Finding my Sunday Positivity

Happy Sunday!! More than likely, today's post will be done in shifts throughout the day here as I will be off and on the computer today. I also plan on making a pot of loaded baked potato soup today as well, so I thought I would share that. If not on this post, then definitely within the next day or so. 

So, for now....Good Morning! How has your week been? I had a rather early start to my day today. 3:30 am (EST) to be exact. My daughter works as a dietary aide for a rehabilitation and nursing facility. Well this weekend was supposed to be her weekend off, but she saw that there was some open hours and she decided to take them. Not only did she decide to take some extra hours, but she decided to pull a double shift. She normally works a 4 hour evening shift, but for today, she decided to take on a morning shift. Well, I was afraid she might oversleep, so I set my alarm for 5:30 am. So I think I might have been worried about oversleeping, so my internal clock decided I needed to be awake at 3:30 am!! I tossed and turned until I heard my alarm go off at 5:30.

 I went to check on her and she was awake. Her boyfriend who stays over sometimes was also awake. He was driving her in to work today. So I went back to lay down and as I am starting to doze off, I hear soft clinking noises. Her boyfriend decided to empty the dishwasher. He is such a good kid and we adore him, but the dishes could have waited til later. But it was ok. I went back to lay down and they leave. I heard him come back and I thought, ok...she's at work safe. He's back safe. I can go back to sleep for a bit. It's now about 6:40 am. 

I settled in and then Houdini starts his morning shenanigans! Have I mentioned I have 6 cats? You can meet the pride here. Houdini is the mischievous one of the bunch and he likes to climb all over me in the morning. He tries to lay down, then climbs on me some more, lays down again and tries to get comfy. But basically, he isn't happy until I get up! Anyway, after being off and on the computer and doing other things today, it's been a long day. 

So, now the Super Bowl is on and I am in the process of making some loaded baked potato soup on this fine evening. I found this recipe about 2 months or so ago. I've made it a couple of times now and it's so good. The hardest part is peeling your potatoes, but once that's done and they're cooked, this soup comes together fairly quickly. So you can check out this loaded baked potato soup recipe here.

So first, you start out with some potatoes. These are russet. I used four large ones and four smaller ones. Get those all peeled and cubed. or chopped. Whatever you prefer. I like a little chunkier myself. I rinse the potatoes, boil them til soft. 

As my potatoes are cooking, I take a medium white onion and chop that up. The recipe calls for 1/2, but I just go ahead and use the whole thing. I also add in some garlic here because I LOVE garlic in everything and pretty much use it whenever I can!! I don't really measure it, but this is probably about 3-4 tablespoons. The recipe doesn't call for garlic, but I throw it in. After your potatoes are done and set aside, you're going to start making your roux. You take a 1/2 cup of butter and melt that in your pot. I have an enameled cast iron dutch oven that is my favorite pot in the kitchen. To that melted butter, you add in your chopped onion and let that saute for about 6 minutes. Just before the 6 minutes are up, I toss in the garlic for about 2 minutes. To that, I add a 1/2 cup of flour and whisk that together for about a minute. Then I gradually add my milk about 1 cup at a time, gradually whisking that in until its all blended into my pot. 

I bring that to a boil and then turn it down to medium and let it simmer. Give it about 8-10 minutes to thicken. This is another one of those dishes that is magical to me. Not quite as magical as my split pea soup recipe that I found over at Valerie's Kitchen, but still a little magical to me as to how it just all comes together. Once, 8-10 minutes is up and this white liquid is nice and thick, I add back my potatoes. I add in some salt and pepper to taste. Now this is where it all comes together, and rather quickly, I might add. Add back in your potatoes, and cook for 5 minutes. Then I add in my cheese. The recipe calls for 2 cups, I add in 3 cups. I use 2 cups of a sharp cheddar and 1 cup of mild cheddar. 2 cups works just fine, 3 cups will obviously make it a bit more cheesier, but it works!! Then I add in the sour cream....confession here.....I didn't realize the container I had bought was a 16 oz container, and it all went into the soup. Again, it tasted delicious, but it really only calls for 8 oz. I add in a little bit more salt and pepper, if you think it needs it, then by all means, do so. At this point, stir well and its ready to serve. 

For garnish, the recipe calls for bacon bits which I am not a fan. They taste fake to me and I just don't like them. So I made up some real bacon and chopped up some green onions which I love using because it does give the soup a really nice pop of color!!

After I ladle out a serving of soup, I sprinkle a little extra cheese on top, a little dollop of sour cream, some crumbled bacon and some green onions, and we are ready to eat! The great thing about this recipe is I do NOT have to double it. It makes more than enough for my family and we have it for about 2-3 days which is really nice. 

So there you have it......Loaded baked potato soup!! It is definitely a rich and comforting soup. Again, you can find the recipe here. Let me know if you try it and how you like it. I think the nice thing about this soup also is, if you're looking for something comforting, but more healthier, I believe this could definitely have some substitutions made. Skim milk and a light sour cream would help trim the fat and calories. You could use the bacon bits, or even turkey bacon. Like my Dad says, a recipe is a guide line to follow. You can always tweak things and change things to make it the way you want to. 

So all in all, despite my early start to my Sunday, I found myself just counting my blessings for the day. I woke up and had another day. I have 2 amazing children who I love to the moon and back. I am blessed to have a roof over my head and a house full of love. As I always say to my client...."It's all good." So I hope you have a good week, and I hope life is treating you well, and as always, remember to take the time to find some good moments in your day to be thankful for, cherish them and embrace the positivity. 

Positivity in Cooking/Recipe Review

I find great comfort in my kitchen when I cook, even more so since we moved into our new home almost three years ago. My current kitchen isn't really what some would consider to be a "gourmet kitchen", but to me, it's my gourmet kitchen. I love it, and it makes me happy! 

In our other home, my kitchen was rather small with very little room to work. It was hard to move around because the kitchen table was right smack dab in the center of the kitchen. I didn't have very much counter top space, and that tended to make meal preparation a little daunting. 

What makes my new kitchen so nice is that my table now has its own corner, out of the way from everything else. So what you are seeing above here is my whole work space, and for me, it's just enough. In our new kitchen, I love to cook. I love to experiment with new recipe's as well as being creative when I can. That is one thing I wish I could do more of and have a little flare for is being more out of the box creative. For me, cooking has become a very positive and a mentally healing experience for me. But I also think it can be a totally magical experience when you're creating new dishes!

As I said though, I do enjoy finding new recipes to try, so per my daughter's request today, she wanted split pea soup. Off to pintrest I went to look for a delicious, but simple recipe for split pea soup. I don't like to make certain things that are overly complicated with a ton of ingredients, if I can help it. So I found this great recipe from Valerie's Kitchen. Sometimes when I make these recipes, I do them as written. The next time I make them, I often put my own spin on it, but I have to say, this recipe is amazing as is, if you LOVE a good, yet simple split pea soup recipe. So let's get started, shall we?! 

I always double all soup recipe's because I am usually feeding at least 3-4 people, as well as I love to have left over soup, and sometimes I send some home with mom too!! So here we started out with 2-16oz bags of dried split peas and 2 Tbsp of minced garlic. I just used the minced garlic in the jar. I love that stuff. It's easy peasy and always ready to use. 

My next layer here is 4 peeled and chopped carrots, 4 celery ribs and 2 medium white onions. The recipe instructions said to chop small, but to be completely honest, I chopped them, not small, but not really big chunks either because as it cooks, and you're stirring, they're going to get soft and break down anyway. So I wouldn't worry about chopping them too small. 

Here we have some fresh thyme. I needed 2 Tbsp for my double recipe. I have never worked with fresh thyme before and it said chopped thyme. I had no clue what I was doing with my thyme! So I found a really informative video on Youtube. So if you don't know what you're doing with your thyme either, you can watch what to do here. 

So here is the thyme all pulled off from the stems, and then I just gave it a quick run through with my knife per the video before I put it into my crock pot.

So far now in my pot, I have the dried split peas, garlic, onions, carrots, celery and fresh thyme. 

Now, the recipe called for a meaty ham bone to be shoved down into all those yummy vegetables and then pour your chicken broth over just to cover. One of the past recipes I have used before called for a pork hock. It's a part of the pigs leg that is just above the foot and below the knee. I couldn't find any at my local store this time, plus I thought I had a few left in my freezer, but when I got home, I found out I didn't. Now, I always buy a ham steak to chop up into my split pea soup anyway, so as you can see, I have two ham steaks, one already chopped. I feared if that would be enough for flavor, but I called Mom and she said it would be fine. Plus these ham steaks have a little fat in them and that's where you get most of the flavor from. As I was chopping up these ham steaks, I did do a little taste test. They had a very nice smoked flavor and that did end up coming through in my finished soup. 

I layered the ham on top, threw in a few bay leaves and then I poured in about 10 cups of my chicken broth. I had a total of 12 cups as again, I doubled this recipe. As you can see, with all that goodness in the crock pot, I poured in what I could fit and then set the other 2 cups aside. I did end up putting in the rest later on. 

I set the crock pot on high with a plan of letting it cook around 8 hours. This was after about an hour of cooking. I gave everything a stir before going out to run a few errands for my Saturday afternoon. So my hope was to come back to an amazing smelling home. There is nothing quite like coming home to a really good soup cooking in the crock pot and the aroma is just filling the house. It's awesome!!

Now this is my favorite part. This is where cooking feels almost magical to me. We came home from running a few errands and as I had hoped, the house smelled so good. I just let everything simmer, the crock pot still on high and this was where I was at about 6 hours later. The magic that split pea soup is to me had taken place. This might seem silly, but this is just one thing I love about split pea soup! It starts out as this chicken broth based soup and you wonder how is that (see pic above) going to get to this amazing, warmth of comforting, creamy deliciousness?! It just does. The peas soften, the vegetables cook and as you stir it up, that creamy goodness just starts to form and you have this beautiful, split pea soup.

We weren't planning on eating for a couple of hours yet, so once the magic happened, I turned the pot on low and just let it simmer, stirring it occasionally because it does tend to separate as it continues to cook. It was fine though after stirring it a couple of times. I always serve a soup like this with a crusty bread, again, it's a comfort thing. 

Mom was over for dinner last night and we all enjoyed this wonderful soup. The recipe I found is definitely not one that I would do much tweaking to. The only difference I did was I used the ham steaks instead of a meaty ham bone. The steaks worked great, and gave some amazing flavor, but that wouldn't stop me from using a nice meaty ham bone if I found one the next time I plan on making this soup. 

I think out of everything I do make, soups are one of my favorites, especially during the winter months. I love having my mom over to visit. I love cooking for her and the kids. There is nothing quite like gathering around the table over some hearty soup, fresh bread (even if I didn't make that myself) and having family togetherness with some good conversation. That to me is everything. My life has become all about those little moments that I cherish. Life is too short. So find the moments that make you happy, cherish them and embrace the positivity. 

**Note** The original recipe called for fresh Italian parsley, which I just found in my fridge with my soup leftovers in the fridge. I completely forgot that I bought it and it never made the soup. It wasn't missed. But I'll definitely have to make this soup again and include the parsley! Sorry about that. 

Source: Recipe can be found at http://www.fromvalerieskitchen.com/2015/04/slow-cooker-split-pea-soup/