Chicken Tortilla Soup

This crockpot recipe is compliments of my cousin who shared it with me. It couldn't be more simple and yields a lot of soup. Maybe you'd like to try it.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

2 cans black beans (14.5 ounce size)

2 cans stewed tomatoes, Mexican or chili style (14.5 ounce size)

1 can tomato juice (46 ounce size)

1 can green chiles (4.5 ounce size)

1 cup salsa

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (uncooked)

1 can corn

Put all ingredients in your crockpot (it will be full) and cook 6-8 hours on low. Lift out chicken breasts, shred and return to soup. Serve with tortilla chips,  sour cream and shredded cheese.

(I like lots of sour cream and cheese in mine! 🙂

Do you recognize the chips from Wednesday's post?)

Enjoy!

Refreshed Chinese Fish Bowl

My mother was given this Chinese fish bowl years ago as a birthday gift from her mother.

Isn't the pattern beautiful?

Look at the painted fish on the inside (birds-eye-view).

Originally, Chinese fish bowls were truly used as the name implies. A symbol of wealth in China, colorful carp were considered a showy "pet" which were kept in the fancy porcelain bowls.  Over the years, though, Chinese fish bowls were replaced by glass bowls and aquariums and now these pretty vessels are purely decorative.

My parents have always utilized Mother's fish bowl as a plant stand and recently decided to replace the faux plant that was in it with something else for a fresh, new look. She envisioned something lower, light and airy and we found just that at Michaels on sale.

I offered to bring home everything to work on it.

It's always nice to be able to give a treasured piece a new look!

Good Finds

I feel the best way to find out about a good product is word-of-mouth...or, in this case, word-of-blog. Perhaps you already know about the following tasty foods.

These are my new favorite find! They are very flavorful tortilla chips with a nutty hint from the sunflower seeds. Aldi carries them (Simply Nature brand) for $1.69 a bag. Made from whole grains, rice, flax and sunflower seeds, they are delicious! A bonus is that they're non GMO. By the way, you will see these chips used in a recipe I'm posting Friday.

Do you like gnocchi? We've discovered that we love it! Boil gnocchi in lightly salted water for just a few minutes (directions are on the package). I then tossed ours in a very small amount of lightly browned butter. You can top with parmesan cheese before serving.  Of course, there are many different ways to prepare these thick, soft dough dumplings. I think most groceries carry gnocchi, but I get ours at Dollar Tree.

I haven't had white cheddar popcorn in ages, but picked-up this bag at Dollar Tree. Brim's tastes the same as the popular brands purchased at the grocery stores. It's produced in the USA and is, of course, just a dollar.

Do you have any good food finds?

Tuesday's Tablescape

I decided to use my cheerful daisies for today's tablescape. I adore these dishes which a friend shared with me last year (click here to read the story).

During this past Christmas season, the same friend and I got together and she kindly shared the matching teapot from the ensemble. Isn't it darling?

Within the past year, she also gave me the gravy boat.

Thanks to her kind generosity, I have several pieces from the hostess set which are not pictured today.

Don't the daisies make you think spring?

I hope your day has been pleasant!

💮 Have a good evening. 💮

Happy Spring!

It's officially the first day of spring! Raise your hand if you're happy about that! ✋In honor of the day, I'm sharing a tulip wreath since it's perfect for springtime use. I made this a few years ago for my parents.

This honestly goes together very easily and uses just a few materials. You need a 16 inch grapevine wreath, eight bunches of tulips, thin wire and scissors. I purchased the bunches of flowers from Michaels when they were on sale for $2/each bush (in fact, I think they're on sale this week). No matter where you get them, you'll want the smaller size. The blossoms  on these are about 1.5 inches tall and the stems measure about 14 inches.  Don't get the life-sized tulip blossoms as they won't work on this project. You'll want about 20 flowers in each bunch or it will not create a full enough look to be satisfying.

Your color choices will depend upon the look you want. You could purchase all the same color, but I got four bunches of pink and four bunches of very light green.

Don't cut apart the flowers; leave them intact. Lay the first bunch on top of the wreath, bending the stems slightly to follow the contour of the wreath. Wire in place at the point where the leaves join the stem, wrapping around the entire wreath several times.

Stagger the next bundle of tulips on top of the previous, so that the flowers of the second bunch conceal the wire of the bundle beneath.

Continue all the way around the wreath, spacing carefully so that you come out evenly. When I reached the halfway point, I made sure I was on course.  

My parents' front porch is covered, so this wreath hasn't faded or weathered at all. I cannot vouch for the color fastness of the tulips on a door that's more directly hit by the elements.

May your first day of spring be filled with tulips and happiness!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Whether you're Irish, or whether you're not...

On St. Patrick's Day, you're loved a lot! ☘

Happy Day!

National Quilting Day

This Saturday is National Quilting Day. I have always been drawn to quilts! I love their color combinations and designs, but most of all I enjoy the stories quilts tell. In bygone days, of course, quilts were a necessity to keep warm. As time marched on, the lovely covers evolved from being useful to decorative. It's true that some people still have quilts on their beds, but usually not for practical reasons. Remember the copper quilt ladder I made? I enjoy showcasing a few quilts on it.

I have my dad's baby quilt, so it has a meaningful history.

Learning to quilt has been something I have been working on the past two years and this is one of my projects, made with the guidance of a friend who is still teaching me. It represents an accomplished goal when I was newly retired.

Several years ago, I had this quilt made from my childhood dresses (primarily from when I was in first grade). I only cut the squares and created the combinations. I paid someone to do all the actual work! This piece brings back many memories since I can point to any of the fabrics and fondly recall the outfits I wore to school, for Easter, for Christmas, etc.

While this is not an antique or handmade quilt, it still has a tale to tell. Randy gave it to me for Christmas the year we built this house for the purpose of displaying on the wall, so it's special to me!

This treasure is a dear family piece. My paternal grandmother began it in the 1930s. As if that doesn't make it special enough, I love that it's created from feed/flour sacks. The top was nearly completed when she gave it to my parents somewhere along the way. As happens to all of us, the busyness of life sometimes prevents us from accomplishing all that we desire to do. Thankfully, there was scrap fabric packed away with it so I was able to hire a woman to finish the edges and binding, in addition to quilting it. Isn't it gorgeous? By the way, my dad made the handsome quilt rack for me nearly 30 years ago.

Do you have quilts? If so, what stories do they tell?