End of Summer Soup

 This is a wonderful soup if you have an abundance of summer squash and tomatoes. The recipe is from Bon Appetit's Fast Easy Fresh cookbook. Peel and dice a small yellow squash and a zucchini and saute' in a tablespoonful of olive oil. I added some butter here, 1 tbsp. Add 4 oz. diced ham, a can of your favorite white beans, 2 chopped tomatoes, 14 oz chicken broth, and 1 tbsp. basil pesto. So fresh and delicious. Feel free to add more vegetables, I'm thinking a bit of fresh sweet corn would be awesome.  

Nectarine Crisp

I had a box of nectarines going ripe faster than I could eat them so I found this pretty amazing recipe for Peach Crisp on Pinterest. Usually I stay away from most baked good recipes from there and stick to my tried and true recipe books. For some reason 4 out of 5 Pinterest recipes have been flops that look much better than they taste. This one was an exception! I didn't use quite as much butter as called for and it still came out delicious. Next time I am going to add a cup of blueberries. Mmm... I am going to add a generous scoop of this to my oatmeal in tomorrow's breakfast.

Chicken Noodle Soup

We are starting off our fall season trying to eat a bit better every day. The summer was so busy with the move that we had way too much fast food and have been feeling crappy because of it. New season, new habits! I found this recipe in Paula Deen Cuts the Fat cookbook which has just been released. So simple and delicious. Honestly, homemade broth is so much more flavorful and less expensive than anything you can buy in the store, I'll be making it this way from here on. I changed up the noodles and added some egg and parsley to mine but kept the rest of the recipe the same.

Basically a whole chicken, 8 cups water, celery, carrots, onion, and garlic that were sauteed in olive olive first, fresh thyme and a bay leaf, salt and pepper. Slow simmer to cook chicken.   

College Check In

I am so happy and proud of Billy for making this next life step. We checked in at Western Washington University, Bellingham yesterday. Viking Launch is an early start for Freshman to familiarize themselves with the campus, dorm mates, and take an early class. The rest of the school starts on the 24th. A great opportunity to ease into this new and exciting chapter! Missing him so much already.