Italian Meatball Stoup!

This delicious "Stoup" was inspired by Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Womans Italian Meatball Soup. She is my food goddess, keeping me in the know on what to make for dinner.

I love her recipes, but sometimes a working mom of 4 has to take shortcuts! So, here is my slightly modified version which turned out mighty tastey if I do say so myself!

Ingredients

Meatballs:
1 pound Ground Beef (or turkey/chicken)
½ cups Freshly Grated Parmesan Cheese
3 Tablespoons Fresh Parsley, Minced
1 whole Egg
2 TBSP minced garlic
½ teaspoons Salt
½ teaspoons Black Pepper
¼ teaspoons Ground Oregano
2 teaspoons Lemon Juice

Stoup:
3 Tablespoons Olive Oil
6 cups Low Sodium Beef Stock
2 Tablespoons Fresh Parsley, Minced
½ teaspoons Salt
1/2 small can Tomato Paste
¾ cups Onion, Chopped
¾ cups Carrots, Chopped
¾ cups Celery, Chopped
1 cup Red Potato, Chopped (Peel on!)
½ pounds Cabbage Chopped
Grated Parmesan Cheese To Serve


Preparation Instructions

Meatballs: combine all meatball ingredients listed above in a large bowl and mix well. Shape into small 1" balls and chill for 20-30 minutes.

After chilling meatballs, heat olive oil over medium-low heat in a heavy pot. Briefly brown meatballs, then remove to a baking sheet. Bake for 20 mins or until cooked through. To pot, add onion, carrots, celery, and potatoes and stir until all oil and meatball drippings are well mixed with the veggies and the veggies are softening a little. Pour in the beef stock, water, salt, tomato paste, and bring to a boil. Simmer 30 minutes. Add the cooked meatballs and parsley and simmer 15 more minutes.

Serve with plenty of freshly grated Parmesan cheese sprinkled over the top.

Add a side of hot crusty french bread, or if you are feeling naughty try Ree's Garlic Cheese bread along side this. Oh my goodness...it will leave you fat & happy. I promise!.

Sunday in My City: Snow & Superbowl!

Sunday February 7th, 2010

It has been a cold week with lots of wet stuff in my city!

...and as some of you may heard, there were lots of fans in blue left feeling just that after the Super Bowl XLIV today. :( Way to go Saints! It was a well deserved win.:)

Local Colts Fans - More The Indianapolis Star Galleries

View this gallery at The Indianapolis Star: Local Colts Fans

This is my 1st "Sunday in My City" post, and I didn't take near as many photos this week as I normally would have, so it's short & sweet for this week. I just wanted to try out a test run, nd post the link to remind me where the idea came from! Have a great week!

Superbowl Sunday; A lesson on responsibility!

We sat down to dinner an hour before the big game tonight and I was surprised to see my daughter, Nadine, come to the table sporting her bothers Colts jersey. I am not much into football. Don't get me wrong, I love our Colts! I'm just not a dedicated enough fan to outfit the kids in full on gear, plan a party, and make blue Jello.

As we start to eat Nadine tells us that her 2 friends that live down the street will be staying up late to watch the game, and playing hookie from school tomorrow. I hold my tongue as I fight off words of judgement and disapproval. This is a conversation that has come up a lot on Indy MomsLikeMe in the recent weeks.

I just feel it is really not the best message to give our children. Teaching my children that it's okay to neglect your responsibilities is not a message that I am okay with, even in moderation. To each his own. In my experience it is three times as challenging to break bad habits as it is to teach good ones. After all, how would the world look if mom decided to skip out on a day of motherhood because a late night marathon of moms fave show took precedence?

So, while reserving my judgement I say nothing to my opinoin on the subject and simply asked my daughter, whom just turned 11 and is in the 5th grade, "What do you think about your friends skipping school for the game?" to which she replies "Well, I think the responsible thing to do is to either record the game and watch it tomorrow, or stay up late and suffer the next day."

For The Win! Finally a little validation on this whole parenting tween and teen thing! Thanks Colts ;)

Nadine decided to stay up late and be tired the next day. A choice she does not normally have to make. While I frown upon the idea of my children going to school tired and jepardizing their education, it is a semi special event, and I decided to make a compromise on this one. It was important for my cheerleader to be in the know when she went to school the next day.

She fell asleep at 9pm and wouldn't wake up until 10pm. She was pretty bummed to hear the news. The Saints won! Sorry sis :(

The Household Notebook

Making a household notebook is one easy way to simplify your life! It takes some time, and some expense upfront for supplies, but the results are well worth it!


I've shared this idea in various threads on IMLM over the years, but I thought it deserved it's own thread in our new group!

I use 3 ring binders to keep many things orderly in my home. My absolute fave is the Household Notebook! I found the idea at www.organizedhome.com and modified it to make it my own.

I used 5 tab dividers with pockets to divide the catagories. Why dividers with pockets? If I obtain a new address, phoene number, new credit card statement from new creditor, maybe a christmas card from someone new (save the envelope for the addres) etc., I can slip it into the pocket until I have time to add it to the master list. This keeps the papers off of my desk! I have one tab labeled for "Where are you", one for address/phone lists, one for "Neighbors", one for bills, and one for creditors.

I use this notebook at least 3-5 times a week! It's so nice to be able to find all of this info without having to dig through file cabinets, search for that missing address book, etc. It's definetly simplified several areas of my life!

Tab 1: "Where are you"

This section is a sheet I printed from Word that includes my and DHs name, all 4 kids names, our address, our home phone #'s, cell #'s, and a simple explanation of where we live "Off of X drive between x rd. and x rd. in (insert subdivision name here)

We made this tab for a few reasons. Should my Aunt or cousin be baby sitting we pull this sheet out and hang it on the fridge for easy access to this info. Should an emergency arise where they need to call for help they have quick access to all of the neccesary info. I also made this sheet so the kids know if they find a need to call for an emergency (911) if they panic and forget our address or something they know it's the 1st shee in our household notebook.

Tab 2: Address/phone list:



This is just what it says. Of course, we rarely use this list, but if we had to evacuate our home or needed a quick reference for mailing a card everyone we know/love is in this section. Name, address, phone #. If something were to happen to me I know DH would be able to reach anyone we know from this list. I have my #'s in my cell, but I created this list in excel where it can be easily updated annually without white out & eraser marks...because I'm OC like that!



Tab 3: Neighbors

I have a map of our neighborhood in this section. All parecel are outlined with addresses. I have had to call 911 a few times in the past few years and it helps to be able to know who lives where without walking down to their house! Plus, I have most of my neighbors names, kids names, addresses, and phone #'s in here. I started this section when I tried to start a neighborhood crime watch. The crime watch failed, but this section is useful for us. :)

Tab 4: Bills

The bills section has a monthly spreadsheet that I fill out as the bills come in to ensure no bill is overlooked. At the end of this section I have every account we have with acct #'s, payment addresses, website addresses, and passwords to the site. I know this may not be the safest way to store this info, but it is the most convenient for me, and I figure if someone wants to steal my info they will find a way. If they break into my house they could just as easily steal the card! I also have all my addresses and phone numbers in here.

This section is just a list of all of our current bills, when they are due, and the average monthly payment. I used to use this section each month. I would put the bills in the folder on the tab divider, and as I paid them I would staple the bill to the monthly bill sheet, mark the date paid and amt paid on the sheet, and file the stack of bills each month. DH pays the bills now and I haven't used that system in a while, but I keep it there...again, in case we have to evacuate at least I know when the bills are due :)

Tab 5: Creditors

This is an excel file I typed up that lists every creditor that owns me (lol), their billing address, their customer service #, my acct. #, their website address, and my login/user name for their website.

I used to have all of this info saved to my pc so I didn't have to know it...then one day my computer crashed and I no longer knew how to pay bills online. LOL! So, I made this list so I will always have the info easy to locate, and if we had to evacuate I wouldn't need my PC to log onto my accounts. Plus should DH or I would fall ill or something happen to one of us, it would be easy for the other one to know how to access all of our accounts!

Adult Women should not roller skate!

We had out monthly moms night out with the Cosmo moms, a group on Indy moms in their 30's, and we had a great time!

We enjoyed dinner at El Azabache  for dinner...and I use the term "enjoyed" loosely. Bleh.

...and then we went roller skating!

That's me, in the black in the last photo above with my girl, Satch. :)

One of our moms went down for the count, and apparently injured herself a bit. 

 She's laughing here, but we later found out she was hiding some real pain :(

After the skating we moved onto some hill jack bar by my house, and ended up at I Hop around 4am. I haven't stayed out so late or had so much fun in a long time! Yes, I Fb...even at bars!

Good times with some great moms. Man does my head hurt!

Mall Playdate!

A friend of mine asked if we'd like to go to the mall to get the kids out of the house while the older ones were all at school. We decided to hit the mall and let the kids have some fun and climb like monkeys.

Gabby & Aiden sitting on a pig.

Aiden sliding down a pig

Aiden & Gabby playing in a car

Aiden driving the car

Aiden riding a boat

Gabby riding a train

It was nice to have a play date with Krista. 1st play date since Brayden was born. Boy oh boy is he a cutie. I had to use my camera phone today and my pics of him didn't turn out so well. :(

Howdy bloggers

It's been a long time! I have yet to find my bloggin' style. I don't understand how I can have a daily commitment to IMLM and Fb and NOT find time to blog. You know what I think it is? My thoughts are not safe. That's my issue. I cannot write what I want to write because I don't want my husband to read much of it. I don' know why that is, but it just feels wrong. Perhaps it's all the spying he does.

At any rate, you know that I am still here, in spirit. I view my friends blogs on a regular basis, and I really enjoy reading them. I just wish my DH didn't read mine so I could be more of myself.

When you read this one lovie, so sorry. It is what it is.

The new year has started off very well. I've been following my daily routines so much better, and the house looks good most days, which is uber important to me. I've found more reading time...not enough, but at least it's a start.

I hope that one day I will find a good place on the web for me. I love to write, be it fiction or real life haps, but I just can't seem to get myself to do it.

I digress...