In the Kitchen: Soups, Breads, and More

Before we enter into April, I have a few recipes that I want to share here, so that I can add them to my list of "Our Family Recipes" page. (Having them here, is a way for easy sharing when a family member or a friend asks me for a recipe!) And it is nearing the time when we change from "soup season" to spring/summer menus! These are a few of the things that I have prepared in my kitchen in the last weeks/months. 

This Crock Pot Broccoli Cheddar Soup was a new soup for me to make, also from a new recipe source, The Country Cook. It was easy to prepare, and very delicious! I will be keeping it with my collection of favorite soups!

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We love to serve homemade sourdough bread together with a bowl of soup during the colder winter months. These past months I've been able to continually have two kinds of sourdough on hand. I've been making sandwich bread, along with the Artisan-style of sourdough bread. 

I love the sandwich sourdough loaf by Second Rise Sourdough ... you can find her on Instagram which is where I found this recipe.

It works well to slice the sandwich-style bread loaves before freezing them, placing a small piece of wax paper between slices for easy removal slice by slice.

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Everyone loves to have a good chili recipe, and this one has been our favorite for a l-o-n-g time. I recently realized that I have not included my chili recipe here on my blog yet! If you prefer chili that does not include tomato chunks, you will love this tasty chili recipe. 

Print Recipe

Chili

Source: Family Favorites

Course: Main/Soup

Serves: 10

Ingredients

• 1 ¹⁄₂ pounds ground beef
• ¹⁄₃ cup onion chopped
• ²⁄₃ cup ketchup
• ¹⁄₂ cup water
• ¹⁄₄ cup celery chopped
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 tablespoons honey
• 1 ¹⁄₂ teaspoons worcestershire sauce
• 1 ¹⁄₂ teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon vinegar
• ¹⁄₄ teaspoon mustard, dry
• 3 cans kidney beans including liquid
• 1 can tomato juice (46 fl oz can)
• 5 teaspoon chili powder

Directions

1. Fry ground beef and onion till beef is lightly browned. Drain.
2. Add rest of ingredients through the dry mustard.
3. Simmer, covered, for 30 minutes
4. Add kidney beans (undrained), tomato juice, and chili powder; heat.
5. Note: For the kidney beans, sometimes I use 2 cans of light red kidney beans and 1 can of dark red kidney beans ... or vice versa.

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In early February I prepared my Favorite Baked Spaghetti dish for a special family meal. I love recipes that can be prepared ahead of the actual serving day, and this recipe works perfectly for preparing ahead of time. I doubled the recipe, and prepared one recipe in an 9x13 in. pan, and the other in two 8x8 in pans. One of the square pans was for the freezer for another time, and the 9x13 in and the other square pan were kept in the refrigerator before baking the following day when our family was here.

A delicious spaghetti dish ... you can find the recipe by clicking here: Favorite Baked Spaghetti.

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Baked Ham and Swiss Sliders was another meal that I served when family was here in early February. I love this easy recipe ... so easy and delicious! Good anytime of the year!

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I am thankful for good food, and also am thankful for the change of seasons ... there is much to enjoy "In the Kitchen" each season of the year!

Memories from 2025: January through June

I love to preserve memories with digital scrapbooking. It is a joy to live in the present, focusing on the people and events right before me, and then later, it is also a joy (and a fun hobby) for me to preserve those memories. I love to be able to share some of the scrapbook pages here on my blog, and also in the albums I have at home with the printed-out pages. So many, many memories, more and more each year ...

Though 2025 was an extra busy year for me (less time for digital scrapbooking), I do want to share a few pages of our memories from the first half of 2025 ...

Above are memories from one year ago! Our second precious great-grandbaby was born on the other side of the globe, in Japan!! Such a joy! (We were able to meet this great-grandbaby boy, Micah, in February 2026, about one year after his birth ... and those photos will come later!)

In March of 2025, our youngest granddaughter turned 13! Eva is a sweetheart and so creative ... it was a joy to drive to McCook to celebrate her birthday!

May 2025 held graduations for three of our grandkids! Two of our granddaughters graduated on the same day, which kept us from being at both graduations, with one in Nebraska, and one in Texas! We were able to be with Ali as she graduated from Conestoga High School on May 10th. And then we traveled to Texas to see Brianna five days later, and spend some special time with her, as well.

Our trip to Texas on May 14-18 also gave us opportunity to celebrate our grandson, Luke's, graduation from Dallas Baptist University, with two degrees: a Bachelor's Degree and also his Masters, both which he was able to complete within five years!

June held a very special event with my dear hubby's birthday #81. It is crazy how fast the years go by! We had a quiet little celebration, having had a bigger celebration with most of our family with us the year before when he turned 80!

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A joy to share these memories with you! There were many more happenings the first half of 2025, but these are just a few glimpses of some of them. We have so much to be thankful for in this season of life that we are in.

NOTE; for those who ask how I create these pages: 

About fourteen years ago I switched from paper scrapbooking to digital scrapbooking, and took some online lessons from Digital Scrapper to learn how to digital scrapbook using Adobe Photoshop Elements. (I currently have the Adobe Photoshop Elements 2022 version).) You can also click here for some great tutorials on the Digital Project Life website - this is probably a quicker way to learn than the site that I used fourteen years ago. I recommend using these tutorials. Most of the page templates and digital products that I use are purchased from Digital Project Life. Also, besides being able to share my completed pages online, I also print them out at home in 8x8 inch size to fit in the albums that I purchase from Michael's, Hobby Lobby, or Amazon. (Added Note in 2025: It was a lengthy process for me to learn how to use Adobe Photoshop Elements, but I do love it! A simpler way to create pages like this would be to use one of the multiple companies online where you can create your pages and then pay for them to print out your scrapbook. One of our daughters uses Mixbook for her scrapbooks.)