Happy Halloween

BOO!
Halloween has arrived and with it a rainy, drizzly day.

I made some yummy carmel and chocolate apples and Brycen carved a pumpkin.
My favorite apple is the "apple pie"-- caramel, white chocolate and sugar and cinnamon coating. Yum!
This morning we had a practice for "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat"
Our ward is putting on a musical number to perform next week.  Jenessa is dancing with some
of the other young women doing a ribbon dance with colorful ribbons.  Kaitlyn and I are in the
ensemble choir and we hold up colorful paper flowers.
Chris hasn't felt well today - he has chills and aching.  I hope he's OK!
Thanks to some neighbor's - Mike and Todd the kids still went trick or treating. 
Kaitlyn went in the baby costume and Brycen was a Jedi. 
Jenessa also went as a "Nerd" with her friend Alexis.
Everyone was home by 9:30 with all of their candy and then Ben decided to go over to a friends house, so now I'm up till Midnight watching Food Network - They are decorating spooky gingerbread houses.

Frightful Friday

Our elementary school Halloween Parade was this morning.  I went early to get a good seat.  It's so fun to see all of the creative costumes and cute kids.  Brycen wore his Jedi costume and Kaitlyn changed from her ghost costume to a Baby PJ costume.  I was out buying footie pajamas last night.  I think she was just tired of painting her face with Big Black circles on her eyes.  She was a ghost for the family party and ward carnival but she really enjoyed being a baby again!
I came home and Jenessa called from the school.  She was scared because she was having trouble with her vision. We decided she is having migrain headaches.  I get strange wavy lights in my vision when I have a migraine.  So she must take after me.
I went back to the school to help with Kaitlyn's class Halloween party.  They had some fun games.  They filled a plastic pumkin with rice and then halloween objects.  The kids had to feel around in the rice and write down what they thought it was.  They also played a musical candy walk game.  If they land on a number that is called when the music stops they get a candy from the bowl.  Each number also has a "different way" to walk around the circle...for example skip, jump, jump on 1 foot, crawl, mummy walk.  It was fun


Chris and I went to the temple to do some initiatory.  After I came home and made halloween chili and breadsticks.   Now Jenessa is baby sitting for the Shulsens and Tyler is at the Rec Center.  The rest of the fam is downstairs watching "Ghostbusters'.  Although Brycen is a little scared.     We really miss Jordan.

Chocoholic

Today I really tried to say NO chocolate.  But by 3 pm I gave in.  I saw a mix for chocolate crinkle cookies at Costco but I didn't buy since I knew I could make my own.


The recipe is easy:


1 box chocolate cake mix
1 egg
1/3 cup veg oil


Mix together.  Roll in balls and then roll each ball in powdered sugar.  Bake at 350 for about 9 minutes.

Halloween Birthdays

Today was our annual Halloween birthday party.  Since Tyler was born the day after Halloween I have always had a cousins party to celebrate.  Well the Feil cousins have 3 more birthdays in the fall, so lately we just combine them all!

Happy Birthday Tyler, McKay, Matthew and Andrew

Soup again-Market Street Clam Chowder

Well my mouth still hurts and today its raining.  It's the first real fall rain we've received.  The boys went down to the BYU game and I know they will come home cold and wet. 
I remember going to Market Street Grill on a cold rainy day a year or so ago.  My favorite thing to order is the clam chowder, so I decided to make it for everyone tonight.

I originally got the recipe from my sister Rebecca when she served it at her home.  It was so yummy and
most of the time this has replaced my original recipe for Bratten's clam chowder.


I do have to admit I am still searching for a recipe for clam chowder that tastes like the chowder I had in Seattle when I was there on vacation with my family at about age 10.  I've never found anything to taste like that, but I still remember the distinct taste after all of these years.  It was another cold rainy day (of course)
and we bought it from a small stand right on the pier.


Well here's the market street recipe for now:


Ingredients:


•1 cup of potatoes, diced 1/2 inch
•1 cup of celery, diced 1/2 inch
•1 cup of onions, diced 1/2 inch
•1 cup of green pepper, diced 1/2 inch
•3/4 cup chopped clams (canned or fresh)
•3/4 tablespoon coarse ground black pepper
•1 1/2 teaspoon salt
•3/4 tablespoon whole thyme
•6 bay leaves
•1 teaspoon tabasco
•3/4 cup sherry wine (optional)
•2 cups water
•3/4 cup clam juice (drain from can)
•3/4 cup butter, melted
•1 cup flour
•2 quarts half and half


Method:




In a large saucepan, combine all ingredients except butter, flour, and half and half. Simmer until potatoes are throughly cooked.


In the meantime, combine melted butter and flour in a baking dish and bake at 325 degrees for 30- minutes, (to eliminate raw flour flavor and to stablize chowder) Stif the butter flour mixture, into the chowder and cook, stirring frequently until thick. The mixture should be nearly the consistency of cookie dough.


Remove chowder from heat. Stir in half and half and blend well. Heat to serving temperature, stirring occasionally.
Serve!




By the way instead of half and half I used Lactaid whole milk because Chris is lactose intolerant.
I'm sure we missed out on some of the richness and creaminess but it still tasted wonderful!

Favorite Tortellini Soup

Yesterday I went to see Kelly my brother-in-law the dentist/my ortho.  He added build ups to the
back of my teeth and so now I can't chew anything!  So it's the perfect excuse to make my favorite soup.
I actually do need an excuse because some of the kids do not prefer soup for dinner --but I love it!
I just wish I could chew a nice piece of crusty italian bread to go with it.  So for those non soup eaters
I also made pizzands.

This is also another one of my creative ways to use up more tomatoes from the garden.
I made this recipe my own by adding diced yams or sweet potatoes.  They make it so yummy!

                                

                                          Tortellini soup in a pumpkin mug.  The pizzands are just

                                          english muffins topped with Ragu, mozzerella, pepperoni

                                          and olives

Jenn's Tortellini Soup

First I brown 1 tube of italian sausage with a 1/4 cup of red onion

Then I add either 2 large 28 oz cans of stewed or diced tomatoes

however when I wanted to use up my garden tomatoes I used

about 10 diced fresh tomatoes.

I added 2 large cartons of chicken broth

then add vegetables of choice:

I used 2 yams diced

2 yellow zuchinni diced

1 Tbsp oregano

1 Tbsp basil

2 Tbsp Parsley

salt and pepper to taste

8 oz of frozen tortellini

In large soup pan, brown sausage and onions.  Drain the fat.  Add the chicken broth, and vegetables and spices.  Simmer for about 45 minutes, until the veggies are tender.  Add tortellini 5 to 10 minutes before serving and cook until tender, but not soggy.  Garnish each serving with fresh grated parmesan cheese.

One trick I use is to not add the tortellini to the soup because if there are left overs the tortellini will be soggy the next day.  So when its time to cook the tortellini I cook it in a metal collander that can be simmered on top of the soup.  This cooks the tortellini in the soup but I can then keep it separate to add to the soup for each serving.

Turkey Divan

We had a yummy turkey roast for Sunday dinner yesterday.  It was so moist.  The secret was rubbing the
entire turkey breast with mayonnaise and then slow roast it in the oven at 325 for about 3 hours.

Today I wanted to use the leftovers, so I adapted my favorite chicken divan recipe and it turned out great.

This recipe is super easy.  I just layer uncooked broccoli spears and leftover cut up turkey in a 9X13 pan.

Mix together 1 can cream chicken soup

1 can cream mushroom soup

1 cup mayonnaise

2 cups grated cheddar cheese

1 TBSP curry powder

1 TBSP lemon juice

Pour over the broccoli and turkey

Now mix together 1 square of melted butter with one package of stove top chicken stuffing mix

sprinkle over the pan

Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes

Cheesey Game Bread

Saturday's in October are all about BYU football.  The Cougars are playing TCU so the game is on downstairs in the TV room.
I found an appetizer that I thought would be good and decided to try it out.  Everyone
gobbled it up quickly.  Its a cheesey bread and it's delish.


I got this recipe from one of my fav blogs your homebased mom so thanks Leigh Anne and as she says
How can any combination of bread, cheese and butter be anything but wonderful?



Get a good quality artisan, style bread. You want a bread with a crisp, firm, hard crust. You want the bread to be a nice firm, denser style of bread.

1 unsliced loaf of (round is preferable) sourdough bread
1 pound Monterey Jack cheese, thinly sliced
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup finely diced green onion, including white part
2-3 tsp poppy seeds

Directions:


Using a sharp bread knife cut the bread going both directions. Do not cut through the bottom crust.



Places slices of cheese between cuts. Mix together butter, onion, and poppy seeds. Pour over bread. Wrap in foil the entire thing in foil and place on a baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Unwrap. Bake 10 more minutes, or until cheese is melted.  Be careful not to burn your mouth on the hot gooey cheese!

Fall Recess

All 5 kids are out for Fall Recess so today was the perfect day to make my Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread.
This is my ultimate fall recipe when the days are perfectly autumn.

I like to use mini chocolate chips because it makes the pumpkin bread sooo chocolately.

I use the Lion House Pumpkin Bread recipe and the secret is adding a box a instant vanilla pudding

I use the chocolate chips instead of the nuts.

1 1/3 cups vegetable oil

5 eggs

1 16-ounce can pumpkins

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 3-ounce packages instant vanilla pudding

1 cup walnuts chopped


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix oil, eggs, and pumpkin in mixing bowl and beat well. Sift together flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and baking soda. Add to pumpkin mixture and mix till blended. Stir in pudding mix (regular or instant) and nuts. Pour into greased large loaf pans. Bake for 1 hour. Makes 2 loaves.

Brycen and Ty love it!

Chris took Kaitlyn to work with him today.  He spoiled her by taking her to the Lion House Pantry for lunch she had salmon and he had prime rib!   They also went over to Temple Square

Bingham Ball Date

Last night the doorbell rang and when Chris answered there were a bunch of "mice" on the doorstep.   Ben was asked to Bingham Ball by Emily Christensen.    He was way excited and did he "arm pump" so now we are preparing to answer her.  Ben is carving a Pumpkin to say YES.  He will put it
on her doorstep with a candle to light it up.

This week I've tried to find any possible way to use our garden tomatoes.  So tonight I made

Summer Garden Pasta.

4 pints cherry tomatoes, halved

 1/2 cup olive oil

 2 tablespoons minced garlic (6 cloves)

18 large basil leaves, julienned, plus extra for serving

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon salt

 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 pound dried angel hair pasta

1 1/2 cups freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Combine cherry tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, basil, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper in a large bowl.

Bring a large pot of water with a splash of olive oil and 2 tablespoons of salt to a boil and then add the pasta. Cook al dente and drain the pasta. Add to the bowl with the cherry tomatoes. Add the cheese and some extra fresh basil leaves and toss well

Discovery Gateway

Kaitlyn and Brycen will be back on track next week.  Since I had my surgery we haven't done anything fun, so today we changed that and went downtown to the Gateway.  We went to the Discovery Kids museum.
They had fun doing a lot of activities, a climbing wall, sat in a real life flight helicopter, and the KSL news studio and gave the evening news.  After we met Dad for lunch.  We went to McDonalds, Subway and Rumbi--we all wanted our favorites.  We also got frozen yogurt with toppings.

Brycen loved the block shapes

In a real life-flight helicopter

Little Pig Little Pig let me in

Reporting for KSL channel 5 this is Kaitlyn and Brycen

Rock wall

Off Track School

Kaitlyn has more energy and creativity than anyone I know.  Today she transformed the family room and kitchen into a school, starring herself as teacher.  She invited all of the neighbor kids over for assignments, recess and even lunch time.  

To go along with the school theme I decided to make Sour Cream Apple Bars
Happy Fall!!

Sour Cream Apple Bars

Crust:
1 C butter, softened
1 C firmly packed brown sugar
2 C uncooked quick cooking oats
1 C flour
1 C chopped pecans
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice

Filling:

1 C sour cream
3/4 C sugar
2 Tbsp flour
1 egg
2 medium (about 2 cups) apples, unpeeled, shredded (I missed the unpeeled part and peeled mine)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Combine butter and brown sugar in large bowl. Beat at medium speed until creamy. Add remaining crust ingredients and beat until well mixed.

Press HALF of crust mixture onto bottom of ungreased 13 x 9 pan. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until light golden brown.

While crust is baking combine the filling ingredients; mix well. Gently pour the filling over the hot, partially baked crust. Crumble the remaining crust mixture over the top of the fill and press down lightly.

Bake for an additional 25-30 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the center is set. Cool. Cut into bars. Store refrigerated

Jordan's 1st missionary letter

We finally received a letter from Jordan.  He left last Tuesday and for a waiting Mom that's a long time!

He's doing great, but that Mexican Mafia investigator worries me a little :(

So here it is:Date: October 11, 2010

Area: Houston 1 Northwest

Companion: Elder Bunch

Hola familia!

Wow i have so much to talk about I don't even know where to start! Well here I am in Texas! I'm in Houston 1 Northwest. So I'm a little northwest of downtown ha ha about ten minutes. So I'm in the GHETTO! But it's so awesome! I love every minute of it. I'm actually understanding most everything in spanish and can speak pretty well too. Oh and I baptized someone yesterday. Yup. Really. But I should be honest it wasn't my investigator it was the sisters' but it was still a really good experience!

I was nervous at first to talk to people but now I love it (unless their white, white people are jerks) Because you can go up to any hispanic and go "Hola Hermano como esta!" "Hello Brother how are you?" and they're always nice and willing to talk but unfortunately also always catholic. ha. But we have actually had a lot of appointments. We had 30 sit down lessons since I got here. and we had six investigators in church this week. hopefully we can get them all baptized this transfer. I just love riding around the ghetto around all these dumpy apartments and hearing they're mexican music and talking to people. That might sound like I was being sarcastic but I'm not! I really love doing this so much. Why didn't anyone tell me serving a mission was this fun? Well I'm telling you all now that serving is so much fun!

Too be honest the food has been a disappointment so far...Hopefully I get some good food soon. I'm not trying to be ungrateful but everyone just was telling me how I was going to get fat but I barely eat and I ride a bike and sweat all day so I don't know how that's going to happen...But I would still like some good food.

So just to prove how ghetto this place is...last night I set up an appointment with a guy who used to be in the Mexican Mafia. He just got out of jail and actually seems pretty nice. If you don't know what the Mexican Mafia is it's one of the worst gangs in the country, that guy used to be one bad dude. But i'm so excited for the appointment, hopefully he has some stories.

Oh ok duh! My companion's name is Elder Bunch. He's from California and he's awesome. He's an amazing teacher. He's so entertaining to watch teach and so convincing that sometimes I forget that I'm there to teach and not watching myself. It's pretty amazing becasue he's only be out since June and he's already a trainer. Oh and he's like six foot seven I think ha ha.

Ok and one thing I'm really learning is to have faith. We have like seven baptisms pending on whether or not the people recieve an answer about the book of mormon. So I just have to have faith that they will.

It's pretty crazy though. One thing our mission does is that we always ask on the first lesson if the people will be baptized. and everyone we asked said they would which is pretty cool. I was nervous to ask the first couple people but they've all said yes when i've asked. But like I said they said they would only if they receive a witness. But I have faith they will and so hopefully we have lots of baptisms!

Ha ha oh and one funny thing during the baptism, ok well two funny things. First, I totally forgot to bring another white shirt to change into. so i had a wet white shirt on the rest of the day. Dumb. and the other thing that was so funny is that Gelacio's (the guy getting baptized) family was all there. and the bishop, Bishop Rojas (aka: the Man) told him that he needed the baptism of fire next, so like receiving the Holy Ghost. And his little nephews were freaking out! Ha ha they took it literally like he was going to be put into a fire. I tried to explain to them it was only a figure of speech but they were like five so I don't know if it helped.

And that's really one thing I love her, are the kids. There's always a ton of little kids outside playing and i like going up to them and playing soccer with them for a second. The little kids always wave to us when we pass by. It's really fun.

Yeah so other than having the Fword said to me a few times, and having a couple gangsters tell me to come over to them (so they could beat me up) it's been the coolest thing ever! If it weren't for Ashlee and Mommy I'm not sure I'd ever come home to be honest. Ha ha. Oh and if you want to Google Earth where I live I live at 2121 Pech #95 Houston, TX and while you're at it send me a letter to that address :) Packages have to be sent to the mission office.

So the funniest situation I can think of is a couple named Rene and Ahorra. They are both way nice and way interested in the gosple. However there's one problem. They're both married to someone else in Paraguay and have two kids each there and have two kids together here. So in order to get baptized they have to get divorced and married here. I never thought I'd have to tell someone that they have to get divorced...Hopefully that works out...

I'm glad Brycen went to a BYu game! I'm glad they finally won!

It's good to hear Ben went to Homecoming, he sounds like he's having lots of fun this school year.

What are the rest of you up to? What's new?

I hope I put everything in here that I wanted...I think I did.

Ok well I have to email President Saylin (who is awesome) before I have to go shopping. I'm having lots of fun! I'm trying to do my best. Remeber that the "Lord giveth no commandment unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he hath commanded them."

I love you! Have a great week!

Con Amor,

Elder Soutas

Fall Apple Crisp

Jenessa and I made apple crisp for dessert after our Sunday Dinner.  Apple Crisp is one of my favorite desserts because it reminds me of cool crisp fall days.  Sometimes we can't resisit the apples covered in
the cinnamon and sugar topping before we bake it.  So yummy!

Apple Crisp

8 cups of diced apples - I prefer Jonathan
place in a 9 X 13 inch pan and cover with:
1 cup sugar
3 Tbsp flour
1 tsp cinnamon

Topping:
1 cup quick oats
1 cup butter
1/2 tsp slt
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour

Mix until crumbly and sprinkle over apples.  Bake at 350 for 40 minutes.

BYU Cougar Craze

Chris finally convinced Brycen to go to a BYU football game today.  Chris and the boys LOVE BYU football and they have season tickets.  Until this year, Brycen had no interest in going....Now he
begs Dad to play football out in the yard every night after work.
To celebrate the occasion we gave Brycen a BYU football uniform, complete with a helmet.  6 year old Jordan, Ben, and Tyler would be so jealous!  They always had old helmets they tried to paint blue "Y"'s on.

The best part was that the courgars won this week! 

Temple Blessings

Since I had surgery two and a half weeks ago I have been recuperating at home.
Today, however I was able to go to the Temple again.  Each week, as I go to the temple
I feel peace and I feel my Savior's love.  Today as I again entered the beautiful rooms
I felt so happy to be back.  One blessing in particular I received while I was in the temple, is that I will
be completely healed from my Nephrectomy (kidney removal)  and that my remaining kidney will
be healthy throughout my life.

Jordan leaves for Houston, Texas

Jordan left the MTC for Houston, Texas on Tuesday morning. Before he left he was

able to call us for an hour from the airport. It was fun to pass the phone around to all the kids

and let them talk. Ashlee came bright and early and of course he really wanted to talk to her!

Jordan has been called to serve in the Texas, Houston South Spanish Speaking mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints. He has been in the MTC learning spanish for the past 2 months. Of course we are so proud of him!

Conference Weekend

I love General Conference and especially Fall conference.  We went up to the Midway Cabin for the weekend.  The boys went golfing at the Homestead and Wasatch State Park.  Chris took the girls
over to park city for the alpine coaster, slide and trampoline.

I was still recovering from my surgery so I stayed in the recliner most of the weekend - but that's the best
way to watch conference.  I love the spirit of Conference.   While the boys were at Priesthood meeting
Grandma Lynne and I took the kids over to the Homestead to see the scarecrow display.