Shaped Mini Albums

Wintertime is my favorite time to work on scrapbooking projects. Both my mother and my daughter are very fond of mini- albums that remind them of special days and times and people we love. They have baskets of these albums I have put together, laying all over their homes.

I found this sweet, shaped album on ebay last autumn. The single cardboard album was themed with outdoor activities, so I am in the process of making mementos of our camping and fishing trips we took when my college-aged grandchildren were very small.

This particular album was a mishmash of one trailer, one fishing hat, one backpack, one leaf, and one compass. So I traced each shape onto heavy cardstock, making the original printed page into many, and in so doing, turning one five-page album into five, ten-page albums! I punched holes to correspond with the initial holes and now I will decorate each page with printed paper and add pictures of our wonderful camping and hiking and fishing trips.

A wonderful way to remember fondly our happy times in the great outdoors!

Creamy Chicken Soup

When my grandchildren were small, we spent many weekends tent and trailer camping, or at a wonderful old summer camp with 100-year old log and slap-board cabins, on Lake Mary Ronan. Because my daughter and son-in-law worked until 5 and then had to pack the kids and dogs up and do all the things parents of small children do, I always volunteer to handle the food for the weekend. And the Littles always said, "But Nani, make the chicken soup for dinner Friday night!" Here is my recipe for "The Chicken Soup"

Creamy Chicken Soup

1/2 cube of butter

1 onion, chopped

1 cup chopped celery

3 fresh chicken breasts cut into chunks

2 cups sliced carrots

4 potatoes, peeled and diced

4-6 cups of water

3 bullion cubes or 3 tsp Better Than Bullion

3 bay leaves

1/2 tsp pepper

1 tsp salt (don't salt too much, as the canned soup has plenty of salt)

2 cans cream of chicken soup

1 can cream of celery soup

In a very large pot, saute the onions and celery in the butter until they are translucent. Add the chicken and stir and cook until it is opaque. Next add the potatoes and carrots and then the water (you want everything covered with at least 2" of water, as it will cook down. Bring to a boil and turn the heat down medium/low. Add the seasonings and allow the soup to simmer for about 45 minutes. When that is done, mix the cans of cream soup with enough water to make them "pourable". This way the cream soup will be nice and smooth when you add it to the pot. Note that you do not want to bring this to a boil once the cans of soup are added. You want to just get the soup heated enough that it comes back to a simmer that returns as soon as you stop stirring. Add a cup of water if this is too thick a soup for you.

Along with rolls, this makes enough for 7 hungry people. If you are not 7 hungry people, it can be put into quart jars and will keep in the fridge for a week. It will freeze well, but you may find that the cream soup separates a bit when defrosted. This does not affect the taste, perhaps only the aesthetics of the soup...

This recipe goes along with some of my most favorite memories....

Homemade Bread

There is no smell like that of bread baking in the oven! I have been making bread since my very first job in the bakery at Mt. Ellis Academy, Bozeman, MT, in 1973, when I was a 15 year old sophomore in high school.

I love fresh, warm bread so much, that I seldom make it at home. I will eat an entire loaf, if left to my own devices. Melt some butter on that nice warm roll. Add some honey or home made strawberry jam. Dinner is served.

I pulled out my old bread machine yesterday. It had been put away so long that there were actually dust bunnies under it! I discovered that, although I am a bit rusty, it comes back to me quickly...kind of like riding a bicycle!

Personally, I like to make the dough in the bread machine through the first rising, and then turn it out onto the counter to allow to rise one more time. Then I make it into a lovely pan of rolls or a loaf of bread. I have a couple of go-to recipes.

Here is my Mama's Portuguese White Bread Recipe:

1 1/3 cup warm water 2 1/2 tsp. bread machine yeast

1 1/2 Tbsp. sugar 2 tsp. salt

1/4 cup butter 3 2/3 cup white flour

Follow the directions for your bread machine to make a lovely loaf of bread.