Cheesy Spinach Artichoke Soup

I found the original recipe here. I made some changes and I've listed my changes.

Cheesy Spinach-Artichoke Soup 

• 1/2 cup of butter
• 6 tablespoons flour
•  2cups chicken stock
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
• 1 bag of fresh spinach
• 1 (14 ounce) can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped (any tough outer-leaves removed)
• 1 (10 ounce) can diced tomatoes
• 1 (4-ounce) cream cheese, cubed and at room temperature
• 2 cups Tex Mex shredded cheese
• 1 cup turkey, cooked and cubed
• 1 (10oz) can evaporated milk.
• mushrooms, button chopped up, about 6 small

Melt butter in a saucepan.  Add flour and make a paste.  Add chicken stock.  Cook over medium heat till thickened, stirring often.  Season with pepper.  Add cream cheese, Parmesan and Monterey Jack cheese and stir until it's smooth and melted.  Add spinach (let spinach boil down before adding the rest), artichoke hearts, tomatoes and turkey.  Gently stir till blended.  Keep the soup warm, but do not boil.  Garnish with sliced green onion and croutons or serve in a warm bread bowl.  Serves 10.



I love this soup. It was super tasty. My middle boy and Husband loved it. The other two wouldn't try since it had tomatoes in it.

Guest Recipe: Margie's Kumquat Cake

INGREDIENTS:
1 lemon cake mix
1 small package of lemon instant pudding
3/4 cup oil
1/2 cup chopped kumquats (pureed)
1/4 cup milk
4 eggs
1 tsp lemon juice

DIRECTIONS:
1. In a bowl, combine the first 5 ingredients and beat well.
2. Add eggs one at a time beating well.
3. Add lemon juice.
4. Pour into greased and floured bunt pan and bake at 325 degrees for 45-50 minutes.
5. Remove from pan and add glaze.


Thanks for sharing your recipe Tina!!

Pinterest has some interesting food finds.

I've found some interesting food fare over at Pinterest. The link will take you to my In The Kitchen Pinterest board. If you click on the picture it will take you to another page, in the top right hand side there will be  link to the original site if you are looking for a recipe from my pins.

I promise to start posting again this week!

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The Best Ever Sugar Cookies

It's been some time since I've posted. In the last year I've not done a lot of from scratch cooking that is new or been eventful. I really do need to get back to it. I'm concentrating more on providing the kids with more nutritious from scratch cooking, so I should be posting here more and hopefully that will keep me motivated to post more.

The last two years I've been stuck in a rut because frankly, I hated that cooking and baking because such a chore because I had to cook all the time. I tried getting the kids involved but it just turned to chaos and I threw up my hands and gave up.

Well, no more. I'm going to do this and do this and make it fun. Kale has been a much bigger help recently in the kitchen besides just putting dishes away. He's really wanting to get in there and learn and this just may be the learning adventure we are both looking for. He's started baking, well doing the mixing part. He's a pro at making his own lunch or salad to go with our dinner. It's getting quite fabulous, so I can say that he's inspiring me to get back to my cooking roots!

We tried some new cookies for Valentine's Day, H and I don't really celebrate a day of love since we love each other everyday. But the kids like it and think it's special, so we do things with them like makes cards and bake cookies.

We used The Best-Ever Sugar Cookies from Taste of Home and they were so good. They weren't too sweet and they weren't the usual dried out sugar cookies we usually end up making. They were soft and fluffy and had the perfect taste. I'm thinking of making them again.

Lady Ashburningham Pickles.

6 large cukes, peeled, seeded & cut into chunks

2lbs. onions, cut fine

1/4 cup coarse salt

2 cups vinegar

2 cups sugar
3 tbsp flour
1 tbsp mustard
1 tbsp turmeric
1 tsp mustard seed
1 tsp celery seed

3 red or green onion (optional)

Cut cucumbers into chunks. Place in large bowl. Sprinkle with coarse salt & fill with water to cover. Let stand overnight.

In morning, drain well, place in a large pot and add onions and other ingredients. Cook on medium heat for one hour.

Ladle into sterilized jars, cover & process in boiling water for 10 minutes. Remove, check seal and store in a dark cool place.

*******

I made this over the weekend. My Dad got the recipe from my best friends mother. He instructed and I did it all and it worked out well. I've always like that smell of canning relishes.

My Dad is a big gardener and always has a big harvest.

I'll put up some pictures of it later, once I download them from my camera.

Chocolate Eclair Cake

I found this recipe on Kraft.ca when doing a search for a dessert to make for a function I was attending. It was quite yummy.

1 pkg. instant vanilla pudding

1 1/2 cups of milk

3 cups of cool whip

27 graham crackers

1 cup of chocolate frosting

Mix pudding mix with milk. Let sit 5 minutes then add the cool whip.

Layer graham crackers, pudding, crackers, pudding, crackers in an 8 x 8 pan, 3 layers of 9 crackers.

Put in fridge for 3 hours. Frost before serving.

I let mine sit overnight and the crackers were very soft, it's was very good!