Italian Sausage Soup

This is a recipe given to me by a good friend, Vickie White. I have made it many times for my family and for church functions and it seems to be very popular. I think it's a good idea for my children to have the recipes I made for them, as they get older!

1 - 1.24-pound package Italian sausage,( I used mild) no casings
2 carrots, diced
1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 - 32-ounce boxes low-sodium chicken broth
1 - 15-ounce can tomato sauce
2 medium zucchini, cut in half lengthwise and thinly sliced
1 teaspoon dried crushed rosemary,
1 - 20-ounce package refrigerated three-cheese tortellini
Garnish: chopped fresh parsley optional

In a large Dutch oven, combine sausage, carrots, onion, bell pepper, and garlic; cook over medium heat until sausage is browned and crumbles. Drain well!!!!! (I drain it and then put a paper towel in there to soak up the rest then throw it away.)

Stir in chicken broth and tomato sauce; bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes. Add zucchini and rosemary; simmer 20 minutes. Add tortellini; simmer 5 minutes, or until tender. Serve immediately. Garnish with chopped fresh parsley, if desired. Makes 10 to 12 servings.

I hope my children remember the dinner times we spent together as a family and the love and care I put into making them the things they loved to eat!

We Didn't Have to Walk Uphill Both Ways in the Snow Like my Parents Did

Back in Laura Ingalls Wilder days, they travelled by horse and buggy. When reading the love story between Laura and Almanzo, it seemed so romantic to tuck themselves into the horse drawn sleigh with blankets and furs and ride over the meadow and through the woods on a date! When I was about 14, my mom and I went horseback riding for the first (and only) time. We rode in a line on a skinny trail, with her in front of me, in a group; her horse kept stopping to eat the grass and leaves. We were laughing and trying to get the horse to hurry along to keep up with the rest of the group. Then her horse stopped abruptly while mine kept going and ran into hers right as it lifted its tail and made a huge, green, grass poop that ran all down the side of my horse! It smelled terrible and made for a very long rest-of-the-trail ride. It makes me wonder how romantic it was for Laura and Almanzo to have to sit and wait for the horse to do his business and then ride along behind him the rest of the way?

Times have changed drastically for the Ingalls over the years, thankfully. My first mode of transportation was a yellow Rabbit. Still pretty small, but faster and smelled a lot better. I was taught, by my Dad, to drive a stick shift. It was hard at first, but so much fun! One time I stalled the car as I was attempted to cross Hwy 10 and just about gave my Mom a heart attack! I loved that little car and it was great to always be able to find it in a parking lot! Do you notice these days that most cars are tan, silver, black, or red? Not all of them are, but it is the majority. Sad that there aren't the fun vibrant colors anymore.

The next car I drove was a station wagon. Props to my parents for letting their 16-17 year old daughter drive around in a station wagon all the time! Maybe they thought the nerdiness of it would repel the teenage guys, but I assure you, that was not the case! It would have been better for my Mom to make me keep the Dorothy Hamill haircut! Haha I was a pretty good girl and they were very trusting, I guess.Also, just as a side note: I never paid more than 99 cents a gallon for gas!

I've had nicer and more expensive cars since then but I loved the freedom of having a car at that age and I totally loved driving a stick-shift car! It sure beat riding around in a horse and buggy or a sleigh, too!

What Was My Mother Thinking?

When I was still in Elementary school, my mom thought I should get the Dorothy Hamill haircut. It was the new thing and everyone was embracing the style.  I had no idea who she was, but came to learn that she was a famous figure skater. Everyone thought my hair was so cute and I felt so glamorous. I look back at pictures of me and I am so embarrassed! I actually hate that hairstyle and am mortified to show the pictures to anyone! I laugh that it was ever popular.

This was the last time I let my mom choose my hairstyle, but in hindsight, my choices weren’t any better! Isn’t it funny how we think we look so great at the time and years later, we look back and laugh at our hair, clothes, and eyewear? I remember laughing at my grandparents’ great big, black framed glasses and thinking they were ridiculous and now they are very popular again. Lots of colors and styles, the crazier the better!

Actually, my mom is a very talented hairdresser! She could do whatever I wanted, but I was a teenager and had a mind of my own at this point. I had her color my hair bleach blonde the summer before middle school and have been “blonde” ever since. I don’t really know what color my natural hair is to be truthful. I used to ask her to give me a “poodle perm”, meaning, as curly as it could get. The style in much of my school years was frizzy with half my bangs curled under and the rest teased to great heights on top. I was never super extreme in this but I could definitely get some height! I remember laughing at pictures of people from the 60’s and 70’s who had long, straight hair with no bangs and a part down the center and thinking how ridiculous it looked! Funny thing is, that is pretty much what my hair looks like now and I love it!

  

This was the age of Madonna, Cyndi Lauper and Michael Jackson and we all followed their trends. I wore Forenza sweaters (with a long pearl necklace), United Colors of Bennetton clothing, Swatch watches, mini skirt sets (where the top and bottom matched) and leggings. We used to tuck our jeans in from the knee to ankle and safety pin them that way and wear ballet shoes with them. Not ballet-style flats, but real ballet shoes. Skinny jeans didn’t come around until 20+ years later! One day I tried to leave the house wearing a shirt and real long johns (the thermal ones with a flap in the front) as pants and I only made it as far as the door before I was asked to turn around and change!

  Forenza Sweater

Prom was the height of fashion back then and it was popular to have a huge dress. They were so huge that you had to wear a hoop under it like Scarlett O’Hara in order just to walk in it. We looked like wedding cake toppers with great, big off-the-shoulder puffy sleeves, a gathered layer on top of the skirt and often bows, ruffles and lots of lace. They were very beautiful and made us look like Disney princesses, but that sure was a lot of dress! We went bowling after Prom my senior year and it was pretty challenging in a dress that large, but oh, so fun! My date wore a white long-tailed tuxedo with a white top hat (that I thought looked ridiculous!) and ended up sliding on the bowling alley on his stomach and got his tuxedo filthy! Good times!

This is a very similar look to what we wore!

My mom found out that I needed glasses when I was in third grade. My eyes were already pretty bad, she just didn’t realize how bad they were until we were driving home from the eye doctor after I had just received my new glasses and I was noticing that Billboards had words and pictures on them and that trees had tons of individual leaves! I also could see the wrinkles on my knuckles and my fingernails for the first time. I kept lifting my glasses up and then putting them back down to compare what I could see with and without them. My poor Mom felt terrible to realize how bad my vision truly was! I tried to hide it for as long as I could and cheat at the grade school eye tests because I didn’t want to be called a “four eyes” at school. My first pair of glasses were really thick and very large and they only got worse over time (until I had Lasik surgery in my 30’s). I’ve been known to jokingly say that even my cheeks could see better because my glasses were so big!

 Like this!

We had some pretty crazy trends in hair, fashion and eyewear and we make fun of them now, but who knows? Maybe five, ten or fifteen years down the road, we may be going back to them. All I know is that my Mom let me develop my own personal style and sometimes had to put her foot down too! After all, isn’t that what Moms are for?