Cream of Chicken and Fishing at home

Think about any recipe that you use that calls for a can of cream of chicken...now go grab that can and look at the ingredients, one that really sends off the alert sign is the big fat MSG (mono sodium glutamate). I've recently realized that MSG gives me migraine headaches and has made me violently sick. If a "spice" can do this to us then should we be consuming it at all? Let alone in SO many things. I've come across a great recipe for chicken pot pie in which called to make the cream of chicken from scratch. After seeing how terribly easy it can be to make your own cream of chicken, I'm hoping to do it a lot more often. You can find the recipe at

I didn't use store bought chicken stock, I just used the water that I boiled the chicken in for the stock. I also made it dairy free, so I used soy (I'm not a big fan) and I used an empanada dough recipe for the crust - it called for shortening and water. FYI if you're dealing with a dairy allergy then I must say don't used butter flavored shortening. The empanada recipe I got from kraftfoods.com and just put empanada into the search. I love this recipe for pocket pies as well; a wonderful alternative to poptarts for breakfast.
I've now made it more than once and I've tried green beans instead of peas and I added potatoes and used only bacon for the rue for the chicken stock.
My results:


I used the cream of chicken part of the recipe and two bags of frozen green beans and a large cannister of fried onions for green bean casserole on Thanksgiving. It turned out well.

I've recently been making it a point to do more fun activities with my sweet little girl. I found an excellent website to help me to keep locked and loaded with an arsenal of ideas.
This site is really great and we've had fun. One day turned into a fish activity day:
We made fish out of construction paper, then since my paper clips weren't metal I used safety pins on their mouth. We got a stick from outside and tied a bit of yarn and glued some old magnets on the other end of yarn. We found a blue blanket, a toy bucket, and a sun hat and we went fishing. We had a fish shaped sandwhich for lunch.
And that evening we read the story of Jonah and the whale and watched the Veggie Tale movie. I can't say that I planned all this out, it just sort of happened. And it was fun! She really enjoyed coloring the fish and she wanted to throw in a whale and alligator too. She played with those fish so much for days. I never thought it would have been such a hit. And it didn't even cost me a thing.






“Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”- John 14:6