web complete with blue fuzzy spider killing a Barbie doll (well...technically it's a Scary Spice doll from the thrift store), and another partially webbed doll (Ginger Spice, also of the thrift store) -- all of which is outlined in my front windows decked in orange lights.  We have ghosts in a circle holding hands around the big tree - made by me from thrift store white sheets, paper bags and polyfil and dowel rods.  Those were in a magazine for Halloween this year, one of those crafty ones.  Oh looky! I found a tutorial for them online.   

We have glowing eyes in the side windows (we're a corner lot), and I will soon be adding orange lights around them and another spider web.  Hmm...what else?  Oh!  Yes, we have spider webs with giant purple glittery spiders on either side of our garage and each of those light fixtures has a red light.  Our porch light is now a black light and we have a ripped up black fabric curtain at the entrance with spider webs here and there and glitter bats hanging down.  And when I can get the darn outdoor extension surge protector thingy from the Xmas decorations, I'll be adding some purply lighted bats to the bushes.  And my husband's piece de resistance is the scary glowing eyes lurking in the bush at the front door that shakes the entire bush when it senses movement. 


I'm working on the new tutorial I was supposed to have a couple weeks ago.  I got bogged down with midterms for me and six-week tests and projects for the kids. Seriously, do these people have kids? Is this some kind of torture for parents?  I just had to sew some "ear-o-matics" for an invention project.  They keep long-eared dogs ears clean when eating.  I should totally do a tutorial for those things.  They are so easy to make, and I swear I've seen something like them in stores for outrageous prices.  

Anyway, I'm back on easy street with my school work, so I should have the tut up by the end of the week. And, I've been diligently staying up at night working on stuff for an etsy store.  My goal is to have it ready by November 1st.  I have quite a few things, but I want a good stocking before I officially open. 

Thrift Store Score!

My mom found a new thrift store earlier this week and I HAD to go check it out, so hubby and I went tonight. It's definitely a new fave. I got a $100 diaper bag for $4 and a practically brand new LL Bean coat for the winter for my toddler for $2. Woohoo!!