Time For Something New

Since we are going to be waiting for a long time for a referral, according to the new timelines from our agency, I figured it was time to do something new on my blog. When I first began this adoption I was under the impression that most people reading my blog were first time adoptive parents. I have since come to know that there are many parents reading my blog that have lots of children! Knowing that I have been encouraged by other blogs that share 'extra' information on their blogs, I thought I would do the same.

If I stick to adoption information my blog will be sadly lacking over the next twelve months! So here we go!

Oh, and by the way, our agency is updating us every couple months on the estimated timelines for adoption. Our timeline was 2-6 months for a referral (matching us to a set of sisters). It has now been increased to 3-8 months. This is rather sad, but I have to remain confident that it doesn't matter what the numbers say, God knows where our girls are and when we are ready for them!

A nice thing to know is that we are not on the infant list. There are *many* people on this list.

I am a person who does *not* cook for pleasure, but rather because if I don't feed the people in my house they are likely to mutiny. *smile* Also, besides not loving cooking, I am also pretty busy teaching Preschool, Kindergarten, Grade 3, 6, 9, and 11. Therefore, I find as many recipes as I can that can be prepared in the shortest timeline and simplest ways! Quick to me means it is prepared in about 20-30 minutes!

Sometimes I do recipes that cost a fair bit, but I can justify this by causing the meal to "live a second life" the second day! :o)) A big money saver, but yet you eat well.

My recipes are big enough for a family with two adults, 2 well eating (adult sized) teenage boys, 1 medium sized boy, and 3 small servings. You can use these numbers to modify this recipe for your family.

Because I like to cook with chicken and am too lazy to work with bones, I always buy chicken breasts while they are on sale. I also buy the bulk boxes that weigh 3kg. By causing my meals to live the extra day it really brings down the cost of working with chicken breast.

When I cook the chicken I always cook one large (or two small) extra breasts. I do this with all meats, so that I can save the extra chicken for the next day as a meat to go in the soup.

This meal is delectable!

FAST CHICKEN

7-8 chicken breasts (uncooked)

2 cans mushroom soup
1 cup sour cream
1/2 (or less) package of dry onion soup mix (any more than that makes the chicken too salty)
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp pepper

Put the chicken in a large casserole.

Mix the soup, sour cream, dry onion soup mix, lemon juice, pepper, together in a bowl. Blend well and then pour over chicken. Make sure to cover all chicken.

Put in oven at 350* for 1 - 1.5 hours. You will know it is done because the chicken is no longer pink.

I then cook rice to go with this meal. Another one of my new tricks is to use Uncle Bens Quick Rice. I do this because I cook the grossest, slimiest rice that noone would want to eat!!! To justify this expense, I buy it from the bulk aisle and get a killer deal! For the amount of chicken (including the extra chicken breast) that I make, I cook up 6 cups of raw white rice. This makes me an extra amount left over (this gets put aside with the extra chicken breast).

When I do my vegetables and yep, I am the queen of frozen veg. Oh, I love to cook with raw, but I also am realistic and I do not know how people with lots of kids have time to cook fresh every day. So I don't. *smile* I do when I can. When I do my vegetables I just pour and pour lots of frozen vegetables into the boiling water. I do not measure. I know that when the pan is full I can't put anymore in. *grin*

There is method in my madness. When I serve dinner we eat all we want and the rest is frozen for 'soup' extras.

This dinner is a yummy one!! It is a nice looking dinner and a nice change from casseroles.

Now for the "live a second day" meal. *smile*

After dinner, I take out a large 8-10 quart soup pan and put in the left over rice, the extra veg (whatever kind I used - most often peas or mixed veg (peas, carrots, corn, beans)), and then I slice very fine the left over chicken breast. I also add all the extra sauce from the chicken. There is lots of this and whenever I use a nice sauce it creates a unique soup base. This now goes in the refrigerator until the next day.

My second day soups are always different. When I do a chicken soup I usually add just carrots and potatoes. There is plenty of rice as a thickener, and then I add 2-3 cans of chicken broth.

I also slice up about 6-8 carrots and 4-6 potatoes. I slice them thin, and then cook them separately until the carrots are crisp/tender and the potatoes are well done. I do not drain the water. I add the potatoes and carrots and a fair bit (or all, depending on how much water you cooked in) to the soup. The reason for this is because all the goodness has gone into the water and you don't want to lose all that by draining them.

By the time I am done I have a hearty soup of rice, peas, carrots, potatoes, and chicken. It is so tasty and was so cheap to make. It balances out the expensive meal of the day before. I do something like this most days I make chicken breasts.

Depending on how much potatoes and veg you add to your soup, you may find (I often do) that you even have enough soup to have for lunch the next day. When you do this, it is often quite thick and you can then add more fluid and have nice buttered bread and a tasty nutricious lunch. This one won't be as hearty as the dinner one, but that doesn't matter as it is lunch time.