Chicken Squash Soup

We are getting ready to leave on vacation and so it was time to sort through the freezer and find a way to use the smaller containers we found there.  

What we found was pureed squash from Thanksgiving, spinach frozen from last years’ garden, cooked chicken slices ready for use in salads and chicken broth.

It was icy and Grandpa almost fell.

What to make was easy soup  and we have called this recipe 

Chicken Squash Soup

Ingredients:

• 8 cups chicken broth (we had 4 cups in the freezer) and used purchased broth to make up the rest.
• 2 cups cooked puréed squash
• 3 cloves garlic chopped
• 1 small cooking onion chopped
• Four bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon ginger powder
• 1 heaping tablespoon ketchup
• 2 cooked chicken breast diced
• 2 finely chopped cups of spinach
• 2 cups frozen peas
• 4 bay leaves
• Cayenne pepper (always a good thing to add to a winter soup) to taste
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Cook pasta (the amount depends on how thick you want your soup we used 4 cups of cooked pasta)

Directions:

1. Add everything to a soup pot except for the pasta and simmer for 30 minutes.
2. Cook your pasta and set aside
3. Remove the bay leaves
4. Add pasta simmer for 5 minutes
5. Serve.

From Our Table to Yours

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2017 twosnydergirls

Beauty in a Winter Walk

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2017 twosnydergirls

The Power of a Smile

When was the last time you noticed someone smiling at you or a time when you greeted someone with a genuine smile that lit up your eyes?

We live in an age where smiley faced emojis have replaced the human smile.

Where a great deal of our human interaction happens via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snap-chat … none of which offers the spiritual joy of giving or receiving a smile.  Of being seen and of seeing another person in a moment of genuine human connection.

An infants sense of self begins with their parents smile and in that smile is communicated kindness, confidence, and unconditional love. 

This is the power of the human smile. 

A smile is contagious spreading hope, kindness and love as it moves from one human being to the next throughout the course of a day. 

Be mindful of how often you smile at the people who you interact with each day. 

See them in that moment, smile and let them know they have been seen.

The Dalai Lama said “relinquish your envy, let go your desire to triumph over others.  Instead try to benefit them.  With kindness with courage, and confident that in doing so you are sure to meet with success, welcome others with a smile”

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2017 twosnydergirls

Choose Life

We live in a time where children living in the developed world live in abundance, and yet they contemplate death in numbers greater than ever before – why?

We live in a time where living well is defined by things and our ability to accumulate more things to us.  We are a society where we have let television, advertisers, dictators, war lords, magazines, and the 1% of the world population define who we are.

We live in a time where we are eager to have others define who we are for their personal gain.  They sell us a definition that is empty of spiritual value, a goal that can never be achieved.  And we co-operate in the building of a world where the gap between the rich and poor increases daily and children contemplate death.

This is not the what God desires of us.  God desires we live lives full of love, community, peace, balance within creation, and in the knowledge that we are beloved children.

To choose a life that contains not things but moments full of love, purpose and knowing ourselves and our place within God’s creation.

Choose Life

Grandma Snyder

Lectionary readings Deuteronomy 30:15-20, Psalm 119:1-8, 1 Corinthians 3:1-9, Matthew 5:21-37