Taco Soup.....

I know.  Who eats soup in the middle of a Missouri summer? 

I do.

 The older I get the more  my taste buds change.  Over the past several years I've come to like a number of foods.  Peas are still not a favorite and I probably will never like mixed vegetables or vegetable soup.  For years, I've heard people talk about taco soup and one day I decided to gather recipes.  The first time I made it I used the ground beef as the recipe called.  After making it a couple times and making a few changes to a combination of recipes, I think I have arrived at a recipe that I can kinda claim as my own......

TACO SOUP

2 boneless skinless chicken breast, cooked and shredded/chopped

2 cans black beans (do not drain)

1 can corn, drained

1 large onion, chopped

1 can ro-tel tomatoes with green chilies 

1 pkg taco seasoning mix

1 pkg ranch dressing mix

1-1/2 cups broth from the chicken

Combine all ingredients in the crock pot....you see that I have mine lined with a *Reynolds Slow Cooker liner. (These can be found at Wal-Mart with the wax paper, saran, etc...)

Let cook on low 4-6 hours.....or all day....

Precook your chicken as you prepare supper, just remember to reserve a bit of your chicken broth.....chop your onion.....toss it all in the crock pot the next morning....let it cook all day and supper is ready when you get home!

A few things on the side.....shredded cheese, sour cream!

ENJOY!

Something New.....

Remember these?  The fat quarter bundle that I just couldn't resist buying while waiting for interfacing to be cut.  And as it turned out, once I got started with a plan, I had to go back and buy another bundle to have enough...

I pressed them all out and cut them into 3 1/2" strips and sewed them together....

Then cut those sections into 3 1/2" strips......

Sewed them into strips to form blocks....

......then stitching blocks together and adding more strips as I went to make the finished size top that I decided I wanted to go with.....

So here we have the quilt sandwich ready to be quilted.

  I don't know whether I will hand quilt it, machine quilt it myself or send it out to be machine quilted by someone with alot more experience than me!

I will post more photo's once it's complete.  

An Unfinished Project.....

I recently went through an old dresser that was taking up space in the garage. It held an assortment of things.....from old papers to apparently, unfinished counted cross-stitch projects. This is from *Homestead Classics Cross Stitch Collectibles*....the November 1989 issue! I stitched one for my mother-in-law then decided I wanted one for myself.  As you can see I got a great start on it...actually closer to being finished than just beginning... then for whatever reason it got set aside, packed away, moved and misplaced. I was so glad to find it once again.  I have had some unexpected time off from work this week so I've gotten caught up on some alterations work so I won't feel guilty that if today I stitch away and continue with my 'Downton Abbey' marathon.....at least for a little while.

Enjoy your day!

Death by Chocolate Zucchini Bread

So this is one of those recipes that popped up in my facebook newsfeed .  I really like zucchini and I love chocolate so I thought I'd try this for a little something different.  Just a couple of things I did differently was to use *Splenda for baking rather than real sugar and rather than brushing the pan with butter and cocoa, I sprayed it with *Baker's Joy.  The recipe and web-site are shared below! 

ENJOY!

INGREDIENTS

1/2 c. melted butter, plus more for brushing pan

1/2 c. cocoa powder, plus more for dusting pan

1 1/4 c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. kosher salt

1 c. sugar

1 egg plus 1 egg yolk

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 c. grated zucchini (from 1 large or 2-3 small)

2/3 c. chocolate chips

Flaky sea salt, for garnish

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and dust a loaf pan with cocoa powder.

In large bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.

In another large bowl, stir together sugar and egg and egg yolk until smooth, 1 minute. Add melted butter and vanilla extract and mix until smooth. Add zucchini, then add flour mixture in 3 additions. Fold in chocolate chips.

Transfer batter to prepared dish and bake 50 minutes.

Let cool slightly in pan, then transfer to a cooling rack. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt and serve.

http://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a48378/death-by-chocolate-zucchini-bread-recipe/