Recipe box: Crock-pot Chicken Taco Soup

With cooler weather coming soon, the community is full of pumpkin spice EVERYTHING, bonfires, leggings, those ugly UGG boots, and of course, soups!

My grandmother made a version of this taco soup when I was a kid. Unfortuantely for me, grandma also didn't write down a lot of her recipes so I treasure the ones she did. This recipe has never been written down, so here goes. I made this soup last weekend and actuually measured out things and it turned out pretty well. (My grandmother also didn't measure things out when she cooked. I learned to cook using the words "some" and "dash" and "pinch" instead of teaspoon, cup, etc.)

Ingredients:

2 cups Chicken Broth
3 frozen chicken breasts
1 can corn
1 can black beans
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can kidney beans
1/4 tsp. Italian seasoning
1/4 tsp. Ranch seasoning
1/4 - 1/2 tsp. Salt (more or less depending how salty you like things)
Sprinkling of pepper

Optional:
1/4 tsp. Taco seasoning
Sour cream & shredded cheese for toppings
Tortilla chips

Directions:

Pour 2 cups of chicken broth into bottom of the crock pot and add the frozen chicken breasts. The chicken broth will not cover the chicken at this point.

Next, open and drain the tops off of the black beans, kidney beans, and corn. (Don't drain them completely) and dump them into the crock pot. Then, open but DO NOT drain the tomatoes and dump them in as well.

By not draining anything completely, now there is enough broth/liquid to cover the chicken.
Next, add in your spices. The Italian seasoning, Ranch, and salt and pepper. (If you want taco seasoning, add that in at this point as well)



Stir lightly, and put the lid on the crock and let it cook on low for 5 hours. Or 3 hours on high, stirring occasionally.

After letting it cook for the alotted time, use a fork and pull out your chicken breasts and shred the meat. If it has cooked long enough, the meat will be soft and easy to shred into pieces. When you've got it shredded, dump back into the pot and let it simmer for another 30 min on low heat.

Serve with sour cream, shredded cheese and tortilla chips-- and you have chicken taco soup! 

This is one of the few ways I can get my husband to eat tomatoes and beans. We love it, hope you do too. 

September 2015: Just another month of Crazy

I hate starting off a blog post. Its like...do I just go straight into what I want to talk about or do I open with a joke? How about a funny story about something my cat did, or the fact that it isn't even October yet and I already freeze at night because my husband has to sleep with a fan in his face, which, most of the time ends up blowing on me all night.

September. Its nearly over, and I find myself wondering when September became our October. For as long as I can remember, every weekend in October has been spent doing something. Whether it was fall-related like getting a pumpkin from the patch or picking apples or hiking around in Garden of the Gods and appreciating all the colors of fall..well, this year we have 2 WEEKENDS THAT ARENT BOOKED UP! ...we haven't had a "free weekend" since we moved in June. Granted, part of that is our own fault for booking ourselves up so tight, but sometime soon I would enjoy sleeping all night and then not getting up the next morning. I know, I know, Sleep when I'm dead, right?

September started off with my husband turning 24 :) september 1st, to be exact. Here is a blurry picture where he is blowing out the 4 candles i put on a cake we bought from the store.

 This was followed by a lovely three day weekend, (September 4-7) which you might have read that we spent the Labor day weekend road tripping through Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. If you didn't read about that adventure, here is a summary. If you did, here's a recap

• Iowa and T-Mobile's relationship is not on speaking terms. Literally. We had ZERO signal the entire time we were in the state. As soon as we crossed the border into Minnesota, we got signal back.

• The National Czech and Slovak Museum in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is really neat! Go there.

•The Mall of America is...a big mall.

•DO NOT stay in the Doubletree by Hilton in Bloomington, Minnesota. Its terrible. Sleep in your car if that is the only hotel with vacancy. We got eaten by something (bedbugs? Fleas?) , staff was rude, got turned away for breakfast after waiting in line for 20 min..yeah, just don't.

•Wisconsin likes to welcome guests with severe thunderstorms and hail. Jerks.

September 12- the weekend after our roadtrip, was spent enjoying the music of the Legend of Zelda symphony orchestra in St. Louis, Missouri. Front row seats! (Well, technically 6th row, but no one was allowed to sit in the first 5 rows, so we were the first row of seats that they sold tickets for.) This was a belated birthday present for my husband. I bought these tickets the day the went on sale, so I was able to grab the best seats we could.

  


Powell symphony hall is beautiful. We made my husband's bowtie, and we also made a tri-force for my necklace, which, unfortunately you can't see from my phone pictures.



September 19- we decided to check out Gateway Fun Park in Collinsville. Pretty sketchy place as you pull up to it, the sign is very plain and looks rundown. However, we got a deal on armbands which allow you unlimited access for 2 hours. We were able to play 36 holes of miniature golf, and rode their go-kart track once. I kept track of our running total to make sure we got our $25 worth (which, $25 for two people wasn't bad to begin with) but I went to school for accounting so I guess it must be the accountant in me that has to keep track of the numbers. :)

Micah did end up hitting a hole in one on one of our 36 holes..I, however got several hole-in-5's..(5 was our limit for a single hole before moving on)
 
  Serious face for go-kart race!

September 20-  Callie, Kourtney, and I paid a visit to The Melting Pot in University City, Missouri. If you've never been, its a fondue restaurant where you get a 4 course meal for $35-$45 a person, depending what kinds of meat you order. The food is good, but the desert is what you stay for.

And this past weekend, September 25-26 was spent doing sound and video for Cole and Erica's wedding. Congrats you two! Your day was beautiful! And here is a typical wedding selfie

In other news, our cat has an urinary tract infection and his medicine makes him fall asleep in hilarious ways, and I have finally finished Pretty Little Liars on Netflix. I don't know what to do with my time now. 

Also! No one likes Mondays, right? Well...

Mondays are 30 cent wing day at Unkle Munkey's. Spicy is the best. The BBQ is Ok, and the Munkey sauce one is just alright too. They also have a Buffalo sauce, but we neither one like tabasco-y flavors. 

Monday is also buy one get one free sushi rolls at Wasabi sushi bar. 

We love food. And Edwardsville. 

Kim vs Pinterest: How to clean your old cookie sheets

Hey guys!

Ok, so many of you know I like to cook. Now, We all have that one kitchen utensil that gets used constantly and is so versatile it can be used for virtually anything..mine is the cookie sheet. And Yeah, I had some pretty nasty ones. Over my 1000's of uses, they've become stained, scarred, and beaten up.

So I began looking for a way to deep clean them and make them look new again. Naturally, I took to the internet! And since I have been trying some of the 450 pinterest recipes I have pinned over the past two years, I decided to use pinterest to begin my endeavour. After typing in "how to clean my old cookie sheet" and getting 100's of pins to choose from, I began scrolling. Before long, I was seeing a pattern.

Baking soda and hydrogen peroxide.
Baking soda and hydrogen peroxide.
Baking soda and hydrogen peroxide.
The miracle cleaner! As someone put. .

"Take your old cookie sheets and give them new life!"

That looks great! Like brand new again! 

Baking soda and hydrogen peroxide, HEY! I HAVE THOSE THINGS! see?

There they are. All together now, "OOOOH! AHHHH!!"

The blog stated to begin by coating the cookie sheets with baking soda. Ok, easy enough. 

"Next, pour in the hydrogen peroxide and using a scrub brush, mix it together until it is like a paste" .....Ok, I can handle that. 

"Now pour another coat of baking soda over the top and let it sit for 4-5 hours" ....fair enough. I'm getting ready to go to work for the day, I'll let it sit all morning and check it when I come home for lunch. 

At lunch, it was...fine I guess. It looked the same as it did when I left it.  Ok, so its been 4.5 hours. What now? 

"When you are ready to start scrubbing, use a sheet of aluminum foil and make it into a ball. Then take the ball and use it like you would use steel wool to scrub the surface of the cookie sheet."

The moment of truth! So I start scrubbing. And keep scrubbing. 

"Scrub the surface and watch your stains disappear!" 

Ugh. Ok maybe I need some more elbow grease. I scrub for nearly 2 minutes and..still stained. It did, however, take off some of the oily spots that didn't come off with normal washing...but 

Here she is. Better, for sure. But soooo not this. 

I even tried a second time, using nearly a whole box of baking soda. Still stained. 

That being said, I suppose this round goes to Pinterest. 

That, or all of you 2,000 people are LYING! 

...or have pinned it and never actually tried it. Either way, my cookie sheets are still stained and I am out a $.99 box of baking soda. 

Running score: 

Pinterest 1
Kim 0

Wisconsin- Wisconsin Dells

On our way back home to Illinois, we opted to do the 10 minute longer drive and chose the route through Wisconsin.

We were welcomed to Wisconsin by super cell thunderstorms, blinding rain, and even some hail. We had to pull off on the shoulder twice because we could see nothing.

After about 40 min of nail biting, 40mph driving, we break out of the storm line and the sky is lovely again. We drive uneventfully for around 2 more hours and stop in Wisconsin Dells. 

I imagine this place to be a cross of Branson, MO and Las Vegas, NV.. I've never been to Branson, but along one strip of road they have an amusement park, complete with water park, another stand alone water park, tourist traps, an 'Indian tradepost', a hotel in the shape of the Roman coliseum, people EVERYWHERE, and those people walking out into the road whenever they want, shops selling cheap trinkets, and a few neat places, like a science observatory and a zombie obstacle course. 

We stopped at the Top Secret upsidedown white house. It was $5/person to walk through, so we decided why not? We needed to get out of the car for awhile and stretch our legs. It was neat, kinda quirky and fun. Its pretty much exactly as it sounds, they built a building to appear as though it fell from the sky and then attached everything to the ceilings so you feel like you are in a building that landed upsidedown. 

Tours are self-guided and you can go through at your own pace. Its pretty dimly lit, and in my opinion would make a very good haunted house. You get to go through 'secret tunnels' and they have a tunnel that spins around you and makes you want to throw up. 

If we hadn't been so tired and still had a 5 hour drive ahead of us, right next to this Top Secret roadside attraction was a deer park where you could feed and pet deer. Also, I would have ROCKED the zombie obstacle course. 

Once you get off 'the strip' traffic goes down to nothing and Wisconsin Dells is like any other small town along the interstate. We stopped at their Walmart to buy a case of water and some snack food so we wouldn't have to stop, and got back on the road.

Did we EXPERIENCE Wisconsin? Eh. Not really. But the point of this roadtrip was do stop and do something in each of the three states we were driving through, so that's what we did. 

Minnesota- Mall of America

Stop #2 in our 3 stop weekend getaway, The Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. The most fun part in this stop is that neither my husband nor I enjoys shopping. We order 80% of what we want off amazon and the other 20% is groceries and gas and things we can't order online. But hey, we were close enough, so why not visit this American icon?

We began our taste of Minnesota at the Doubletree by Hilton hotel. Well actually, it was our third choice. We set out GPS to take us to the Holiday Inn Express of Bloomington (while still on the WiFi of our Holiday Inn Express in Iowa, since Iowa kills all cell phone signal). Now, one of the gambles we took by not booking anything in advance for this trip was not being able to find a room somewhere..and naturally, the Holiday Inn Express was full. So I called the Hilton that was across the street. Also full. After about 30 seconds of panic, my husband found this Doubletree a few miles away, so I called them. They had rooms available! The front desk lady told me I needed to make a reservation (despite being 2 miles from the hotel) so she transferred me to their reservation line.

The reservation receptionist had a very thick accent and was hard to understand at times. But one thing I did understand: she was determined that I was a HiltonHonors member and wasn't telling her. The call started with 'what is your HHonors number?' I told her I didn't have one and she said oh Ok, and tells me the room rate and asks for my HHonors number again. Again, I told her I wasn't a honors card member. So she goes on, taking our names and getting the information for the reservation "your rate will be $124 and includes breakfast, etc." ...and then asks for my member credit card number...again, I told her I wasn't a Hilton member and asked if we could stay there since we weren't members. She said 'yes ma'am, no problem'. We finally get the reservation made and my phone goes off with the email confirming it, and I go to tell her thank you and she is babbling on about how this weekend is double point weekend so I will get double points on my Hilton honors account and as I go to tell her (I'm starting to get pretty perturbed) she transfers me to another line to hear about all the wonderful rewards of starting up my own Hilton honors account. I just hung up. And if I end up with a Hilton honors account I will be deleting it. Geez!

So we get to the hotel and they welcome us with warm cookies. Ok, that makes me feel a little better. We get our room on the eighth floor and its pretty decent. Smells clean, nice big room, has a keurig with complimentary Caribou coffee, overall nice room. We walked to TGI Fridays for dinner and had a normal evening of watching TV the rest of the night. The next morning, we got up and went down to breakfast. There was a line, so we patiently waited our turn to be seated. Well, turns out, we weren't given the breakfast vouchers and so they were going to charge us $13/person to eat at their tiny buffet table. I tried explaining that we were told breakfast was included in our rate, but they wouldn't do anything about it. Luckily I had said something BEFORE we started eating, so we went away hungry and had an early lunch once we got to the mall. Now I remember why I don't stay at Hilton.

Anyways, we got to the Mall of America around 10am even though it didn't open until 11. We found a great parking spot on the lot and didn't have to park in the parking garage. To say this mall is massive would be an understatement. They have an amusement park in the middle called Nickelodeon Universe. Complete with roller coaster, ferris wheel, and log flume ride.

We had our early lunch at the Hard Rock cafe, and wandered around the mall for nearly 4 hours. My husband really enjoyed the Lego store. 

They had a full wall where you could buy Lego's by shape and color. Or you could buy one of their cups and fill your own customizable Lego set. Pretty neat! 

I enjoyed the Italian Gelato we bought on floor 3. We were going to do the mini-golf course on floor 3, but when we went back around to it the line was long enough that is just wasn't worth it. Right next to the mini-golf course was a place to take old time portraits but those were $55 a picture so we didn't do that either. Half of the mall smells of chlorine from the water in the log flume ride, but its not  overpowering.

 We got to see mall security in action! Someone set their backpack down while sitting on a bench waiting for their group to be done in one of the stores and they forgot it, so there was an 'unattended bag' left on floor one. They blocked off the entire area, had the people currently in the stores along the walkway that was blocked off blocked into those stores while the stores had to shut their doors until it was deemed 'clear', they brought in the bomb dog (who was adorable! I wanted to hug him and take him home with us!) And had security guards on each floor blocking off the areas in case something were to explode it might carry up to the upper floors. A backpack full of travel clothes turned out to be harmless, and after 20 minutes of shutting down part of the mall, all was well again. 

Other than that, it was pretty uneventful. Cinnabon made the first two floors smell amazing, and overall the mall was worth a visit. If I was a shopper, I'm sure I would have LOVED it. Even walking around though, we got to observe people, which to me, is a good part of the fun. People are hilarious! We left the mall around 2pm to start heading home. Getting out of the mall was a disaster, but we made it. 

Iowa- Cedar Rapids

I am under the impression that long weekends call for roadtrips. Usually, my husband agrees and this long weekend is no different!

We set off after I got home from work Friday night. The plan (and I say the word plan very lightly..there was not much "planning" involved. More so an end goal in mind. So, we leave our home and head off into the Northwest. Around 2 hours into our drive we decide we are starting to get hungry, but it wasn't urgent yet so we thought "oh, we will drive a little further and stop somewhere once we get hungry" ...mistakes were made! 

The minute we crossed the Missouri line into Iowa, our cell phone signal went to roaming and we couldn't call or use any data. In fact, the GPS I had been running on my phone froze and was gone. Now, I can read a paper map, but did we have one handy? Nope. 

So..we keep driving in the direction (north) that we knew we needed to go. We planned to stay in Cedar Rapids, IA- because it was a little more than halfway to our end destination (which you will find out in my next entry).  

Anyways back to our journey to Iowa. Its dark. Its about...9pm, we haven't had dinner and we don't really know where we are. What makes it even better is Iowa is like Illinois in the sense that you can have 100 miles of interstate with no real exits or civilization. No food. Thank goodness we didn't need gas...

10pm I'm fighting off the "hangry" for Micah's sake. We haven't seen an exit with anything close to the interstate for over an hour now.

10:35pm we finally see a sign for Cedar Rapids! And my GPS roaming signal works partially. 

11pm we make it! We can see our Holiday Inn Express in the distance and THEN, I see it. The most magical two arches I've ever seen. MCDONALDS IS STILL OPEN!! We pull up to the drive-thru and someone has just finished ordering so we pull up, order, and I'm so excited by this point. So we pay, and take out spot in line behind one other car. We wait. And...we wait. 5 min go by and three other cars have lined up behind us. FINALLY the car in front of us gets their food and leaves. So we pull up and the girl asks us if we had the two onion burgers and we say no, and Micah repeats our order to the girl. 

She just stares at us. "We just gave that order out the window. The lady said it was her order." She then asks us to pull up while they remake our food. While Micah is talking me out of hunting down the black SUV that was in front of us, 6 more cars go through the drive thru and leave. (Apparently this is a popular place at nearly midnight) 

5 min later, ( we waited 15 min at this point) we are given the most delicious smelling bag of clog-my-arteries trans fat and we leave. I understand that it takes time to make and re-make an order. They don't keep a full staff all night and I'm mostly just mad at the car in front of us for taking our food..we get to the hotel, I buy a water from the hotel vending machine because mcdonalds forgot to give me my drink, and...the vending machine eats my bottle of water. Luckily the manager was able to shake it out for me. We inhaled our food and went to sleep.

I got up at 8am the next morning and decided I would shower while Micah was still asleep and we could go down to the free breakfast together. I turn on the shower and hop in..holy moly! Its like I was being hit with a full on tropical storm. At one point I thought I saw a tree fly by..ok that MIGHT be a SLIGHT exaggeration..but the water pressure was so high that I had to plant myself in the tub to keep from being knocked over. And I wish I was exaggerating. When I got out of the shower my back was red from being hit with the force of the shower. Really though, I would rather there be too much pressure than a trickle of water. 

We go down to breakfast and its amazing! Biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs, ham, hot cinnamon rolls, pancakes, and the usual cereal, oatmeal, fruit, yogurt, etc. 

After checking out of the Holiday Inn Express we decided we should do something in Cedar Rapids before our next part of our roadtrip. Naturally, I tried to find the most random thing Google could provide, and we decided to check out the Czech and Slovak Museum and Library. 

This place was neat! The main exhibit takes you through a history of Czechoslovakia, or now called the Czech Republic. The exhibits are well done and most of them are interactive. Great for children. They even have an entire exhibit dedicated to children where they can have a snack at a traditional Czech kitchen and coloring/art projects. 

Micah and I played a game of dominos in a traditional WWII era Czech living room while the radio played 1940's broadcasts, and I put on a puppet show for Micah. They had a little stage and about 10 puppets for you to choose from.

We also went through the exhibit that looked like a steam ship, to see how the Czech immigrants came to America. We also went though the museum's "Beer, Please" exhibit that outlined a history of beer around the world. I found this map interesting, showing the most popular beers bought in each country.

We also took the tour of the Sleger house, a Czech immigrant home. We also watched a 10 minute movie about how they moved the museum after it was flooded in 2008. A very neat place. I would recommend it to anyone passing through Cedar Rapids. 

You might be wondering, what else is in Iowa? 

Nothing. 

Except these windmill turbines. 

Seriously though, I'm sure that, like Illinois, Iowa is a great state that has more than one museum. We didn't take a lot of time to really explore all that the state has to offer, but the Czech museum was really neat. I wasn't sure what to expect when we decided to go. We passed exits for Iowa City and Des Moines, which to my knowledge are the two biggest cities in the state. We didn't stop, but I imagine there are fun things to do in each city.  

But i will say..as soon as we crossed the Minnesota border, my husbands phone began going off with notifications because we got cell phone signal back. So, I can only conclude that the entire state of Iowa hates T-Mobile service. Or maybe T-Mobile hates Iowa..either way, our phones didn't work at all the entire time we were in the state. 

That being said, Iowa, on this particular visit you get: 

a +1 for the museum

 a +1 for the hotel breakfast

 a -1 for the cell phone service

And a -1 for our food being stolen because the vehicle that took it had an Iowa license plate.

So overall, a neutral experience. You have to take the good with the bad when traveling somewhere, right?