Chicken Tetrazzini

My husband fell in love with chicken tetrazzini while he served in the military (they're in MREs), but then realized that they were a mere shadow compared to my grandma's version. The only drawback is that the recipe calls for cream of chicken soup. I'll give you the original recipe with my modifications below.

Chicken Tetrazzini
(serves 4)
8 oz. cooked spaghetti
2-4 c. cooked chicken, shredded
1/4 c. unsalted butter
1/4 c. all-purpose flour
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp. thyme
2 c. chicken broth
1 can cream of chicken soup (*see below*)
1 c. cheese, shredded
breadcrumbs

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. 
2. Make roux by melting butter in a medium pan. Whisk in flour. Add chicken broth and cream of chicken soup. Stir over low heat until thickened.
3. Layer 1/2 of the chicken on the bottom of a 2 to 3 quart dish. Add 1/2 of the cooked noodles, 1/2 of the cheese, and 1/2 of the roux. Repeat. Add buttered breadcrumbs and cheese to the top.
4. Cook for 30 minutes.

**Instead of using the can of soup, double the amounts of butter and flour when making the roux.**

Tantrum Tamer

Just give them
a little TLC.

Shopping with my 18-month old has gone downhill. Sometimes she'll sit in the shopping cart at the grocery store. Other times, she likes to push the cart herself. Or stay in my arms. Or run around the store, pulling items off the shelves. Or throw a tantrum because we're leaving the bookstore and she wants to stay! (I took my husband to the bookstore once and let him chase her around so he could have the full experience.)

I heard before that you can keep older kids in line by having them help with the grocery list or by getting things for you off the shelves. My little one can't help yet, but can beg for cheese in the dairy section.

She does, however, love to eat. So, the last time I had to go to town on a big trip, I brought along some crackers. She was so busy eating them, she didn't have time to think about grabbing everything else. She even sat in the cart. If your kid doesn't eat, find some other kind of distraction! That Works for Me.

The Help

After hearing several favorable reviews of The Help, I borrowed it from the library and read it over the weekend. In case you are like me and have been in a box (called my house or your house, respectively) for the last few months, The Help is Kathryn Stockett's first novel, a story set in Jackson, Mississippi, in the 1960s. Three characters take turns telling their stories: Aibileen, Minny, and Miss Skeeter. Aibileen and Minny are African-American maids who work hard for their white mistresses and help raise their children. Miss Skeeter returns home from college dreaming to become a writer and eventually lands on an idea to write about what it would feel like to be a maid. Only, she needs maids to honestly tell her, a white girl, these private thoughts when they could lose everything.

The novel was extremely well-written, except that the maids talked with an accent and the white ladies didn't. (It's the South; they all have accents!) What propelled it to the bestseller lists is most likely the strong historical setting and the deep emotion portrayed. Stockett accurately describes what it's like to be in love, to raise children, to despise your boss -- generally, to be human.

It's not clean enough to recommend to my church book club, but I do think that it's a good read, especially for people interested in the South. Just stay away from that pie. (PG-13, recommended)

So Nice

No cold hearts here.

One thing I love about living here is the friendliness.

If you're not trying to zone people's property and take away their property rights, people exude kindness. People around here expect you to look them in the eyes and give them a little greeting. Some of the people I've met here have been the friendliest that I've met anywhere.

They're especially friendly to strangers (as long as you're not one of those Californians). They created a homeless shelter for the down-and-out, provide jail inmates with pen pals, keep the local food banks stocked, organize fundraisers for sick residents, and stop to help a poor girl on the side of the road who just slammed into her first deer. (That was me.)

When I first moved here, I knew no one except my father-in-law. Now, I can't go anywhere without seeing someone I know. I give them a little greeting and go on my way, because it's that kind of place.

Valentine's Day Wish

You hear a lot about wishing on stars, wishing for joy at Christmas, wishing for world peace at the Miss America pageant. But today, on St. Valentine's Day, I wish for love. Pure, unadulterated love.

Love drives out fear and escapism. It reduces domestic violence, abuse, loneliness, and hopelessness. Love makes life worth living.

It's easy to love people who love us back. It's not so easy to love everyone else. Here's a wish that love would reign supreme, today and every other day.

Love,
Bitterroot Mama

P.S. After going through today, I hope that next year I won't have to clean poop out of the bath tub.

Garlic Fries and the Fire Alarm

It has been a long time since I set off our fire alarms by overcooking food. But I managed to do it! A perfect storm of events unfolded:

• baking in a very hot oven (475°)
• giving those thin garlic fries an extra five minutes to cook
• leaving the kitchen to fold laundry upstairs
• using a kitchen timer that stops and starts whenever it feels like it

And then there was smoke and the wonderful ringing of the fire alarm. (A good thing since I don't test them as often as I should.) Despite the cold temperature outside, we opened up windows and the smoke escaped. And the fries? Mostly burned to a crisp. Some were edible and I could tell that if they hadn't burned, they would have been the best garlic fries ever. Pity I'm out of potatoes or I'd try again.

What Have You Read Lately?

I will try my hand at this reverse post thing again (although I only received one suggestion for a cream of chicken soup substitute last week).

What have you read lately? It doesn't have to be something you liked, just something you read. Heck, it can even be a magazine. Share below or if you have a post about it, I can create a linkup. Just let me know. Thanks and Happy Reading!

Defiant Joy by Kevin Belmonte

In Defiant Joy, Kevin Belmonte provides a biography of the great, late G.K. Chesterton, the ultimate Renaissance man thinker and writer of the early 20th century. He scopes out Chesterton's entire life, including childhood events that shaped the man of letters, samplings and analyses of his great works, and scoop about his relationships with his contemporaries.


Reading this book felt like ordering an appetizer sampler at a restaurant only to have it arrive after two hours with frozen Costco food warmed up on a platter. As Belmonte did not witness Chesterton's life, he could only tell about it long after, using quotes from previous biographies, reviews, and Chesterton's own works. At times, it felt like I read quote after quote, with a little bit of filler. In addition, the picture on the front of Chesterton fails to flatter.

Once I finally got into the book (about a third of the way into it), I found it delightful. The long quotes became less tedious; Chesterton's quotes spice up the book, as he wrote beautifully. Belmonte did manage to awaken a new generation to the greatness of Chesterton and implant a thirst for his full works (at least for this reader). (G, recommended) [I received a free copy of this book from Thomas Nelson Publishing's Booksneeze Program in exchange for an honest review. See above for honest review.]

The Panic Virus

I just about had a panic attack seeing that I lost 2 followers this week. Where are my followers going? Is my blog that bad? Nothing like a controversial post to send even more people fleeing to the outermost edges of cyberspace. But it's all I've been able to finish lately, so here is Book Worm Tuesday:

Every parent has to grapple with the vaccine dilemma: Do the benefits really outweigh the risks or am I going to damage my child for life? It's the hip thing right now not to subject children to the normal vaccine schedule recommended by the AAP. Before Seth Mnookin became a parent, he heard the same arguments about vaccines causing autism when talking to friends. So, he did a ton of research and wrote The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science & Fear.

There's nothing particularly earth-shattering about The Panic Virus. He even admitted that vaccines can cause problems (otherwise why would the government have a board set up to review the claims?), just not autism. Some of the chapters on vaccines and Jenny McCarthy were review for me.

What he did provide was a cohesive, intelligible narrative, taking the reader behind the scenes of the normal sound bites and sensationalism surrounding this issue. With humor and compassion, he tells of autistic parents duped into paying for cures by greedy doctors and a media hungry for high ratings. As we know, the fear produced by this issue has led many parents not to vaccinate children, leading to outbreaks of diseases formerly eradicated in our society. And that leads, he says, to the ultimate victims of this issue: unimmunized children who catch these deadly diseases before they're old enough to have all of their shots. Everyone's decision on this issue affects everyone else. To get a balanced, scientific view on this issue, read this book. Even if you don't agree with his conclusions, you'll understand the issue better and it'll make you think. (PG, highly recommended)

Summer vs. Winter

In case you were wondering, I made some graphjam charts to display how I spend my time in the summer vs. the winter here in Montana:

As you can see, there is a large deficiency of birthdays in the winter (my FIL's birthday today excluded), but plenty of time to read. Despite less reading time and the constant of housework, summer still wins.

Meatballs

The meatball stands alone.

Maybe you're used to eating flavorless balls of meat dripping with oil from their time in the frying pan. (Maybe you've just given up eating meat after reading that awful description. I hope not!) Anyway, I found a fabulous recipe in a magazine awhile back that makes zippy, baked meatballs. They're great in spaghetti and meatballs, pizza sauce hoagies, and just plain, as I served them at a potluck this week.

Meatballs
(yields 30 - 35 meatballs)
Preheat oven to 450°F.
In a large bowl, mix:
1 c. unseasoned breadcrumbs
3/4 c. Parmesan cheese, grated
1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. beef broth
3 eggs
2 Tbsp. dried oregano
1 Tbsp. dried parsley
1 Tbsp. kosher salt (or less)
1 Tbsp. black pepper
2 tsp. dried basil
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
2 cloves garlic, minced
Add 2 lb. ground beef. Mix well.
Grease 1 to 2 large baking sheets. Form mix into balls about 2 inches in diameter. Place on baking sheets. Pour 1 c. beef broth on bottom of baking sheets. Bake in oven for about 25 minutes, or until a meat thermometer tells you they're done!

Cheeseburger and Fries Casserole

Looking for an easy casserole and a kid-pleaser? Look no farther than this cheeseburger and fries casserole that I adapted from a Better Homes & Gardens casserole book.

Cheeseburger and Fries Casserole

(serves 8 to 10)

• Brown and drain 2 lbs. hamburger. Place in the bottom of a 3 quart casserole dish.
• Mix 1 can cream of chicken soup and 1 can condensed cheddar cheese soup and pour over burger in the dish.
• Add 20 oz. of frozen crinkle cut fries on top. Sprinkle with seasoned salt.
• Bake uncovered at 350°F for 45 minutes to an hour, or until fries are cooked.

(Optional: Add normal burger toppings to the top after finished cooking. Examples include ketchup, mustard, pickles, tomatoes, etc.)

EC and Baby Sign Update

It's been awhile since I let you know how the elimination communication (early potty training) was working. I had thought it would backfire on me, but it's actually going quite well. My 18-month-old tells me she needs to go poo every time, so I've only had to clean up one #2 diaper in about 5 months. (She also says she has to poo when she has to pee, but at least she's communicating.) She only uses the potty for #1 a couple of times of day. Sometimes she won't sit on the potty and othertimes I'm not very good at taking her regularly. I'm still a fan of EC and think it's helped out. I'm not pushing to have her fully potty-trained before she's 2, but it's nice that she at least knows when she needs to go and can communicate it with me.

Both my husband and I were skeptical about baby sign. I heard arguments that it would delay real speech and all that, but my sister took a lot of sign language in college and was teaching stuff to the baby over Skype. So far, she knows the signs for please, thank you, water, all done, and more. "More" was the first sign she learned and was incredibly helpful at meals and when she was on the potty. I'm now in favor of some limited baby sign. It's hard for babies to say they're thirsty, so the "water" sign has also been wonderful. The baby says a lot of other words, including her recent first sentence, "I poop," which she, of course, did on the potty!

It's All About the Magic Touch

I went to visit some of my neighbors last weekend to soak up some of their gardening knowledge. They're the kind of people that have nice raised beds, efficient irrigation, jars of food they canned, and actual gardening success.

What I found both enlightened and discouraged me: They're using the same stuff I am. Other than a fancy watering system involving soaker hoses and some crazy attachments from Ace, they're in the same neighborhood, using the same soil (kind of), the same seeds, and the same equipment.

They just have the magic touch.

I have a magic touch in the kitchen after all those years of experimentation. Give me raw ingredients and I can make you a stellar cake! In gardening, I'm just a newbie. I guess I shouldn't be too discouraged, because it means that with practice and dedication, my garden can someday resemble the Garden of Eden as well. Until then, I'll just settle for the dust bowl.

Valentine Hearts (and How to Make Goop)

I saw a really cute Valentine's Day idea in Family Fun magazine and somehow thought it would be a project that me and my 18-month-old could do together. (Think again, Mommy!)

I was warming the glue in a pan on the stove when I went to the garage to find the yarn. I came back to find that my glue had hardened and cracked, leaving little white pieces throughout it.

The baby didn't understand how to put the yarn into the glue and I was not about to get the glue all over my floor, so I had to make her heart too.

Then, I tried speeding up the drying process by heating the hearts in the oven. The baby's heart ended up glued to the parchment paper. I couldn't win!

Even after all that, they came out OK, so I thought I'd share the project for you to try too, if you don't mind being foiled at every turn. (insert evil laugh here)

Here's how to do the project:
1. Make Glue. Mix 1/2 c. water and 1/4 c. cornstarch in a heavy pan over medium heat. Allow to heat until translucent and thick (watching it carefully!) Let it cool so you can handle it.
2. Cut some yarn into 1-foot lengths. (Pink, white, and red are popular V-Day colors.)
3. Put down a piece of parchment paper. Dip yarn in the cornstarch glue, get most of the goop off, and arrange in a heart-shaped cookie cutter on the paper.
4. Allow the yarn to dry. (Use the oven on a very low setting [150°] at your own risk.)
5. Present to your Valentine! (They would look cute pasted to a card.)

This post is linked to Works for Me Wednesday!

Cream of Chicken Soup Substitute Challenge

Sometimes I make recipes with cream of chicken soup. I especially like using them in the crockpot. Now, before you get all crazy on me, I do try to get the Healthy Request kind which don't have evil MSG lurking in them. But, they are expensive and I have to throw away a can every time I'm done.

I am hoping to find a homemade cream of chicken soup recipe that meets my exacting standards.

The recipe I'm looking for:
1. Is Cheap (less than $1.50/can equivalent)
2. Is Easy to make (I've got an 18-month-old here.)
3. Doesn't curdle in the crockpot
4. Is Made with normal ingredients (don't even try to sneak cream of mushroom soup in here people!)

Please post links to your recipe or one that works for you! Recipes in the comment section work too! Your help is much appreciated.

For lots of great tips and a chance to meet other nice people, visit Works for Me Wednesday.

The Next Christians

Gabe Lyons (of UnChristian fame) paints a portrait of the future of Christianity in America in The Next Christians. And it looks uncannily like...me and my friends. Divided into three parts, the first addresses the current state of Christianity, how it's divided into separatists (Christians who reject society), blenders (Christians who fit in society nicely), and restorers (in the world, but not of it - his vision of the future). The second defines and expounds upon the characteristics of the restorers, and the third concludes on a positive note.


I enjoyed this book, although it did become tedious at times. I found the discussion about types of Christians enlightening and thought it explained why I felt queasy around certain separatist (and blended) viewpoints. When he listed the spiritual disciplines of the next Christians, they were already things we were doing! Since Lyons is obviously a next Christian himself, it felt odd when he kept referring to the group in the third person (instead of using "we"). I left the book encouraged and thinking about my many friends who are playing this out in the real world - my friend who gave up a job at a biotech company to be a house mom for women rescued from sex trafficking and another friend working as a librarian at a Christian mission school overseas. This should be essential reading for ministry leaders, young adults, and anyone wondering what's the next big thing in the Christian world - it's The Next Christians. (PG, highly recommended) [I received a copy of this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah in exchange for an honest review.]

The Cause Within You

The Cause Within You claims to help Christians discover their cause, or calling. Written by Matthew Barnett (with help from George Barna), it focuses on cases studies of people associated with The Dream Center, a mission organization dedicated to restoring broken lives in the heart of Los Angeles.


I didn't literally find my cause by the end of the book (I've really been looking for mine lately), although it does contain many excellent, general suggestions for finding someone's cause. I felt that the book overemphasized the author's cause (helping the inner-city poor), which inadvertently invalidated the other gifts and experiences that Christians may have. Barnett's passion and humility shone in this book and hearing how his mission steps up to the messy task of building relationships with people in tough situations inspired me. Rated: PG, recommended.  [I received a free copy of this book from Tyndale Publishing in exchange for an honest review.]