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Mennonite Sausage Soup

I am not sure if you have that friendship with soup like our home does. Is there nothing finer on a cold day (or hot day) when you're sick (or in health), than peeking in your fridge and seeing lovely jars of soup all lined up? For the day when the chaos of children seem to shake our home and the floor looks like Toys R Us spit up everywhere, I love the convenience of putting a jar of soup on the stove to heat. 

Now, I'm not sure if your family pulls tricks like mine does when it comes to cooking. The favourite the womenfolk around here love to voice, "I don't really have a recipe for that, I just make it by taste." 

Okay, then. 

Making it by taste? Is that sort of like going by feel when you are blind? Somehow I think my 'by taste' isn't quite as seasoned as my momma's or my grandma's. 

Yoo hoo! Grandma! I need you to stop adding random ingredients and to start writing things down. 

Now, shall we mix up a pot of some of the most kid friendly, tasty soup around? Don't let the little ones discourage you by asking about the grass in their soup (why is dill a foreign object?) Just press on, dear readers, don't even try to explain the dill, just tell them to look at the cows - they seem to enjoy the grass. 

Now if you aren't from these parts, please substitute your own sausage for Chetin sausage. Does anyone else local have Chetin sausage written into their recipes? Let's chop, chop, chop that sausage and cook it up in a big old pot. 

If you are from the hinterland like us, haul up your stash of potatoes from the basement. Do you have carrots left from the garden? Haul onions and carrots in - chop these morsels up in a uniform fashion (or not so uniform, we are laid back). 

One cup of fresh chopped dill (or 1/4 cup of dried) will round things out nicely. 

Cook it up with two boxes of chicken stock, with a few extra tablespoons of bouillon for extra measure, a pat of butter, and some salt and pepper. Cook those veggies till they are good for the eating, with the drained off sausage and folks - THIS is when you add the peas. Do not put them in earlier. Unless you have a love for mushy peas. 

I like to cook this with double the ingredients or more, and then can the rest to keep in the fridge for a few weeks so we aren't eating leftovers until the end of time, and can space the soup eating out a bit. Best kitchen tip ever - can your soup. Rather than freezing your soup, because who likes frozen mushy tasting potatoes? Grandma would tell you this is a poor idea. 

Best of luck to you, do not be afraid to enlist small helpers, it may increase prep time, but will provide you with hoards of entertainment. 

Mennonite Sausage Soup

2 litres of chicken broth (2 boxes)
1 package of Chetin sausage chopped fine
6 cups of diced potatoes
6 cups of diced carrots
2 cups of chopped onions
1 cup of green peas
1 cup of chopped fresh dill (or 1/4 cup dried)
2 tbsp of chicken bouillon powder
pepper
1 pat of butter

Boil chopped Mennonite sausage for 10-15 minutes, and then drain the water out. Add all the other ingredients and simmer until vegetables are cooked. Except peas, which you add at the end - unless you are six months old and mushy peas are appealing.  

**A short update - Chetin sausage is a locally sold sausage - some of our favourite, it is just the type of Mennonite sausage we often eat. Mennonite sausage is a smoked pork sausage mixed with basic seasoning (salt & pepper). We eat it far, far too much. Farmer sausage is what you should look for in the store or come visit us and we can hook you up. 

Linking up here.

Dissapointment

While perusing the internet I have seen this photo accompanied by a recipe several times:

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My exhausted brain fools me and for a split second I think I see this:

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In that teensy second, my brain whirls with cheering, fireworks, and the image of confetti shooting through the air. In the next moment, I can vaguely hear the sound of a balloon letting out air. It's just cauliflower. 

The end.

Hold Dear

I want to remember. 

More than anything, I want to remember the sun stretched out, turning the snow cotton candy pink and the wonder of small eyes blinking it in to their souls. I want to remember the tiny bundle, under four big, fluffy blankets in the stroller. Oh, to feel that warmth on my hand, lifting the flap, checking his cheeks, and seeing his little lips sucking on that soother - a blue and black plaid hood framing his wee face. I want to recall the sticks that were so cheerfully collected for a fire when 'springtime comes.' I want to see those little gloves, that zip all the way up to their elbows, digging in the snow 'like badgers.' 

Please, oh please, don't let me forget, standing with my three children, in a landscape cloaked with snow, watching the sun put itself to sleep, while at the same time we watched the big, fat moon rise high. Crisp air, big sky, and the crunch of our feet in the white. Discussions of coyote and deer tracks and the wild possibility of what a big white hare's feet might look like in the snow, bury themselves into my mind. 

More than I want to remember, I want them to remember. If their minds are too small to recall the details of our everyday, please let these three little people know a kinship with the wild outdoors and a deep love of family. Let the good of these days be sewn into their hearts. 

Breathing Cold

When the wind howls loudly and you can't see very far in front of yourself  - I pray that somehow deep inside an inner quietness is your strength. 

Winter for KA

I think that there should be special cameras made for folks who reside in the north. Where is the setting you turn it to when you look out and let a holler rip because you are blinded by white? My two year old informed me today that her "eyes were breaking" as the sunlight glinted off the snow and knocked her one straight in the peepers. Next to the big 'A' for auto, 'M' for manual, I wish there was a 'C' for cold. I don't think any kind of photo can convey the cold in a proper manner. Unless you feel yourself reaching for a hot cup of coffee, to pour on your toes, then you aren't catching what I'm laying down.

A friend wanted me to send pictures of the blizzard that reigned down on Saturday. Oy veh! Don't you know I can't see across the yard for the swirling snow? How does the rule of thirds apply to an entire canvas painted in white? 

"Let's drive around and see how much snow they got at such & such place," said every farmer in the country. "A drift? It's minus twenty five? I drive a dodge! We haven't been out for a month, but today is a great day to visit neighbours!'

The best bet is to wait until the day after the onslaught. Sure, what's a bit of ice fog to slow a picture taker down? What, you can't see half a mile down the road?  Neither can I! Let's hope that the neighbour doesn't hit the crazy momma standing out in the middle of the road snapping photos to let you in on the beauty of the great white north. This is why I wear neon pink muck boots, gentle readers.

We have had snow on the ground for awhile now.  I hadn't put much thought into it until I saw various photos of places south of the border showing off brilliant colours of leaves on the ground, or people talking about wearing chunky sweaters and boots, all this pumpkin latte blah, blah. Yes, I like the chunky sweaters too, just please give me a winter parka over top and I think there might be some leaves under the drifts that dollop the landscape like whipped cream. Pumpkin lattes? Puh-lease. Black coffee and maple syrup (straight from the tree.)

Despite my arms burning with chillblains, I better open them wide and welcome winter in. Eight months of the year is too long to be grumpy about something, so today I'll choose to look out the window and remark how the sight of sparkling white is about the prettiest one I've seen. Heaven knows the Littles will mimic whatever dear ol' ma says, and cuss words don't appeal to me much from the mouth of a child. 

Come on in, Winter! We won't fuss and whine like a two year old.

( Or at least until March. )

Everyday Conversations

This chat went down between my Grandma and I after I checked a message on my cheapest of cheap junk phone. The great grandmother of my children and my dearest friend:

Grandma: Missy, did you get the new updates on your phone? Carson put them on my phone this weekend and whoo! Are they ever uptown!

Me: Grandma, this isn't an iPhone - in fact I can hardly text on this thing. I don't even know what you're talking about. 

Grandma and technology - one point. Cheyenne and technology - zero.

*****

Between two little dresses in the back seat of the truck.

Taylin: Myla, what do you think is the worst? I think that definitely pig manure and chicken manure have to be THE worstest when they are spreading. I almost throw up when they spread chicken manure! Cow poop isn't so bad. What do you think?

Myla: Cow poop! Cow poop! 

*****

On the way up the stairs, amongst the old wallpapered walls, which I'm sure hold their own stories:

Taylin: Hip! Hip! Mom, you be the old cow and I'll load you up the chute. Hip! Hip! Wait, lemme' go get a stick.

I may have shed a tear. 

****

These are my people and the everyday conversations help make up my days. With every tick of the clock, I am grateful for my family, even when I'm being referred to as an old cow. 

This kid, commonly referred to as Tuffy has blue eyes 90% of the time, the odd moment, those lil' peepers seem to look  a mite bit green to this mama. I don't think it's just when she is gawking at her sister's toys.

Scout in her winter glory. 

Our little man of the house. Wee Pepper, snuggled up, with that perfect soft baby fuzz to lie your cheek on and weep tears of wonder.