Mother Mayberry

It tastes like BUTTER…okay well, that’s maybe why it’s called Butter Soup.  It sounds like you’d put a few sticks of melted butter, but nope, only 1 tablespoon…it’s not as heart clogging as it first sounds.  It’s actually a simple little recipe and good when you don’t have lots of ingredients on hand to prepare something yummy.  Here’s the recipe, hope you enjoy it:

Butter Soup

Ingredients
8 cups water
6 potatoes, cubed
1 yellow onion
1 tablespoon butter
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons dried parsley
salt to taste
ground black pepper to taste
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 eggs
1/2 cup half-and-half cream

Directions
Quarter the onion and separate the layers. Boil 8 cups water with the potato, onion, butter, bay leaf, parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. When the potatoes are done, mix the flour, eggs, and about 1 teaspoon salt in a separate bowl. Add water until it is a thick dough. Spoon or cut noodles into soup. After noodles are fluffy, pour in the cream. Heat and serve. 

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Oh, this is one of those foods that when you prepare it once it’s definitely going to become the favorite dish of at least one person you serve.  It’s the type of tasty that gets your kids to say, “Okay, I’m staying home for dinner…I can go out with my friends any old time”  Yes, it’s that good.  Shrimp stuffed in bell peppers.  I love making stuffed bell peppers but this recipe is extra special and I don’t do it as often as I should.  Enough of the sales pitch, here’s the recipe!

Shrimp Stuffed in Bell Peppers

Ingredients:

6 bell peppers
2 c. shrimp, cleaned and cooked
1 c. bread crumbs
2 eggs, beaten
1/3 c. milk
3 Tbsp. Butter
3 Tbsp. chopped celery
1 Tbsp. chopped onion
1 Tbsp. chopped bell pepper
1 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. black pepper
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire

Cut off tops and remove seeds from peppers. Cook pepper shells in boiling water for five minutes and then put into cold water. Cut shrimp slightly. Combine with eggs, crumbs and milk. Sauté chopped ingredients in butter for 3 minutes and add to shrimp mixture. Add seasonings and stuff into pepper shells, putting a few bread crumbs and a dot of butter on each top. Back 30 to 40 minutes at 375 degrees.

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Egad, if someone gets sick in your house what do you do?  There’s only one thing you can do…you bring out the big guns, that’s right, no messing with a million over the counter drugs, you bring out Mother Mayberry’s Chicken Noodle Soup.  Guaranteed to, wait, umm, okay I better not make any guarantees as we live in a highly litigious society and I might get sued.  Let’s just say, Chicken Noodle Soup always makes me feel better whenever I’m ill.  There, that’s a personal opinion and I can’t get into trouble.

This is a pretty simple recipe, give it a try and tweak it accordingly…each person likes some variations on this, some like more noodles, some like it with a little more liquid, etc.  Just find the right balance for you, but here’s the basics:

Chicken Noodle Soup
Serves: 12

Ingredients

1 gallon water
1 (4 pound) whole chicken, cut into pieces
1 large onion, peeled and halved
3 bay leaves
10 whole black peppercorns
2/3 bunch celery, leaves reserved
1 pound carrots
3 tablespoons chopped lemon grass (optional)

1/4 cup chicken soup base
1 pound carrots, peeled and sliced
1/3 bunch celery, chopped and leaves reserved
1 (8 ounce) package dry egg noodles

Directions
Place chicken and water In a large pot over High heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer, skimming fat as needed, 30 minutes. Place whole, peeled onion, bay leaves, peppercorns, whole celery, whole carrots and lemon grass in the pot and simmer, covered 1 hour. Strain broth and reserve chicken. When chicken is cool enough to handle, remove skin and cut meat into bite-size pieces. Return strained stock to pot over high heat, and stir in chicken base, chopped celery and chopped carrots. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer 20 minutes, or until carrots are tender. Chop celery leaves and stir into pot with the noodles. Simmer until noodles are cooked, about 10 minutes more. Stir in chicken and heat through.

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Well, MotherMayberry has always suffered from bouts of insomnia.  So, this is one of those home remedies that I’m talking from experience and not just giving the standard pat type answer.  The first thing that I do when I’m suffering from insomnia is to just stop thinking about having insomnia.  Nothing is worst when you know that you have to wake up in a few hours to go to work and you can’t sleep, so you try to force yourself to sleep, and then it all starts coming apart.

So relax, if you can’t sleep, you can’t sleep, worrying about it will only make you more desperate.

First, you want to remove caffeine from your diet.  If you’re having trouble sleeping a stimulant like caffeine won’t help you at all.  Remember that caffeine is found in coffee, certain sodas, those energy drink things, and any number of other items. 

Next you want to make sure that you’re not making your bed into an area for doing other things.  Your bed isn’t to watch tv in, read books, and things like that…it should be associated mostly with sleep.  If you want to watch tv or read a book, go into another room, but don’t make your bed associated with other activities.  Also if you find yourself unable to sleep, just get out of bed, do something else, and come back to it when you’re ready to sleep again.

Taking a warm shower or a warm bath.  The heat will relax your muscles, get you in the mood for a restful night sleep.  Getting to sleep is all about relaxing.  I know some people could sleep anywhere under all circumstances, but you’re not one of them and creating a restful environment is very important.

Exercise 5 hours before bed.  Exercising will get you tired, but doing it too close to bed time might wake you up.  You want to workout, get the body tired, but not too close to bed.

Make your room dark…I mean dark.  With a big digital clock blaring it’s red light at you all night it’s no wonder you can’t get any sleep.  Also, light from the street and outdoors, you might want to considering buying blackout curtains.  They really eliminate the amount of light that comes in and gives you a must more restful sleep.

I hope this helps.  I might do a part two to this post because I’ve tried many things in my life to get a good nights rest.

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This is one of those topics where everyone has a cure for the hiccups.  I won’t do all the standard stuff as if you don’t know to drink some water, etc, to try and get rid of the hiccups, then there’s really nothing I can do for you here.  These are remedies for when the standard stuff doesn’t work.  These are like the special forces of hiccup cures.

If you’re currently hiccuping and thinking…when is she getting to the cures!!  Well, here they are:

• A teaspoon of sugar dry.  A teaspoon of sugar helps the hiccups go away…did my Mary Poppin’s impression scare everyone off?
• Sniff Sandalwood oil on a cottenball
• Suck on a lemon with worcestershire sauce on it.

There’s three, umm, untraditional type cures for the hiccups.  A few others is eating a spoonful of peanut butter while standing on your head (no seriously) or there’s the old standby, get scared BOO!

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