Great and Quick Cold Weather Soup Recipe

I came across this recipe and then decided to make it turned out great although I did modify a little, instead of rotel I used fresh tomatoes I had and used S&W Chili Beans that had garlic, onion and chili in them. And I threw in a few more veggies when sauteing the onions, I had peppers and celery in there too.  Here is the recipe I hope you try it and enjoy!

Willy Strange's Good Soup

Several years ago, our church congregation did a community service project and cleaned up an overgrown cemetary in Rockwall, Texas.  The care-taker, an elderly woman, couldn’t afford to pay for our services but gave us something much better.  This recipe came from her.  It was an instant hit with everyone who took a copy, and has continued to be a family favorite which we share with our special friends.  I’ve decided that it’s just too good to keep under wraps.  So, sometime when you need to make a main-dish in just 10-15 minutes, give this a try.  You won’t be disappointed.

Ingredients:

• 2 cans Campbell's Minestrone soup
• 1 can Ranch Style beans *
• 1 can Rotel diced tomatoes (Mild or hot - you choose) *
• 2 cans water
• ¼ cup catsup
• 1 lb. hamburger
• 1 small diced onion
• * Rotel and Ranch Style are brand name products of ConAgra Foods. Their web site has a search feature to help you find a retailer near you that carries these two products. It's worth your time to find them.

Preparation:

Sauté the diced onion in a dutch oven.  Add the hamburger and brown.  Drain off the excess fat.  Add the remaining ingredients, heat and serve.

We sometimes add an additional can of tomato soup with an additional ¾ can of water.  You can control the spiciness of the soup by using the spicy Rotel tomatoes.

Harvest 2009

Well it finally froze and so with the move I decided to go ahead and pull all of our Winter squash and anything left in the garden we could take.  As you can see we came out a little too well.  Those darn plants not all where supposed to live, I had actually planted them a little close together because of my homegrown transplants not all usually make it.  I didn't loose any, until the deer ate 3 of them.  All of the seeds are ones I have saved from last year, I have learned how to do this it's easy and an essential garden know how.  I did however buy Connecticut field pumpkin seeds and my sister gave me some pumpkin seeds as well.

My winter squash included;
Australian Butter Squash
Pennsylvania Dutch Crookneck, mine never seem to crook though
Hubbard
Spaghetti squash
and Pumpkins, Connecticut and white

And other things in my garden;
Corn,(deer and grasshoppers got it)
summer squash:
  sunburst patty pan
  yellow straight neck
  zucchini
Cucumbers
  Slicing
  pickling
  Lemon
beets
carrots, red, orange, yellow and white
tomatoes
dill
Onions, red and yellow
watermelons
canteloupe
green beans (deer got them)
swiss chard
peppers, bell, banana and Anaheim
red potatoes
okra
broccoli
cabbage
turnips
rutabega

I was so glad to figure out that we pulled more than a thousand pounds of veg from the garden, a lot more than I was expecting-but then again you never know what you are going to get!

One turnip I pulled from the garden was 15.5 inches around!

Weekends not over, the 25th of July!

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On Saturday we took them on the Auto tour at Dinosaur National Monument, which was very informational and fun they got to feed antlions, they are very sneeky and ruthless and I had never heard of them before. O remembers feeding them when he had visited as a child so the fun has been passed on.

left;Green River

right; Feeding the ant"lions"

We also got to see an old cabin that lies in the bottom of the canyon in dinosaur a Miss Josie Bassett Morris lived there(thats the end of the tour).http://www.utahoutdooractivities.com/josiemorriscabin.html

After then we stopped at the Visitor center in

Jensen and while the children and I picked the wild strawberries in the flower beds O got a crazy idea to go to Fantasy Canyon, which was cool but very far out there. After getting there they all followed each other in a line and explored reading the posted signs, that was great. http://www.blm.gov/ut/st/en/fo/vernal/recreation_/fantasy_canyon.html

Needless to say we got home late and had to finish packing the girls for camp Monday morning. But it was a great fun-filled information packed family weekend.

Jones Hole Fish Hatchery, Saturday June 27,2009

Day Trip #1

What a great day! O visited a local bike shop a couple of weeks ago and picked up these pamphlets full of one day self guided tours, they also have a website you can visit here; http://www.dinoland.com/Tours-and-Trips. And today we went on the first one to Diamond Mountain Jones Hole & Fish Hatchery.

The drive was beautiful its been raining a lot so its very lush and green. On our way up we saw a Vulture in the middle of the road after scaring her off we noticed that she was eating some crickets, they where Mormon crickets, they were so big. There where a lot. After driving for 40 miles you go down into this small canyon against some rugged cliffs and there at the bottom is the fish hatchery. It was great because as soon as we got there we walked up to the building and there was holding tanks outside with brown trout in them all about 5 inches long. When you stand by a holding tank its funny its as if you have some sort of force field around you they perfectly arch around your shadow.



Then the ranger came over with 2 buckets with fish food for the kids to throw. What a feeding frenzy that was! The Ranger was great because he refilled the buckets a couple of times when the boys asked.

Inside the building we saw where all the smaller fish were held. And we also saw the incubators but they were empty. So I asked when they would be filling them up again and got a schedule to go back when they are full, and that will be in the fall. There we got coloring books, posters, and stickers.

We then went down into some lower holding tanks where the larger fish are and fed them the last of the food. We walked down the path that leads to the spot where the Jones River meets with the Green River, but only a little ways. That was just before we had lunch and headed home. There are pics enjoy, we did!