Chicken Noodle Soup Casserole

Ingredients

• 4 whole Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts
• 12 ounces, weight Egg Noodles (I used bowtie pasta)
• 1 whole Onion, Chopped
• 2 cloves Garlic, Pressed
• ½ cups Carrots, Chopped
• ½ cups Celery, Chopped (I omitted, we aren't fans of celery)
• ¼ cups Butter
• 1 can 10 0z. Cream Of Mushroom Soup
• 1 can 10 oz. Cream Of Chicken Soup
• ½ cups Sour Cream
• Salt And Pepper, to taste (I omitted, already smelled good!)
• 1 Tablespoon Dried Parsley
• 1 package (1 Sleeve From A Standard, 16 Ounce Box) Ritz Crackers, Crushed

Preparation Instructions

In a large pot, boil the chicken until done.

Cook the noodles in boiling water according to package instructions.

While the noodles are cooking, cut up the chicken into 1/2 inch pieces.

Drain pasta and set aside.

Finely chop onions, carrots and celery.

In a pot saute onion, pressed garlic, carrots, and celery in the butter. Cook until the onions appear translucent

Add the mushroom soup, chicken soup, and sour cream to the pot. Mix well. Salt and pepper if needed.

Add the noodles, chicken, and parsley. Stir until fully coated. Transfer to a 9×13 pan.

Bake at 350F for 30 minutes or until bubbly.

Remove from oven and sprinkle with crackers and bake 5 – 10 more minutes.

I got this recipe from tastyrecipe.com, which I found on The Pioneer Woman's website. Nathan and I needed a new dish in our regular rotation, so I thought I would try this out. It seemed plain enough for our picky taste buds. And oh my goodness, it is good! Sorry I don't have a picture. I know I always like pictures to accompany any recipe I think about trying. But trust me. It's so good I eat it leftover. If you know me, you know I hate leftovers. I can count on one hand the things I will eat that have been heated up in a microwave. This dish is one of them.

Seriously. Try it. You won't be sorry. Or come to our place and I'll make it for you : )

The Netherlands

Nathan came home one day and mentioned he had seen a vacation package online to The Netherlands, which mainly featured a trip to see the tulips that bloom there in April/May. We weren't planning to travel anywhere before going to Portugal in June, but Nathan had a few comp days, I had made quite a bit of extra money subbing, and we both had wanted to see the tulips even though it wasn't at the top of our travel list. So we decided to go for it! We were all for buying the package until we figured we could probably get a nice hotel on our own and do the whole trip ourselves for cheaper. So we did. And it was wonderful! Nathan took off the Friday and Monday right after a TDY to Graf, so we had a good long weekend to make the drive. The tulip fields are about 30 minutes outside of Amsterdam, so we stayed between them and Amsterdam in a nice hotel in really cute town. I wish we would have remembered to take a picture of the neighborhood across the street from our hotel. All of the houses had little canals in front of them and many had boats tied up in front. We had a great time at Keukenhof (the tulip fields) even though we missed the actual fields being in bloom. We also rented bikes for 3 hours and rode around the whole city, which was so fun and really easy since Amsterdam has bike lanes next to every car lane. We took a canal cruise, saw the Anne Frank House, and went to the Ice Bar. The Anne Frank House was little bit of a let down because they had altered so much of it to turn it into a museum. Plus Anne's dad didn't want to replace anything in the house after the Nazis confiscated everything. It made it really had to imagine it actually being the place where they lived. And the Ice Bar. Oh man. Do not go. It was totally lame. The most disappointing thing we have done by far on any of our travels. But we were surprised at how much we loved the city! Sometimes spontaneous trips are the best.

flower shop near our hotel

windmill in the town where we stayed

these tulips were enormous!

we learned that tulips are originally from the hindu kush area. who knew?!

they were the sultan's choice flower

there are bikes chained up all along the streets

we ate dinner at the hard rock cafe - my first time!

the Anne Frank House

many of the houses along the canals are leaning

The second global event in 4 days (that I paid attention to anyways...)

I woke up this morning to a text from Nathan saying Osama bin Laden had been killed by U.S. Forces. It's probably the most bizarre way I have ever been greeted in the morning. How weird to read those words. Because I don't keep up much with the news, I hadn't really heard anything about Osama bin Laden since like high school. After reading the text and thinking it was great they finally caught him, my next move was to check out Facebook. Partly because checking out the latest on my phone while still in bed is part of my wake-up routine and partly because I honestly hear the most about what's going on in the world through Facebook (shameful, I know). And of course, there were boatloads of status updates and news article postings about it from my "friends." I was shocked at how many had used the words "glad" and "dead" in the same sentence. I sat there thinking something didn't feel right about these people's reaction. I shrugged it off since I had to hurry up and get to Mannheim Elementary. During my lunch break though, I got on Facebook again. More glad + dead statuses. But also a few Scripture postings that were obvious comments on the recent events. Scripture such as Matthew 5:43-47: " 'You have heard that it was said, "Love your neighbor and and hate your enemy." But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you... If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the pagans doing that?'" ( I will thank Miss Kristin Wood for that one!) And also Proverbs 24:17: "Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice..." Those two Scriptures alone are quite convicting and obviously are contradictory to what some people are celebrating. However, in reading a commentary on the verse in Proverbs, I came across this verse: "The godly will rejoice when they see injustice avenged. They will wash their feet in the blood of the wicked." (Psalm 58:10) Nasty picture, for sure, but it helped me come to this conclusion: As Christians, we are not to rejoice in Osama's (or anyone else's) death, but we are definitely to rejoice in the justice that was served today. God is love and God is justice. The loving aspect is saddened by the evil choices a man made and that his choices had to lead to such an end, but the justice aspect realizes he deserved punishment, which was death, for those choices. I read a quote from Obama that I agree with (very rare): "Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader. He was a mass murderer... So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity." I feel especially welcoming of his "demise" since it means all the men and women who lost their lives not only on September 11th, but also since that day in the wars, did not die in vain. It means that our troops fighting there right now are not toiling away without anything to show for it.

I am proud to be an American and even more proud to be part of the American military family!