Sausage, Potato, and Green Bean Soup
My oldest wants to learn to make some of her favorite meals before leaving for college. This is one of her favorites. So I had to formally compile this recipe for her to follow. I thought I'd add it here. Someday, it may serve my daughters well to have access to my recipes via a quick Internet search. I thought I already had this recipe on my blog, but apparently, not. And I couldn't find it on any of my computer documents. So here's the way I make Sausage, Potato, and Green Bean Soup for my family. Every member of my family loves this creamy, yet savory and zesty winter soup.
Ingredients:
Jimmy Dean’s Original Sausage
Approx. 4 large potatoes
One half onion, chopped
A few cups of green beans, chopped into bite-sized pieces
1 Tbsp. white vinegar
Salt
1-2 cups sour cream
Directions:
Scrub potatoes and chop them into bite sized pieces.
Note: You can leave the skins on the potatoes or you can use a vegetable peeler to remove some skin or all skin, whatever you prefer.
Add the potato pieces to the soup pot and add water until potatoes are just covered.
Bring potatoes to a boil, then simmer for 8-10 minutes.
Then add green beans and cook potatoes and green beans for 5-10 more minutes, until everything is soft, but not too soft, when you poke things with a fork.
Take potatoes and green beans off the heat. Don’t drain the potatoes. The water will be used for the broth. Add the vinegar and salt. Stir. Sit this aside.
While potatoes are boiling, you can brown the entire roll of sausage with the onion in a skillet, breaking sausage roll into smaller and smaller bits as the sausage browns.
Drain the cooked sausage and onion on a large platter lined with paper towels.
Set this aside until later.
Once the potatoes and beans have cooled for at least 20 minutes, you can add the sausage to the soup. Stir. Then add the sour cream. Stir.
You can test the soup. If it isn't warm enough, you can return it to a warmer temperature by heating it slowly, stirring consistently.
Serve with Saltine crackers or soup crackers.
Note: If you add sour cream directly to the too-hot soup, the cream will curdle. You can still eat it this way, but it looks unappetizing. So letting the broth and potatoes cool a bit before adding the sour cream, helps the soup remain smooth and creamy in texture and appearance.
It reminded me that submitting to the Challenge A curriculum, this project, and the scientific process in particular has been surprisingly fruitful once again and has once again, reminded me of the graces that come by way of a curriculum. While she and I are focusing on this narrow area of her interest, invisible inks, and all of that singular topic's particular details, I as the teacher/ philosopher observe through the process that she is actually also learning broader skills like how to wonder about something in nature, ask questions about that thing, focus on that for a while, research and wrestle the concepts involved until she has answers, relate those answers to things she already knows, accumulate more facts that become living, life-giving knowledge about God's world, then isolate more unknowns, and wonder on ask more and more questions and research further.
As her mom/teacher, I make her put great emphasis on her lab journal more than any other aspect of the Science Fair project. Over time, I find that that artifact helps students literally grasp on to the concepts they are researching and physically keep track of the entire mental process start to finish. More than the particular science facts behind invisible ink, I care most of all that my daughter learns how to creatively wonder about something in God's world, then focus and diligently research, then record her thoughts and findings, then organize her discoveries over a long period of time and process of discovery. That is one of the richest "take-aways" from Science Fair, and what makes it worth the effort. Again, I find it has more to do with learning how to learn Science than the actual Science facts gleaned and remembered and regurgitated. But really, most of all, a Science Fair project can be just one way of nurturing wonder, inspiring worship, and disciplining students in the science and art of taking dominion and the grace and discipline of earthly stewardship.
Honestly, I come to some parts of the Classical Conversations curriculum like Science Fair kicking and screaming on the inside, but upon submission to these and all other parts of the program, I find immense blessings. We, as a family, do much, much, much more Science, Latin, Logic, Math, Writing, Speech, Debate, Rhetoric, and many other things besides than we ever would if I crafted my own curriculum and avoided the accountability that a shared curriculum and community literally force upon me all the time. In this way, curriculum is not a lifeless box we are stuck in, rather, it's a treasure chest we ourselves exert our own wills to open, a chest full of mysterious maps leading us on journeys of discovery we would never, ever, ever have ventured upon without a "compulsory guide" (the curriculum) and our "group tour" (our community).
And in doing more Science, Latin, Logic, Math, etc. than we ever want, we discover and discipline and nurture compacities for those things inside us that God has crafted into each and every human being made in His image, compacities we did not know were there and would not have known without our submission to and the discipline and nurture and grace of a curriculum that includes so, so many tasks we do not like like Science Fair (and Latin and Physics and Debate... You get the point. We aren't always reading and discussing Austen or Lewis, but we do get to do that, too, thankfully.)
Now that we are done with the experimentation phase and my daughter has results and conclusions, etc., it's time to put together her project board. I don't like crafts, but again, here I am. Now it becomes more of an art project and therefore, for her, at least, more fun. We are gathering materials and I am helping her arrange and design a board she likes best. I see now the science is blending into the art, naturally, since nothing in all Creation is ever isolated from everything else in by water-tight bulkheads. It's all integrated. We are using inks to decorate the board and we know more about inks now, because of the science we have been forced to do.
In addition to the project board, there's the lab report and a presentation to judges and peers and tutor, so there's a good deal of work left and again, not all of this is stuff we would jump to do. But I can already tell she's taking rich and enriching skills with her, and knowledge that allows her to appreciate God's world more fully. Most of all, she has a new appreciation for how fun, fruitful, and glorious it can be to wonder about something in God's world and then form of a question and take ownership of discovering more about that.
"It is the glory of God to conceal a thing. It is the glory of kings to seek it out."
And the moments of awe and glory and grace have multiplied since the start of this oh, so tedious, oft intensive project, one I'd rather not do at all, if I'm being honest. But thank God I can will what I ought.
I'll probably post again in a few weeks with more photos of her project, her board, and photos from the actual Science Fair. For now, these are some of the photos we've taken and this is my testimony and witness to some of the blessings we glean from submission to the Science Fair and all other parts of the curriculum that we don't like.
I have kept lists, plural, of books that I want to read.
Books that get quoted in lectures, books that get recommended on podcasts or webinars, books my friends rave about...
but then I forget which notebook the lists are in and I forget to consult any list before starting another book.
So this year, in an effort to be more strategic and deliberate, I am compiling all the lists into one and posting it here.
These are the books I want to read this year.
One year, I focused on reading everything by CS Lewis and that was one of the best reading years of my life. I have decided to do something similar with Malcolm Guite this year.
Note: This is not all of his books, but these are his books that have been recommended to me and also the ones that really interest me.
Waiting on the Word
Reflections for Lent
The Singing Bowl
After Prayer
Faith, Hope, and Poetry
Beholding the Glory
I fell in love with Dickens upon rereading and writing about A Tale of Two Cities in a graduate class. He was a genius! So I want to read more of him.
Also, a few characters from his novel Martin Chuzzelwit are mentioned in The Celestial Omnibus, one of my favorite short stories of all time. So I will start with Dickens's:
Martin Chuzzelwit
I also plan to read his:
David Copperfield
Because I've heard it's got great characters, too.
I've read already read Hard Times, Oliver Twist, and A Christmas Carol, and even though I know Dickens is worth rereading, I want to focus on his books I haven't read yet. So I am leaving another blank for something else by Dickens below.
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Tom Jones is another character mentioned in The Celestial Omnibus, so my interest is peeked and I want to read Fielding's:
Tom Jones
Coleridge, Shelly, Swineburne, and Keats are all affectionately mentioned by CS Lewis in his writings, so I want to read something by each of them this year.
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The last time I read a Pulitzer Prize winner, it was totally life-changing. And this book comes recommended by someone I respect:
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez
This book is often referred to and mentioned as a great book. I've owned it for years, but it's time to finally read:
Faust by Goethe
I asked my daughter to choose one book that we had to read before she leaves for college in the fall. She said she wants to reread:
Paradise Lost by Milton
I love reading about educational philosophy. Some books in that vein that I have been wanting to read are:
Teaching from Rest by MacKenzie
Caldecott's Beauty in the Word
Sister Miriam Joseph's The Trivium
Who Killed Homer? by Heath and Hanson
I heard a portion of this book read aloud by Peterson at Hutchmoot in 2021 and now I have to read the whole thing:
The God of the Garden-
Peterson
My two oldest kids read these books and then insisted that I read them, too. But I never got to it. Then my middle daughter lovingly read all these books aloud to her younger sister, and now, I feel I really need to get on board and read them, too:
Green Ember-
SD Smith
I often listen to Cindy Rollins on podcasts or webinars, so I want to read her book:
Mere Motherhood
Two books on my list that are also often quoted or mentioned:
The Rule of Saint Benedict
Every Moment Holy
More than one good friend has recommended that I read more of the Christian mystics. So I am leaving a blank for at least one book in that category:
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In my Bible reading, I plan to focus on Paul's letters this year. I've read through Romans and I'm part way through 1 Corinthians now. I'll see how many times I can read through them by the year's end. I may add some books specific to Paul's letters or topics in his letters, too.
I also plan to read through Paul's letters in the Latin Vulgate at least once. My Latin continues to improve. I'm familiar enough with the English Scriptures that it makes reading the Latin Scriptures really easy and enjoyable. And the Latin Scriptures are just so beautiful!
I've got other books I have to read for tutoring Challenge 4 and books we'll read aloud as a family, etc. But this list is a good start. My goal is to read or listen to 100 books this year. I'm not sure it will happen, but I always read more when I have a goal.
My oldest daughter's bff came to visit one day over holiday break. She came to visit last year at the same time, and I got a picture of them in front of the tree then, too.
I have been able to tutor this young lady along with my daughter for two years now. So this young woman is dear to me.
And this young lady's mom loves my oldest daughter, too, and always pours into her.
This young lady's mom is also my friend and she is tutoring one of my younger daughters.
So friendships in homeschool community are between entire families and intergenerational.
I'm grateful for the friends God provides us.
We each stores out leftovers in a large ziplock and had leftovers for days.
For many years, I have also "stored" recipes on bookmarks on my browser.
But my preferences have totally changed.
I really dislike having to refer to my laptop while cooking.
In fact, I don't like having my laptop in my kitchen at all.
So I purchased myself a recipe box, cards, and dividers, and now I am slowly transferring my recipes to cards.
They're so handy!
It's almost like generations of women before me had this figured out or something.
As I meal plan and whenever I cook something, I'll usually take a few moments to make new cards.
It may take several months to a year, but eventually, I'll get everything transferred over.
My oldest leaves for college and she's expressing interest in copying down my recipes, too, so this transition comes at a good time.
My sister also gifted me a Kitchen Notes book this Christmas.
There are a few recipes (bread, lasagna, and cinnamon rolls, for example) that I am in the process of "perfecting."
I'll change variables in these recipes like the amount or brand of tomato sauce in the lasagna, or the type of flour in the bread, or the kneading technique and rise time for the rolls, etc.
The changes are an effort to get each recipe "just right."
I need a place to write down how these recipes turn out, because I can't always remember details before the next time I try the same recipe.
Then I have to start all over.
This way, I can keep track of my outcomes and which variables I want to change next and make quicker progress towards "perfection" (as far as myself and my family are concerned).
I took a group of students from our Grove Fellowship (homeschool co-op) to The Met last Friday. This is our family's favorite field trip...
