Merry Christmas to All

Ok I found it among 5 billion others. Have not made it for a long time.Had Stephanie's Sandwich shop in the early 80's and would sell out of this one.

Swiss Broccoli Soup

1 Med. diced onion
1/2 cup Broccoli stems sliced
1 med. diced carrot
1 1/2 cups Chicken Stock
1 1/2 cups lowfat milk
1 cup swiss cheese ( not the cheap stuff as it does not melt well)
Roux of 1 Tbsp flour and 1/2 Tbsp butter
1/4 tsp each-White Pepper and Nutmeg
1 head chopped Broccoli Florets.
May use 1 large bag of chopped frozen Broccoli if you have no fresh.


Simmer onion-Broccoli Stems-and carrot in 1/2 c of broth till tender.
Add: the rest of the broth-Milk-Swiss Cheese and the Roux.
Stir until it thickens slightly and then simmer 5-7 min.
Add the Pepper-Nutmeg and Chopped Broccoli and cover. Simmer 5-7 min.


Hope you like it.
Steph


This message was edited Dec 27, 2009 3:58 PM

Yummy thank you

Definitely will try. Thanks!

Sounds wonderful Steph. I may have to give it a try also. I'm sure it would be wonderful on these cold days we are having now. Burrr it's going to get down to 24 here tonight. I love seeing the snow, and spending a couple of days in an area with snow on the ground. But I certainly wouldn't want to live in it as my body just can't take the cold. If it's below 70 I'm cold. LOL

Sharon, did you get all those plants in the garage rooted? I saved a couple of the C. I was telling you about. I haven't cut any of them off to root. I'll do that as it gets a little closer to spring. At which time I'll share some of the cuttings with you. (grin)

I bought a bunch of different Amaryallis Bulbs from Lowe's that they clearenced. I'm going to be potting them up in the next couple of days. Then after they bloom I'll plant them out in the yard with all the others.

Hope everyone had a glorious Sunday.
Marian

I hope you all enjoy it as I did.

Opppps, Wrong photo.

That's ok, I think it is very pretty.

Sounds wonderful, thanks
rose

oh thank you Steph. I'm going to try it!

But I'm with Sharon, I need to lose a few pounds, so I'd better make it in next few days as I diet after the 1st for at least 60 days.

Bobjon I don't think it would be bad for a diet as only fat is 1/2 Tbsp butter and then Cark 1 Tbsp. flour and it makes a lot. I guess it depends on what your diet requires.

I am also going to try it. I steam my broccoli in the microwave but I saute my onions, garlic in olive oil, make my roux and then add my unsalted chicken stock. Then I add two large potatoes cut in small pieces to use as a thickener. I think that is what my soup was missing. Cheese, butter and salt. Anyway, I need to get great measurements on my bp and blood work. I do not want to end up on the eliminate this one list....

Bonjon, I loved your story too. Steph, that soup sure sounds good. For Christmas last year and this year, we didn't exchange gifts at all with the adults. It was hard to do, but why put everyone in debt when times are getting harder and no one really has any extra money. The family getting together is always so much fun. The 18-year-old granddaughter did get spoiled though.

My daughter sent me this picture that she took of her tree when she got up on Christmas morning. Thought it was so cute!

Mshadow that is adorable. I think I would blow it up and frame it and hang for Christmas next year.
Steph

How adorable. Maybe she could make Christmas cards for next year with that pic.

Thank you both! Those are very good ideas.

Thanks Mshadow. Think the preacher Christmas eve prepared my heart for my DD losing her cool on me.

Didn't think about your recipe being lower in cal than normal, but you are right, Rebloomnut. on rereading it, it isn't high on cal at all. I adore Broccoli Cheese soups, but they tend to be fat filled.

And I got another treat today. Was about to give away a newspaper section to Mom because she wanted an article about her new "independent living" apartment's chef. We have a local columnist that coaxes recipes from local restaurant chefs, too. Before I gave her that section, I checked for recipes, and darned if one I had requested for collard greens wasn't in there! Now I can make both on Jan 1st.

We purposefully did NOT put breakable ornaments on the tree this year because of our new kitten. For this reason I could not get into trimming it. Even now, without all my old precious favorites up there, I'm just ignoring it. Kitty chewed on the lowest branches, batted at a string of lights she could reach, and a few ornaments hanging off the bottom. Otherwise, Faith ignored the tree.

This year, when DH starts complaining he wants the tree down on Jan. 1st, I'm going to agree with him. [we tend to put up the tree just before Christmas and leave it up until Epiphany, when the first gifts from the Magi were brought. Then we give one last gift and make a small party of taking it down.]

Tree usually down on J/1 as it dries out if longer. creche stays up a bit after epiphany to give wise men a chance to catch their breath. :)

now that's a nice touch! Think we might do that in the future....but only if I finally get a creche with wise men!

I'm one of the last people to put the tree up, and last to take it down, also. Mid January is about right for me.

now see, I can tell DH I'm not the only one, Polly! If it was not a real tree, I'd have it up that long, too.

My sis used to deal in collector ornament resale. She'd get them first year out, then sell them a few years later at twice the price. Had an in with a few Polish manufacturers. And a reselling newsletter, where she pretty much created a secondary marketplace for them. Back then, she had artificial trees up all over the house, one in every room, and two she left up all year long. Since many of those ornaments didn't have a Christmas theme, I thought it looked kinda.... great!

She had to give it up to go get a job with medical insurance benefits.

I am retired JP Morgan Chase. My medical benefits with Chase went up and my medicare went down. Do you know why your medicare premium goes down? Because your income has gone down...

Sis had to get job with benes because we laid off her DH after dot.com crash put us out of business. BIL found work in small mortgage broker firm that paid commission only. He's become a huge success, very anal retentive type.

She was only unemployed about five years there -her turn to be with the kids before they went off to college. She went back to work as a VP of IT at a big credit union.

I particularly like that through her we could all join that credit union. The one I was at before and hers are the two best in the state for loans and interest rates. My own had turned me down four times for truck loans! Hers approved me for a loan in 25 minutes. I never did figure out why my credit union, where I'd had two other successful car loans, did me that way.

Needed a truck if I was going to expand my irises. Frequently, my beds were not complete for two or three months after irises arrived because of material or equipment delays in delivery. Now, I can fetch things anytime I am able to. My convertible gave up the ghost anyway. and it wasn't much good at hauling manure...

I can just see you hauling manure in the convertible Bonjon. LOL At least it would be easier to spread that way, just shovel it out as you drive by your plants. lol I've been trying to find me a good small used pickup truck for use around here to haul and move all my plant junk. Dh fusses everytime I use his truck for plants. lol I can't imagine why.

I'm thinking about jerking all my irises up out of the ground and replanting everyone of them in alpha order or something. When I want to find a particular one, I have to walk the entire beds looking for them. I guess I could just make a map and forget about it. However, they all need to be replanted and the ground re-worked with lots of stuff added to it. I'd like to work in some aged horse poop, leaves, and so forth and build the beds up about a ft higher than they are right now. That would mean alot of earth moving but with the tractor and front in loader it wouldn't take that long. My only problem is I don't want to miss a bloom season so I don't know when it would really be a good time for me to do so. Come to think of it I could do it around the same time Dee and all the other iris sellers divide their's. I guess it's called lining them out, but I'd do it for myself and not to sell. So I'm going to need lots of pointers from some of you experts.

I have several iris beds but only one huge one out back with all of them marked. I'm only talking about pulling up the ones in this big marked bed out back. There are over 500 different named irises out there and they don't look nearly as good as they did the first year after I planted them. I guess it's because I've bee giving away or trading them to other gardeners and not letting them multiply like they would if I were to leave them alone.

Please feel free to give me any advice on what I should do regarding the above mentioned irises.
Happy Gardening, Marian

Marian, I do first the guest, Augusto Bianco, then the medians then the TB in as much alpha order as I can do, as I am usually almost done by the time I receive the convention iris that are given the following year to our members as doorprices, this year every month will be 12 doorprices from that pool of iris, then one introduction of their chose up to $50.00.

Then I have the beardless field that also shares its home with the other people that I am or will be introducing for, and all my seedlings. Which seems to be getting bigger and bigger all the time.

D

But Marian, didn't you just have to do a bunch of replanting after the flooding?

AND - I did bring home a cement mixer in the backseat of my candy apple red midlife crisis convertible! DH looked at me. Said, "only you, Woman. You could do this."

I hauled a lot of expensive bagged manure in it, too. Folks at Home Depot used to watch me load it, filling the little trunk, back seat, then the front seat. Heard one say once, "that crazy iris lady," and I swear I once saw them taking bets on how the car suspension, which was low to begin with, would handle it.

Now strain the the truck axles hauling bulk loads for very cheap.

I now have a SUV and live next door to this wonderful young man that cleans his sporty Mercedes two seat car with a toothbrush. I will haul anything in my SUV but should not have gotten a Lexus. Probably a suburban would have been smarter. Happy New Year to All.

You are correct Bonjon, I did have a ton of irises to re-do after the flood this year. But that was a new iris bed I made out front with all my new irises. The freshly tilled ground didn't stand a chance against those torrential rains. The bed I'm referring to is one that has been in the back for a few years. Every iris is marked by name but a few signs have faded and animals have messed up some of them or they are completely missing. LOL

I'll see if I can find a shot of the one that needs to be redone and compare it to the one I made out front.
Marian

This is part of the large planted area in the back with over 500 named irises. I have six of this huge long areas with irises 5 or 6 deep and each bed is well over 150 ft long. Then there is a patch of grass for walking between each of them. I'm planning on getting rid of all the grass between them this year as it only adds to my weeding problems.

This message was edited Jan 3, 2010 2:22 PM

This is the one out front where I had planted all my newly purchased irises. I didn't have many irises out front and wanted to add tons of color to the bed. I'm crossing my fingers that the bed rebounds once I can refill all the dirt that got washed away with the irses and daylilies. I've already filled it in twice for it to wash away again. I'm thinking of adding some 2x4's to the area and covering them with dirt. I'm thinking if nothing else it would slow the water flow down some what. DH has said he would divert the water run off this summer when the ground dries out some. So I'm crossing my fingers that he will do so.

Right now I have the augar broke off in the ground because he sheered a pin in it digging me some holes for some Pinnaple Guava plants I got for nearly nothing. On a farm if it's not one thing it's ten. It was scary though to see that tractors front wheels come off the ground and rare up when he struck the big walnut tree root and it sucked the auger all the way down. The tractor started shaking and jumping and things started flying off of it. Now I have to use the post hole digger to dig down around the augar to get it out. (frown)

This is just a little portion of the bed that was out front. It is/was about 150ft or longer and about 3 1/2 ft wide. You can't tell much by the photo other than the plants are all washed out and the water is running straight down the path I tilled up. I am determined to make it an iris bed one way or the other even if I do have to haul in two semi loads of dirt. LOL

Shoot, that photos was suppose to be turned around. Tilt your head to the right to look at the photo. (grin)