Southwest Chicken Soup

One of my favorite recipes, because... it is SO EASY. And it's delicious

Again, I got this recipe from my favorite blogger, so click here to check her out!

Southwest Chicken Soup

Are you ready for this....

1 jar of salsa verde (I used the Pace that is pictured above)
1 rotisserie chicken
1 (15 oz) can of navy beans drained (I used Bush’s)
1 (large 49oz) can of chicken stock (I only used about 2/3 of the can)

garnish: shredded cheddar, sour cream & tortilla chips

Remove skin from chicken and shred meat with forks. Combine all ingredients into a large saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 10-15 mins. I used the entire jar of salsa verde and it’s “make-your-nose-sweat hot”… if medium salsa is too hot for you… just add 1/2 the jar of salsa.

THAT IS ALL. HOW EASY IS THAT!??! If you really want to get fancy with it, you can check out her blog to see how to make homemade tortilla chips. Haven't felt the need to do that yet :)

You will love this, try it and let me know what you think!!

day 1- fudge pie

Today is one of my dearest friends birthday, Claire :) I wanted to do something special for her today and decided that I would make her a fudge pie. I know she likes this because she borrowed my grandmother's recipe from me once. But I decided to try this lady's recipe. Easy Peasy Lemon Squeesy is what it is.

First of all I have tried a couple of Darby's recipes before and LOVED it because it's delicious and easy as pie (yes, I did that on purpose).

Fudge Pie

1 stick melted butter
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla
1/4 C. cocoa
1/4 C. self-rising flour
1 C. sugar
1 ready to bake regular size pie shell {not deep dish}

(This is darby's final picture)

Mix ingredients together in bowl with fork until well combined. Avoid using a mixer if possible, over beating the filling will cause the top to rise and crack after baking. Bake at 300 degrees for 45 minutes. Let sit for 10-15 or as long as you possibly can resist. Feel free to double, triple, quadruple, quintuple, sextuple, septuple, or even get crazy and octuple this recipe. But I can’t find the word for 9-fold so you’ll have to stop at octuple.

Ok, so I am a little nervous about how this one will turn out because I accidentally spilt the vanilla into my batch, so I have NO idea how much went in. I am sure it will still be great!

(conclusion- DELICIOUS!!!)

The Julie/Julia Project

Ok, I have been inspired by Julie and Julia (one of my favorite "must-see" movies). I have been having trouble deciding on what to blog about, but when watching this movie for the 93 billionth time, I thought maybe I could also blog about my cooking experiences.

If you don't know, I have had ZERO cooking experience before I got married three months ago. And I mean squat. I was constantly made fun of by friends and family for different things, like when I would "take credit" for different meals at Thanksgiving... " Yes, I made those! I put them in the kitchen aid mixer and pressed GO".... "Yes, my mom finished making it, but that's only because I was busy welcoming guests"(or I would think of some excuse for why I wasn't really cooking or helping out). I am probably the dead last person you would want cooking your meal. I remember in college, when I actually thought I was cooking by putting a veggie burger from the freezer (that was already pre-cooked) and cooking it on the stove for 1o minutes.

And sometimes I would even put some mushrooms on the stove and cook it. WITH NO DIRECTIONS.

So for example, my blog for tonight's dinner would look like this: Subway. I pulled into Subway around 4 where there was a very strange long line, I then had to choose what sub I wanted, and what I wanted on that sub. With choosing the bread, meat, toppings, (and deciding if I wanted to add a drink or bag of chips), it took me around 5-10 minutes.

Ok so I will blog about the food that I am literally cooking myself.

this will be me soon. Smiling ear to ear, not because there is a naked bird with it's legs spread open by my face, but because I'll be a master chef!

I GOT A REAL JOB.

A lot of exciting things have been happening lately. Including getting a new JOB, Paul and I getting off facebook (listen, it's a lot harder than it sounds!), and just doing some major adjusting.

This past Thursday, I got a call from my mom's good friend, Dollie, the assistant principle at Hickory Hills elementary, wondering if I was interested in becoming a kindergarten paraprofessional. Of course I said YES! They had me in THAT day for an interview. PTL Meghan (the lady I nanny for) let me borrow her cute dress, makeup, and borrowed some shoes from a neighbor (her feet are a tad large compared to mine). So I swung on by the elementary school for an interview, and they offered me the JOB! All in one day!! This is such a blessing to us, I get paid full-time as well as benefits and paid vacations. And the craziest part is that I have been feeling for the past two months that God wanted me to be a school teacher. I've had it on my heart, and this position fell into my hands. Coincidence? Definitely not, God had His hand all in this for His plan. I have been trusting Him into getting Paul and I where to be, and maybe where we need to be is here for right now. Who knows....

As wonderful as this blessing is, it is so hard for me to leave the family I nanny for. Meghan has become one of my really good friends, and she's always there for me to vent! I hate that I can't be a helping hand for her anymore, but I know it's probably best for the both of us. I sure will miss those kiddos though. They will always hold a special place in my heart.

Well, this is my life update for now.

OH, and not to mention I got this job this past Thursday... well I start THIS Monday!!!!

love & war.

So let me start out by saying that marriage is GREAT. I truly have loved it, and I wouldn't want to be with any other than man than Paul. He is kind, loving, selfless, romantic, a leader, extremely handsome, and has all the qualities a woman like me would want. I am truly blessed by Paul and this marriage. But can I just say HALLELUJAH for Stasi and John Elderidge who wrote the book "Love and War" that I am currently reading...

I have been struggling lately, and it has been a personal struggle. I find myself trying to be this perfect wife. There are so many "duties" that a wife must fulfill. And I'm just going to be honest, MARRIAGE IS HARD WORK. I never thought I'd admit that, but it is. It is so compleltely different that anything I've ever done in my entire life. Putting someone else before me, serving someone else, seeing that person every day and night of your life. It's a lot to ask of a man of woman and cannot be done without God. I cannot even comprehend how any marriage can work without Jesus being the center and pulling our ropes. Praise the Lord I happened to stumble across this book, because all I've been thinking to myself lately is "I'm just never going to be good enough, I'm not perfect for Paul, how could anybody fully love me?" How could I possibly forget God's love for me, and the whole point of marriage is to show God's love. God knows marriage is hard, but He is showing you a "true love" that you can only grasp through marriage.

Did you know that the Bible begins AND ends with marriage? Marriage is SUCH a huge lesson that God is teaching us with our time here on earth. I will not lie and say that marriage is great all the time, because it's just not. But I love Paul more than I've ever loved anyone, and I love the fact that we get to go through this together. What a wonderful blessing that is.

life, life, life.

Soo.... I'm having a vision. A vision of SELLING my homemade bread? Crazy? Probably. But what do you think of a HOME delivery service? I can make all different kinds of breads, muffins, bagels, rolls, etc. I mean... aren't there some mom's out there that would love to make homemade bread but don't have the time? I work as a nanny, and KNOW there are some mom's that would love this. Thoughts??

Also, Paul will be meeting with the director on Tuesday, and I think we will leave soon for a week to St. Mary's to film THE PILOT episode. Please continue to pray for our future, as it is ALL up in the air!

lifelong goal completed.

why am I so bad at keeping this updated? I am sorry to all my fans (all three of you) haha. Oh goodness, anyshways, I am sure most of you have seen my twitter or facebook, but I completed one of my life goals last week. And it was INCREDIBLE.

So, my bff had invited me to go to the braves game and go to the suntrust club. Let me tell you... once you go suntrust, you won't wanna go back to normal seating. It is AWESOME. You get free food the whole time (dinner, ballpark food, drinks, etc). You have your own personal waiter. You have a flat screen tv in front of you (just incase you can't see what's going on from the 2nd row) and it's just an experience you'll never forget.

So I have always always ALWAYS wanted to catch a baseball at a Braves game. I mean who hasn't? Soo.... I am sitting there and I make eye contact with one of the Mets coaches (and this is during the game people). I signal him to throw me a ball. He then points to me and throws it to me! UNREAL. I even got on NATIONAL tv and on the bigscreen. Lifechanging really. The best, is when I listened to what they were saying they said "Mets coach makes a friend behind the net" I mean seriously great. I can check that one off the list!