How to Make Creamy Potty Training Asparagus Garlic Yay You Did It Soup!

 Ingredients

1 lb Asparagus

1 head of garlic

2 tbls olive oil

1 medium onion chopped

1 big girl potty

1 ¼ plus 1/8 tsp kosher salt

2 cups Milk

¼ cup Flour

A bag of Candy

Lots of toilet paper

3 oz cream cheese

2 tbls butter

4 cups chickin broth

The Potty Dance

Directions:

1.     Place potty in area of general play

2.     Watch toddler like a hawk

3.     While watching toddler peel off papery outside of garlic while keeping whole head intact.

4.     Express frustration that head is not staying together while attempting to calm your baby.

5.     Give up on the fact that head isn’t staying together, just pour some olive oil, salt, and pepper over it, wrap it in tin foil and stick it in the oven. 

6.     Snap off tough ends of asparagus and place on baking sheet.

7.     Inquire of toddler if she has to go to the bathroom. 

8.     Get ignored.

9.     Notice that asparagus stalks are little old.  Well they are getting blended anyway, so oh well!

10. Take garlic out of oven, place on baking sheet with asparagus and put the whole thing back in the oven. 

11. Check directions again to make sure I read that right. 

12. Chop onion and place in pot with unknown amount of olive oil.

13. Place cream cheese in blender with salt.

14. Reply to toddler that yes, she can help pour ingredients in blender.

15. Stir onions so they don’t burn

16. Instead of letting her do it, quickly pour milk and flour in blender.  You just don’t want to deal with the mess right now. 

17. Turn blender on.

18. Listen to baby whimper. 

19. Poor milk mixture into pot with onions.  Stir constantly.

20. Turn heat higher because it isn’t getting to a boil fast enough, and I’m really hungry!

21. Yay!  It’s boiling!  Cover with lid and turn down heat.

22. Hear from the living room, “Mommy, I have to pee!”

23. Run to living room, lift toddler on toilet just in time.

24. Celebrate with toddler her accomplishment of peeing in the toilet.  Meanwhile forget about your rue that’s boiling over and filling the kitchen with a hint of smoke. 

25. Wipe toddler’s bum.

26. Pour waste into toilet, flush, rinse out potty bowl, replace.

27. Wash hands.

28. Grab a few M&M’s and a sucker while turning heat on soup down. 

29. Give M&M’s to toddler and do the Potty Dance. (This consists of clapping and turning around in a circle singing “yaaaay!” Over and over again).

30. Turn burner down even more because soup is continuing to boil over.

31. Remove asparagus and garlic from oven. 

32. Figure out how to get garlic out of papery skin, because even though the recipe says to use hands to squeeze garlic out, the garlic is too hot to handle.

33. Place all ingredients in blender in two batches and cream in blender.

34. Listen to baby scream while saying, “Joseph, it’s okay.  Mommy’s here.” 

35. Pour soup back in pot.

36. Pick up baby

37. Now what am I going to feed my toddler since she won’t eat this soup?  Wait, she has a bag of candy, and a sucker, she’s fine.

38. Taste soup.

39. Oh my goodness!  I just stepped into a café and am having their soup of the day! 

40. Go back for seconds, but am stopped by two unhappy children—naptime. 

And this is how you make one delicious potty-training soup!

*If you want the actual recipe for Creamy Roasted Garlic and Asparagus Soup, it is in Our Best Bites:Savoring the Seasons, which is one of the BEST cookbooks there is.  I would highly recommend getting it.  (And no, I am not being paid, or asked to say this). 

The Empty Stocking

The stockings hung by the fireplace with care, for Saint Nicholas had already been there.  One held a stuffed kitty, the other a book.  Both had socks and a bit of chocolate. 

The third one was empty. 

The mother stood by the cold fireplace staring at the third, empty stocking.  It was the first year of her life that her stocking had been empty.  There was no one to fill it with chocolate coins, CDs, socks, miniature candles, gift cards, and as always, an orange snuggled in the bottom of the toe. 

This empty stocking didn’t mean no one loved her, and it didn’t mean people had forgotten about her.  It meant she was Santa’s Helper now.  She wasn’t the one who would wake up in the middle of the night to see if Santa had come.  Instead, she was the one who would hope her children would sleep past 5 A.M. Christmas morning.  She was the one wrapping presents on Christmas Eve.  She was the one who filled the stockings with care, and she was now the one who would gently place a candy cane on her two children’s pillows. 

She knew the empty stocking meant it was her turn to see the joy on her children’s faces when they woke up the next morning to find a slide, books, and a doll under the tree.  The empty stocking was a mark of growing up and carrying on the magic of Christmas. 

Next to the empty stocking was a small hand carved nativity set made out of wood from an olive tree in Jerusalem.  She thought of the cold night over 2,000 years ago that inspired this carving.  His mother laid Christ, who never had a stocking of His own, in a manger.  That day He gave the world hope.  He filled each person’s stocking with the gift of salvation.  And still, no one filled His stocking.  Instead He was betrayed, beaten, and crucified. 

The mother’s eyes flickered from her empty stocking to the carving of the Christ Child.  She realized her stocking was far from empty.  Not only had Christ given her the gift of salvation, He had also given her the knowledge of His Gospel, He had given her two wonderful children who, though they filled her days with work and stress, they filled her heart with joy and love.  He had given her a home where she could provide a shelter for her children, not only from the snowstorms, but also from the evils of the world.  He had given her the capacity to love, and the strength to persevere.  He had given her friends and family to support her.  2,000 years ago Christ had made it possible so she could live again with her family. 

She carefully rearranged the kitty in her daughter’s stocking, hoping one day her children’s stockings would hang “empty” over the fireplace as well. 

Clamless Clam Chowder

It’s August.  It’s hot.  It’s time to hit the pool.  And I’m making clam chowder! 

You could blame it on the pregnancy.  After all pregnant women crave all sorts of weird things, like pickles with ice cream.  But for me, I start craving soups in the middle of July when it’s 110 degrees no matter if I’m pregnant or not.  My aunt is the same way.  She and I could eat soups year-round.  This year I used my pregnancy as an excuse to make clam chowder in the middle of summer. The only problem with clam chowder is the clams. 

I love the creamy seafood flavor, the feel of my teeth sinking into a soft onion or carrot, and the occasional soft crunch of a cracker.  It’s the perfect flavor-texture combo for me.  But then my molars hit a nauseating, chewy, rubbery clam.  It never breaks up into smaller pieces no matter how long I chew it.  It only flattens out into a rubbery unpleasant mess inside my mouth. 

I was about eight years old when I first had clam chowder.  Mom and I were in a fast food seafood restaurant when I bit into a big, chewy clam. 

“Mom!  I don’t want to eat this!” I whined.

“Just swallow it,” she whispered.

“Can’t I spit it out?”
“Just swallow.  We’re in a restaurant.  There’s no reason to spit it out.”

She eventually let me spit the offensive piece of clam in a napkin. 

It was a long time before I had clam chowder after that. 

When I started making my own clam chowder, I endured the chewiness of the occasional clam. Everything else about the soup was worth it.  Over the years, I got sick of the clams ruining my meal and started picking them out.  Some people told me to just make a veggie chowder.  Though I considered it, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  I love the flavor the clams bring to the soup. 

I recently came up with an idea.  Why not pour the clam juice in, but leave the clams out?  It may not be as flavorful, but at least I won’t have to bite into a clam.  The idea was a success!  I almost singlehandedly ate an entire batch of clamless clam chowder in four days.  (Okay so maybe being pregnant does have something to do with me craving clam chowder in August). 

The clamless clam chowder started off with buying minced clams, straining the clams to get every drop of flavor out of them, then throwing them away.  A slightly tedious and wasteful process, but I didn’t have to bite into a clam.  Then my mother discovered bottled clam juice!  Clamless clam chowder just became that much easier, tasty, and less wasteful!

Now I can eat clam chowder without the fear that my next spoonful of creamy, vegetable, seafood goodness will contain a repulsive chewy clam.

Don't ask me how to juice a clam!

In honor of my culinary success, I am sharing this non-summer recipe with you.  Hey, maybe you’re like my aunt and I, and love soups all year round, or maybe you’re just pregnant.

Clamless Clam Chowder

Ingredients:

1 cup clam juice

4-5 cups of Veggies (you can leave any of the veggies out if you don’t like them).

Potatoes (red potatoes are the best and you don’t have to peel them)!

Celery

Carrots

Onion

¾ cup butter (1½ cubes)

½-¾ cup flour (the more flour the thicker the soup)

1 quart half & half

2 tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

½ tsp sugar

Chop veggies and put in large pot. 

Pour clam juice over veggies

Add enough water to barely cover veggies.  If you add too much water your soup won’t be as thick.

Place lid over pot and turn on medium heat. 

Meanwhile in a separate medium pot melt butter.

The butter melts faster if you cut it up

Add flour and cook until blended (about 1-2 minutes). 

SLOWLY add half & half.  Keep heat on low-medium so it doesn’t burn the rue.  Turning the heat on high WILL NOT make it cook faster.

Constantly stir rue with spatula.  Once it’s thickened pour over veggies and stir to combine. 

Add salt, pepper, and sugar.  

Continue to let simmer so soup can thicken.  Try not to boil.  (I say try, because in the original recipe it says not to boil it, but no matter how low I turn the heat, it always boils a little).

Refrigerate leftovers

Cooks Suggestion:

·      This soup is great served in a bread bowl (don’t ask me how to make those), or with homemade rolls, or for something simpler, saltine crackers.

·      I like the leftovers better then the fresh soup.  The flavors have had time to soak in and meld with each other, and it’s a lot thicker.  

Can I just say YUM!

A day after eating the last of my clamless clam chowder I told a friend I wanted more. 

“I was so tempted to get the ingredients at the store today,” I told her.

“Well why didn’t you?” she asked.

“Because I need to give my stomach a rest from all that milk.”  (Slightly lactose intolerant person here!)

“Well make it next week,” she said.

“No, I’ll make it tomorrow.” 

Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s the pregnancy cravings. 

The Price of a Leader

Achievement Days (now known as Activity Days) twenty-five years ago consisted of me showing up, doing whatever my leader had planned, then going home, usually with a craft or treat in my hand, and always with a smile on my face. 

When I graduated into the Young Women’s program not much changed.  Then one day when I was a fifteen-year-old Mia-Maid I watched as one of my leaders, Sister Crawford, came in with an armload of stuff for the mutual activity.  It briefly crossed my mind that my leaders probably did a lot more to get ready for a mutual activity than I had ever thought.  They were the ones who gathered all the supplies for craft night, put together our Laurel Legacy cook books, organized our temple/shopping trip to Portland, called people for service activities, and cleaned their house countless times before we came over.  I wondered if they enjoyed preparing so much for an hour and a half activity. 

After ten years I received my answer.

I was recently called to be the Activity Days leader for the 10-year-old girls in my ward.  I just showed up to the first activity, my partner did all the work.  Then she got released.  The next activity was all on me. 

I decided to center it on General Conference and thought it would be fun to decorate General Conference notebooks.  So with Pinterest as my crutch, I went to work. 

I spent hours creating the Apostle labels.  I cut them each out, then laminated them, and then cut them out again. 

I made the cute handouts and tied them on the Gatorade bottles.

Making and cutting out the labels for the books didn’t take too long.

Finally, I Modge Podged printed paper to composition books for the girls to decorate. 

All of that took me about 3-4 hours.  And that’s not including preparing my lesson, and rounding up all the glue sticks, double-sided tape, and stickers. 

As I was preparing the activity I was afraid that the girls wouldn’t like the idea.  They wouldn’t really use their journal, or listen to General Conference.  But I had to try.   My goal was to hopefully help them realize what an awesome privilege it is to have a living prophet on the earth today, and to record some of their feelings as they listen to him.

I was therefore surprised when, bringing out the journals, excitement emanated from the girls.  “I needed something to keep my notes in!” one girl exclaimed.  “My old journal is full!” another girl added.  “This will be perfect!” I heard one girl say. 

Apparently their primary teacher had challenged the girls to keep notes during General Conference, and many of them “had” to watch more than one session of General Conference. 

As I watched the girls attack the stickers, put the apostles’ pictures in order, and glue buttons to their journals, my joy was full.  I helped several girls put the pictures of the apostles in their journals, found the star stickers for another girl, and glued buttons on another girl’s journal. 

Words can’t describe how happy I was to see these 10-year-old Daughters of God so excited to be preparing journals for General Conference. 

Such creativity! 

All of the hours I put into preparing this one-hour activity was worth it.  And I’m sure that all the hours Sister Crawford, Creer, Plaisted, Mahaffy, Ostler, Merkley, and all my other leaders put into mutual activites were worth it too.  When you see your girls, no matter the age, having the time of their lives, anything is worth it. 

I love the stickers!