“Life is so precious.”
How many times do we hear these words and nod our heads in agreement
with the statement, then keep on moving.
Never so clear was this statement when a month ago, a dear friend passed
away suddenly. She was only a few weeks away
from forty years old and was looking forward to that milestone with gusto. Now, suddenly, she is gone.
I wish I would have told her how much it ment to me that she
was part of my life. Over the past few
years we had grown apart. Moving will do
that to a relationship. She and her son
truly became part of the Rupple family. They
joined our holiday dinners and weekend get togethers. She was my labor coach with Will, and helped
me through some personal challenges as well.
She taught me to embrace today and not leave open ended
invitations. To this day 99% of the time
I try not to say, “oh, we’ll get together soon", I try to set the next
date.
After learning those lessons, I gradually advanced to living
a life without fear. I know in my heart
that I try #1 to live for the Lord. I do
make mistakes, I try to apologize and make things right, right away. As long as my conscience is clear before Him,
I trust that He will work things out.
That’s helped me take the steps of putting my writing out there, putting
my recipes out there, putting my heart and soul out there.
There are times that it sucks to not win (again) at the
Strawberry Festival. Or, not make it on Chopped. I won’t give that up, somewhere there is a
stage with my name on it. (It’s ok to
laugh at me for that). There are plenty
of times that I lose my temper with my sweet children. When my ten year old “wins” and I lose my
peace and perhaps say a bad word in response.
(19 Kids and Counting has been on a lot lately in my home and I don’t know how
Michelle doesn’t just lose it at times.
Bless Her.)
So, as gesture of how precious this life and the people that
I love are….I tend to feed everybody. I
can’t help it. A lot of my best memories
of childhood happened in a kitchen.
Baking cookies with my Mom, watching my Papa make pies, finding a
starfish in the frozen shrimp with my Nana.
I naturally, then follow their lead and like to let kids crack eggs for
me and make them special birthday cakes on their birthday. I make chicken noodle soup when my loves are
sick. That’s 100% comfort in a bowl. I think after writing this, I need some. Here’s my recipe:
Annie’s Chicken Noodle Soup.
1.
2 cups chopped cooked chicken (It’s ok to use rotisserie)
2.
1 medium onion diced
3.
1 cup diced celery
4.
1 cup diced carrot
5.
3 cloves garlic, minced
6.
2 tbsp butter
7.
2 tbsp flour
8.
2 bay leaves
9.
½ tsp allspice
10.
Salt and pepper to taste
11.
6 cups of chicken stock
12.
Spaghetti noodles, broken in half diameter of a half dollar
In a large pot, cook the onion, garlic, carrot and celery
until tender. Go ahead and add a pinch
of salt and pepper. Once they’re cooked,
sprinkle the flour and allspice over the veggies. Make sure to stir. You’re cooking the flour taste out. Congratulations, you’ve made a roux.
Now, add the chicken broth and chicken. Also, the bay leaves. Keep stirring for a bit to combine the roux
mixture and the broth. Simmer for at
least 30 minutes. Add noodles and
taste. Season with salt and pepper if necessary
and add more broth if it gets too thick.
When the noodles are cooked through, soup is served. The flavors are simple. The allspice adds warmth, my Nana made hers with allspice and breadcrumb dumplings . It’s especially nice with a thick slice of
bread slathered with butter
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