Easy Taco Soup

A little while ago, I was talking to my family about taco soup recipes, and they were interested in my recipe. It's all just opening up cans and browning hamburger, so it's really fast and easy. So, for any of you who might be interested, here's the recipe:

1 can pinto beans
1 can black beans
1 can corn
1 can mexican-style tomatoes
1 lb. ground beef, browned (I sometimes use just a 1/2 pound)
1 packet dry taco seasoning
1 packet dry ranch dressing mix

Brown the hamburger and mix all ingredients together until warmed through.

Apple Cake

A couple of weeks ago when my in-laws were visiting they brought a bag of apples and I have loved finding recipes to use them. Two Sundays in a row I have made apple cake last week's had cream cheese frosting and this one was a bundt cake. Mauri asked that I share the recipe so here it is. It was a combination of two recipes the cake portion of this one and the glaze portion of this one.

Here is my version all put together with my modifications:

Cake:

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/3 cups sugar, plus 1/4 cup for the apples

1 1/2 tsp. ground apple spice blend (1 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. nutmeg)

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. fine salt

4 large apples, cored and roughly chopped (about 5 cups)

3 large eggs

1/2 cups vegetable oil

1/2 cup sour cream

Juice from 1 orange (about 1/3 cup)

1 tbls. pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Generously butter and flour the bundt pan.

Whisk the flour, 1 1/3 cup of the sugar, 1 tsp. of pie spice, the baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl.

Toss the apples with the remaining 1/4 cup sugar and 1/2 tsp. pie spice and set aside.

Whisk the eggs and oil together in another bowl. Whisk in the sour cream, orange juice, and vanilla. Pour the egg mixture into the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon just until combined but still a bit lumpy.

Using a slotted spoon, scatter about 1/2 cup on the apples in the bottom of the bundt pan. Put about 1/3 of the batter on top. Repeat, alternating with the remaining apples and batter, ending with the batter.

Bake the cake until it pulls away from the sides of the pan and a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Cool 10 minutes and invert onto a rack placed over a baking sheet. Cool.

Glaze:

1 stick butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tbls. whole milk

Combine butter, brown sugar and milk in small saucepan. Bring to a boil for five minutes. Pour over cake while sauce is hot.

(I need to get better at putting on a hot glaze, I guess something to practice.)

Robby is in Mexico!!

Hola!

Oh my gosh, where do I begin... Ha so we arrived a week ago today in Mexico. It was so great to talk to you guys on Monday, I loved it so much, I´m excited for the next time! It is so different here. We arrived in Mexico and we were greeted by our President Sauceda, he is a really nice guy. We then drove to his house with the assistant presidents and went to his house in Guadalajara. We had dinner there and met his wife, who is way nice too. Dinner was great ha we had lasagna! But it still hadn´t really hit me yet that EVERYONE speaks Spanish ha. We stayed at the mission home over night, had a big meeting in the morning about our mission and then they told us where we were going and we left! It was so fast! 3 other Elders and myself left Guadalajara so I´m not in the city. 2 went to the same mission and one went to Colima which is way hot. I was told I was going to Ciudad Guzman. I took about an 2 hour bus ride by myself to the city. Movies were playing and it was so hard not to watch ha ha. Don´t worry I repented later for the parts I did watch(on accident). I then arrived in Ciudad Guzman´s bus station and I waited there for about 40 minutes for my companion to get there. I was talking to a guy and gave him some pass along cards when he came up to me. I live with 3 natives, including my companion. It is crazy ha, I have to speak Spanish all the time. Right when they picked me up I dropped my stuff off and went to work visiting investigators, members, and contacting. Every day here we have lunch with a member and it´s a huge lunch ha. I´m grateful for them for giving us their food. It´s so different here. A lot more poverty. I´m not in a nice part of Mexico. The insides of the houses are built out of cement and pretty dirty. But they are all so nice. We have a baptism date in a couple of weeks so that should be great! I´m not gonna lie, it all ready is the hardest thing I have all ready done and I´ve only been here a week. I don´t understand a lot that they say but I´m understanding more. Ï´m getting better. I have a lot of pictures that I want to send you! It stinks we only get like real mail here every 1.5 to 2 months. I don´t really like that but whatever. They just keep it at the mission home until zone conference or something. So email as much as you want. The food is pretty good! Different! Ha Saturday my companion and I went to have lunch and the member brought out this soup with huge pieces of corn, pork, and lettuce. It was so much I couldn´t finish. I felt bad ha. But we are cleaning of our plates and she asks if we want arroz con leche ha. I was like oh, i can´t! And she´s like just a little, so we did. I took one bite and almost lost it ha ha. And she gave us this drink that tasted like weeds blended with water ha ha. But for the most part it´s pretty good so far! The best thing i´ve had was a hamburguesa today ha ha, the closest thing to AMerican. Lots of corn tortillas! Every lunch! My companion is cool, his name is Elder Heronimo. He is great he helps me so much. There is one other American in our district named Elder Newman and he´s black so I´m the only white person in all of this city and around it ha ha. It was good to talk to an American though ha ha we talked a lot last night and it was good. Today I was having a pretty bad day, I just kept thinking that this stupid language is what´s frustrating me so much. If it was English I would be fine! I was pretty down. Then we had lunch, my hamburguesa, and I felt better for some reason ha ha. And I felt even more better when you wrote me that email mom, thank you so much for that, that all ready helped me so much. And same with your story too dad, thank you. I miss everything in America way bad. But I´m here to work and I´m excited! Chrissy don´t worry about not making it, I lost to like one of the biggest geaks in the school!! Ha and what matters for both of you is just that you have a fun time and make as many friends as you can. Well, I gotta head but it was good to talk to you guys and I miss you so much, hasta luego semana...

Elder McKell

Time Out For Women

So the men are going on a guys weekend to see the BYU vs. Air Force game, so what about the ladies?
Is anyone interested in going to Time out for women? The Hobson and McKell ladies went last year and it was a blast!!! This year the presenters are:
Dallyn Vail Bayles
Virginia H. Pearce
Heidi S. Swinton
Hilary Weeks
Linda Eyre & Shawni Eyre Pothier
Brad Wilcox
Amanda Dickson
Emily Freeman
Mariama Kallon
The website for the Salt Lake Weekend is http://deseretbook.com/timeout/event/113
The date in Salt Lake City, UT


Friday, November 19, 2010

6:30 - 9:30 p.m.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

9:00 a.m. - 3:45 p.m.
If you are interested, email me at suzukiviolin@hotmail.com We can even sleep over at my house and get up early the next morning to go to all day classes! I have only heard back from Jenny and she wants to go!!!
Love, Andrea

Oakrest

Thanks Aunt Nettie for hosting a FUN weekend at Oakrest! It was the ultimate hootenanny and a good time was had by all! Here are some of the pictures from the fun weekend!

Strawberry Lemonade Recipe

Several asked for the recipe after Jen's shower Tuesday night. This is the original recipe and I panicked a little that I didn't make enough so I ended up adding one package of Strawberry Kool-Aid, I just made it up per the directions and added it to a double batch of the strawberry lemonade below. The strawberry lemonade is good on it's own as well.

Strawberry Lemonade
1 ½ cup sugar
4 cups water
2 cups fresh strawberries, hulled
1 tbsp. finely shredded lemon peel
1 cup lemon juice (4-5 lemons)

1. In a small saucepan combine 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of the water; cook and stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Set aside to cool.
2. In a blender combine 3 cups of the water, ½ cup sugar and the strawberries; process until smooth. Transfer to a 2-quart pitcher. Add cooled syrup, lemon peel and lemon juice. Stir to combine. Fill pitcher with crushed ice and serve.

Make-ahead tip: Prepare lemonade but do not add ice. Cover and chill up to 8 hours. Add ice and serve.

Southern Pound Cake

Just posting a couple of Oxborrow family favorites (both of which I made recently for Graham's birthday!).

2 cups sugar

1/2 lb. butter

6 eggs (let sit at room temperature for at least 20 minutes)

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. lemon extract or lemon zest

2 cups plain flour

Cream sugar and butter together until lemony colored. Add eggs one at a time, beat on highest speed for 100 strokes or about one minute for each egg. Add vanilla and lemon extract. Add flour a little at a time until blended well. Pour batter in a greased and floured bundt pan. Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes and then turn down to 325 degrees for about 40 minutes more or until done. Let cool for 5-10 minutes and then turn pan over. Serve with fruit and whip cream or ice cream.

Texas Sheet Cake

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1/2 cup shortening

1 cup water

1/4 cup cocoa

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 eggs

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. vanilla

Frosting:

1/2 cup butter or margarine

2 tbls. cocoa

1/4 cup milk

3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1. In large bowl, combine flour and sugar.

2. In heavy saucepan, combine butter, shortening, water and cocoa. Stir and heat to boiling.

3. Pour boiling mixture over flour and sugar in the bowl. Add buttermilk, eggs, baking soda and vanilla.

4. Mix well using a wooden spoon or high speed on electric mixer.

5. Pour into well-buttered 17 1/2 x 1 inch jelly roll pan.

6. Bat at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or till brownies test done in the center.

7. While brownies bake, prepare frosting. In a saucepan combine butter, cocoa and milk. Heat to boiling, stirring.

8. Mix in the powdered sugar and vanilla until frosting is smooth.

9. Pour warm frosting over brownies as soon as out of oven.

Raspberry pie filling

Here's the recipe for the raspberry pie filling. It's from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.

5 cups of raspberries, fresh or frozen
3/4 to 1 cup sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons finely shredded lemon peel or 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (we used the lemon peel)

In large bowl, combine sugar and flour. Stir in berries and and lemon peel. Gently toss berries until coated. (If using frozen fruit, let mixture stand for 45 minutes or until fruit is partially thawed but still icy.)

Toasted Coconut Cream Pie

2 small pkgs. vanilla instant pudding

2 cups milk

1 small container Cool Whip

1 tsp. vanilla

about 2 1/2 cups coconut

Mix milk and pudding together, set aside for a few minutes. Toast coconut in the oven - spread on a lightly greased cookie sheet and bake until light brown (I did 350 degrees and just watched it carefully), let cool. Add Cool Whip and vanilla to pudding mixture while coconut is toasting. Add coconut to mixture - be sure to leave some to sprinkle on the top of the pie. Spread mixture into a baked pastry shell and top with coconut.

Makes enough filling for 2 pies.

Never Fail Pie Crust

This is my mom's recipe she uses for all her pies. (see examples below)

2 1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup shortening

1 egg

1 Tbls. vinegar

1/4 cup cold water

Blend together flour, salt and shortening until formation of big crumbs. In a separate bowl, beat together egg, vinegar and water. Add to crumb mixture and mix together.

This makes 3 pie shells (for cream pies or other) or 2 two crust pies (any berry, apple, etc.) Cut dough in amount of crusts you are making and roll out to make pastry shell.

Bake at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes.

Notes:

1. When making a two crust pie put a little milk on the top crust with your finger to make the crust golden brown.

2. Just because this claims to be "Never Fail" I actually failed on Saturday with one. We think it was because when doing a shell for a cream pie I didn't poke the holes through the crust good enough. Make sure the holes go all the way through.

3. My mom once told me not to knead the dough too much, that makes it less flaky and not as good. So when mixing the dough do it just enough so everything is blended/mixed well.

UPDATE (05.19.10): My mom said I should clarify a couple of things. You only poke holes in the crust when doing a single crust for a cream pie. When doing a two crust pie you cut slits in the top crust, see the raspberry and blueberry pies in the post below.

Also a two crust pie needs to be baked for 30-35 minutes.

Sorry for the confusion!

Smothered Chicken

Smothered Chicken

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts {I use chicken tenders}
garlic powder and seasoned salt to taste {I use Montreal chicken seasoning}
1 T. vegetable oil
Button Mushrooms, cut in halves
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese blend
1/2 cup chopped green onions {at walmart, they sell containers of prechopped green onions!}
1/2 cup real bacon bits
1/2 cut tomatoes
1 bottle BBQ sauce

Flatten chicken to 1/4 inch thick. Sprinkle with seasonings. In skillet brown chicken in oil for 4 minutes. Cook in separate pan mushrooms and bacon until done.
Top Cooked Chicken with:
BBQ Sauce
Mushrooms
Bacon
Green onions
Cheese
Cover and cook until chicken is done and cheese is melted.
{You can put the tomatoes on with all of the other ingredients, or at the end for a fresher taste}
Serve with Garlic Mashed potatoes {With cheese, garlic and sour cream and lots of butter} and honey mustard

Honey Mustard:
I bought a bottle of Honey Mustard and added Cayenne pepper and lime juice to it for dipping the chicken in.

The Granddaughters

I thought this was a pretty neat picture of all of the Granddaughters with Grandma!

Aunt Marsha Pies

Dear Aunt Marsha,
would you consider doing a pie making class for those who are challenged in the pie making area? We would love to see how you make your wonderful, delicious pies sometime!
Sincerely,
The Big and Little Girls

The Anderson Family Pictures

Well, yesterday was a great opportunity to get everyone together for a big group picture! We got a lot of great pictures!

Anderson Family Hootenanny!

Hey Family!

You are all invited to The Anderson Family Hootenanny!

I have reserved Oakcrest for Friday and Saturday the 16th and 17th of July.


For those of you who have never been to Oakcrest get ready, your in for a treat!

Zip line, Obstacle Course, Parachute, Archery, Ping Pong, Softball, Volleyball, Hiking, and plenty of FOOD!!!!!

There are plenty of cabins for each family and we have access to the lodge and pavilions.

Put it on your calendar. Please let me know if you and your family will be able to attend.

Love ya,
Aunt Nettie

Happy Birthday Grandpa Anderson

Today Grandpa Anderson would have been 92 years old! I sure miss him!! I have so many amazing memories of him in my life. I think the best memory was when I was in middle school and I went early in the morning with the young women to do baptisms for the dead. As I walked into the baptism room, the first person I saw was my Grandpa all dressed in white. He was working in the temple, in that particular area that morning. To tell my friends that this wonderful man was my Grandpa was the best feeling. To have him watch me get baptized for the dead was even better.

Grandpa also gave me my patriarchal blessing and that experience stands out in my mind. What an amazing experience to have your own Grandpa give you something that will be with you for the rest of your life? He truly was the best example anyone could ever have. I miss him, and I wish my children were able to have met him and know him. We will always try to follow in Grandpa's footsteps.

Even though he is not with us anymore, his namesake lives on through Riley; named Riley Reed Fackrell after him. His memory will never leave us as well. I looked up his obituary, and this part struck me so hard:
"Nothing gave Reed more satisfaction than spending time with his family. He loved music and especially enjoyed listening to his children and grandchildren perform. Though a sacrifice at the time, he made sure that all of his children had every opportunity available for education and music in their lives. As a role model for his wife and children, he was unsurpassed. His humble, quiet demeanor and unmiligated love was felt through all throughout his life. He was truly a man without guile.

Happy Birthday Grandpa, We love you.
Love, Andrea

Robby's Mission Call

Many of you know that Robby recieved his mission call to MEXICO!!!! Here are some pictures of the night of the opening of the papers!!!

Valentines Treat

I remember eating red velvet cake when I was younger and finding foiled wrapped coins inside the cake! We were so excited when we would find a coin in our cake! This recipe comes from Grandma Anderson and my mom loved to eat this cake growing up as well!
RED CAKE:
Beat together:
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs

Make into paste:
2 oz. red food coloring
2 tbs. cocoa
1/2 tsp. salt add to 1st mix

Beating alternatly:1 cup buttermilk- 2 1/2 flour

Mix together & fold in:
1 tsp. vinegar
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. vanilla

Frosting:
Cook till thick-6 tbsp. flour
1 cup milk
put lid on pan and set till cool

Add: 1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp. vanilla
Beat with mixer till consistency to spread
Sprinkle with coconut

{This is the recipe my mom had in her box-it did not have a cooking time-so I guess just use 350 degrees and watch the cake!}

Happy valentines day everyone!!