Uncategorized

After moving down to the south, my husband kept saying, “you should embrace some southern recipes.”  Now knowing my husband, he was referring to deep fried foods.  I even saw deep fried pickles at the store?? Interesting. Well as a wife who cares of her husbands health,  I avoid deep fried anything.  But I noticed that they sell collard greens very inexpensively at the stores.  I started looking up collard green recipes.  I came across multiple soup recipes and have tried a few, but I came up with my own rendition and this suits us great.

The first one we did contained northern beans and it looked like this.

What I did for this recipe, was to fill a pot up with chicken stock.  If you don’t have that you can use bouillon cubes and water mixed together.  I added an onion chopped up as well as a few spoonfuls of minced garlic.  I let this come to a full boil and then added my 2 cans of northern beans.  For my thickener, I added mashed potato flakes.  I add a cup at a time, until my favorite consistency.    I then added one bunch of collard greens, that I chopped up into bite sized chunks.  I let it simmer another 1/2 hour and then served it.

When I served this, I sprinkled some parmesan cheese over it. I enjoyed it very much, but my children were less than thrilled.  Especially with all the new “green” stuff.  I had to switch it up a bit.

I came up with this:

I started out with the same pot of chicken stock, added an onion, few scoops of garlic and a package of mixed frozen vegetables.  I let that cook for about 20 minutes.  I then added some beans, I actually had Garbanzo beans on hand and added those.  Whatever you enjoy.  We cut up some smoked sausage and added that as well.  I did the same thing for the thickener—used potato flakes. But I mixed it with some milk before I added it.  Equal amounts—-2 cups milk, 2 cups potato flakes—then whisk it in.   I added pepper this time, to make it a little more spicy.  After at a good consistency I added a package of cut up collard greens.  I put in the entire big bag.

This made a big batch of soup, I was able to freeze it into containers for later on.  I actually got the collard greens cheaply,because they were going bad, so I made soup that day and froze it for later.  Whenever we want soup, we just heat and serve.

I have found that my children actually enjoy this kind.  Yes, I have those that still dislike the collard greens, but most of them will eat the majority of their soup.  It is a keeper and a new regular rotation in our food menu.

We have been moving right along in our decluttering series.  I pray that this is the year that you will FINALLY conquer clutter in your home.

If you bought the book, you are probably moving at your own pace and that is awesome, you can use these posts as extra motivation or for more ideas.

This week will probably be a little more easier.  We are going to focus on your hallways and closets.  Don’t include bathroom closets or bedroom closets we will do those at a later time.  Work on your entryways or coat closets, that sort of thing.

Take a look at your hallway….what sort of things do you have in it? Maybe you have a table that you drop your keys on when you arrive home and that is good.  As long as it is the designated place that you drop your keys every time.  If it is a place that you put them on but then later find out that someone has moved them, you need to find a new place.  Designate an area that you ALWAYS put your keys and purse on.  If you do it each and every time you will form a habit and it will stick.  This prevents much needed searching for keys when you need to head out the door.

If you have any type of coat closets, you will be weeding those out today.  Take everything out of the closet and set it on the floor.  Wipe the interior of your closet and sweep the floors.  Now you are going to take an inventory of what needs to go back in this closet.  Will this be the central location for everyone’s coats?  Then keep one coat per person.  If it is a dress coat, or one that is worn occasionally…hang it in the bedroom.  If you have too many, get rid of some.  For children I recommend keeping one coat for each child.  When we had cold winters, we kept 2 coats per child.  One was for play, one was for going out in.  We keep one light jacket for children as well.  If your closet is stuffed full, than that means you have TOO MANY THINGS in it.  You need to weed it out some more.  Unless you have an extra large family then a closet SHOULD fit everyone’s coats comfortably.  If you have a large family, you might consider having a coat bar rack made.

For the floor, it will probably hold shoes.  I would recommend buying a shoe rack to hold multiple pairs of shoes.  You can get various holders that are inexpensive and they hold many pairs of shoes.  Look into that.  Don’t be a hoarder of shoes.  Keep only a few pairs per person.  We keep a pair of everyday shoes, pair of hiking shoes, a pair of church shoes, and flip flops/sandals for each child.  As they get older they like to have multiple pairs, but those are their responsibility to keep cleaned up.  As a mom that is in charge, I keep it simple for the ones I am responsible for.  For myself, I keep 2 pairs of boots.  A nicer pair and an everyday pair to wear.  I have a few pairs of sandals for warmer weather and a pair of hiking shoes.  I keep them my wardrobe color of brown and then they go with everything.

What else is in your closet?  Are there things that do not belong in here?  Put them where they go.  Old decorations or miscellaneous items?  Consider putting them in your donation box.  Keep only what you need, get rid of the rest.  You should have some room in your closet, it should not be stuffed full.  If it is, go back through your items and weed out again.

up next part 7

For those that enjoy a video, here is one on closets.