Soup Recipes

These are some recipes for soup that was taught at one of our enrichment activities. The Tahitian Noni Cafe manager taught the class. I really like the Spinach Sausage recipe!

Chicken tortilla soup
8oz Chicken breast, diced
1 16oz can diced tomato
3 Tbs chicken base
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp fresh garlic
1tsp ground thyme
1 med onion
1 6 oz can of green chilies
1 gallon water
6-8 corn tortillas

Sauté chicken in a little oil until done. Remove. Sauté onions until translucent. Add garlic, cumin, thyme and green chilies. Cook for 1-2 minutes. Add chicken base and water. Bring to a simmer. Add diced tomatoes and tortillas. Cook until tortillas are soft. Puree. Add cooked chicken. Add salt and pepper to taste. Top with sour cream, cheese, toasted tortilla strips and avocado if desired.

Spinach and Sausage Soup
1 lb hot or mild ground sausage
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 Tbs chicken base
1 gallon of water
2 potatoes, peeled, halved and sliced thin
1 tsp ground thyme
1 tsp fresh garlic
1 bag of washed baby spinach
Salt and pepper to taste

Sauté sausage until fully cooked. Drain grease and remove from pan. Cook onions until translucent. Add thyme and fresh garlic. Cook for 2 minutes. Add water and chicken base. Add potatoes, simmer until tender. Add spinach. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Flat Stanley in Japan

There were sightings of Flat Stanley all over Tokyo: We saw him watching a cook make “dumplings”(or something),

hanging out at the popular Tokyo Krispy Kreme,

buying train tickets,

riding a train,

and then keeping himself and others germ free by wearing an official Japanese, hypo-allergenic face mask. What a guy.

Written by Jared Gingras the TN Cafe Accountant who hosted Flat Stanley on his trip to Japan

Flat Stanley

Clayton's class read a book about Flat Stanley. He had to make a Flat Stanley and send it to someone. He chose to send him to me. I have had hime for several weeks and have had to do things with him.

I took him to work on the first day I had him and caused quite the discussion. First people wanted to know what in the world I was doing with a paper doll. Then they started to tell me all the things I should do with Flat Stanley. It was rather humorous to hear adults talking about Flat Stanley. We even got into ethical discussion as to why is it Flat Stanley and not Flat Stella? I would be working and people would come up to me and tell me that they had been thinking about Flat Stanley and I should do such and such with him. It was so funny!

Flat Stanley is working with my boss

I took him to Orlando with me. I was posing for a picture and it was funny to hear that people recognized Flat Stanley. People asked me if that was Flat Stanley, while others were pointing to me saying look mom it is Flat Stanley. He was more of a hit then the bush behind me. You would have thought Flat Stanley was one of the disney characters.

One evening I took him into Disney's Hollywood Studios with me. So he got to ride the rides and see some of the characters.

He went up to Tremonton with me and got to meet Varon, Dad and Grandma.

He is currently in Russia with one of my coworkers. So I should have photos of him in a week at Red Square in Moscow. He will also be traveling to Tokyo and will be photographed over there. I also scanned him in and sent him to an old coworker at Tahitian Noni who now lives in Saudi Arabia. He was currently hosting another Flat Stanley so they were able to become friends. I should have pictures from over there next week...they took him camping.

I am pretty much trying to make Clayton's Flat Stanley the coolest in the class! I hope it works...if not it has been fun seeing Adults discuss Flat Stanley.

Sapporo, Japan

During my trip to Japan, I got to go up to Sapporo. Sapporo is located on the Northern island of Japan and has hosted the Winter Olympics. It reminded me a lot of Salt Lake City, nestled at the base of the mountains. After landing at the airport we took an hour train ride up to Sapporo. This is what it looked like by the airport.

Sapporo has a snow festival in February where they have huge snow and ice sculptures thorughout the city. Unfortunately, I was too early to see this. But, I got to see the start of some of the sculptures. They are enormous and I could tell that we would be awesome.

This is the only ice sculpture that I could see...it is the size of a house.

This is a drawing of what the final sculpture will look like.

This is the sculpture under construction...I couldn't believe that the type of equipment that they were usind to make the scupltures.

This is a close up, you can see the building being formed on the left.

I got this picture from the internet of a past sculpture that was done there....amazing!

Being held hostage by a Japanese toilet

Today I had quite the adventure with the toilet in the office. As you may know the toilets in Japan have buttons and gadgets on them. You have a button to heat the toilet seat, a button to make the sound of running water (to disguise any noises)and a button to turn the toilet into a bidet.

The toilets in the hotel room have japanese to tell you what each button does as well as a picture. The toilets in the office only have Japanese. So, I used the restroom and went to flush the toilet. The toilet didn't have a handle to flush like any other toilet that I have seen...but I guessed at what I thought would flush the toilet, only it didn't flush. I tried it again and no flushing. So, i started to push buttons. Wow, that was the recipe for disaster. After I pushed the button this little hose came down and started to spray water. I of course was standing in front of the toilet and it starts to spray me. I jump out of the way and this hose is spraying the stall door and it was quite the stream! It is running all over the floor. I pushed the button again thinking maybe it will stop, but it doesn't stop. I push the button next to it and it keeps going. Meanwhile the floor is getting soaked with water and is starting to go into the other stall. I put the toilet lid down thinking it would stop the water from spraying all over the place...that helped a little but, the stream was so powerful it was flowing through the space between the lid and the seat and isn't stopping. I am thinking why isn't that on a timer...who is going to sit there that long having water spraying on them...THIS IS NOT A SHOWER.

Desperate and not wanting to flood the entire bathroom, I leave to ask for help. Of course there wasn't any girls available to who speaks fluent English. Within a minute I found someone who understand...can you come help me. I go into the bathroom with her and ask her how to stop the water...yes she started to laugh at me. The one button that I hadn't pushed was the one to turn it off. By this time the floor in the both stalls were completed covered in water...and the area in front of the stalls. It took a while for her to understand where do you flush the toilet. You just had to push the thing I had thought to begin with really hard.

So for the next hour I heard laughter throughout the office, I was sure it was because they were hearing the funny story of the American girl who didn't know how to flush the toilet and flooded the bathroom.

Talk about FUNNY! I couldn't stop laughing at myself...I am still laughing as I type this.

Family book

This is a book that I made for an enrichment craft coming up in February. It is a chipboard book from Bo Bunny that you cover with your scrapbook paper. I thought it turned out really cute!

So did the sisters in the ward...now, I have to try and find enough of them for the day of the activity. I thought more stores would carry them...after all we are in the middle of Utah. But, only one store carries them. I may be getting them shipped in from an internet site. I am glad that I have a few more weeks to work on locating them.







It was fun and fairly simple to make.

Happy New Year!

Wow, it is 2008! I can not believe that it has been 8 years since Y2K. Boy, time flies whether you are having fun or not...and every year it goes quicker. Maybe it is because those nasty grey hairs keep coming back faster. Okay, I think I am divulging too much.

I went to Washington for New Years weekend and spent time with my family in Moses Lake. I was there from Friday evening until Jan. 1st. It was great to be with my family!
My Dad & I

Sunday when we ate lunch mom actually had about 20 minutes where she was doing really well. She was following the conversations, laughing at Marta & Joel and could feed herself. It was so great to be with her when she was able to be more of herself!

New Years Eve Janae, Nathan, Marta & Dad at Annika's house.

It is 2008! Breaking out the sparkling apple cider...one bottle seemed to be more sparkly then the other, we hoped it wasn't fermented!

Levi liked the sparkling cider!

One of the neighbors to my Dad had made some snow sculptures. He changed half of them before I took pictures. He had made a bear, turtle, and deer...but all that was there when we took pictures was the dinosaur, dolphin, alligator and sea serpent. I thought they were pretty cool. Varon, Traice and Drake.

Say Cheese, Kayden & Tye

On Monday Marta and I made freezer meals for my dad. We made 17 recipes in total, it took us about 8 hours to complete them. He now has over a months worth of dinners in the freezer. We made a big mess in the process and used every bit of counter space and mixing bowl. It was a lot of work but, it was worth it. Happy eating Dad!

Some of the meals packaged and ready to go into the freezer.

Freezer full of meals...can you believe that over 30 dinners fit in there with extra room! I love this idea of 30 meals in one day.