This Chicken Noodle Chowder is creamy, comforting and down right sinful.
If winter is still going strong where you are, make this pronto!
We are trying something new with our kids. Winter is always hard, as they are stuck in the house and more often than not bouncing off the walls. The other night I actually saw our middle child fly through the air from our big overstuffed chair to the couch on the other side of the room.
Followed by giggles and my reprimanding.
We already have them adhere to pretty strict rules. We are probably a bit tough on them, but it is only because we know their full potential.
They are good kids, but with a hell of a lot of energy!
Our oldest are 6 and almost 5 {next month}, although they are basically like twins. They do the same things and feed other each other, good or bad.
After much thinking we have introduced that word.
You know the one.
Allowance.
But being the parents we are, we are not the type to just hand over a ten dollar bill at the end of the week and call it good. You know, giving them the discretion to do with it as they want. No, no, no. They are only 6 and 4!
They already have a slew of chores that get delegated throughout the week. We don't use a chore chart or anything like that, we simply just ask them to do the chore and they are expected to adhere to that.
Their chores include: emptying or filling the dishwasher, making their beds, taking the garbage/recycling to and from the curb, picking up their toys before bed, helping set the table for dinner, folding laundry and putting their clothes away, feeding the dog and any other chore at our discretion.
Do they always listen? NOPE. And often they will complain. They are kids, not angels! In an effort to teach them financial responsibility and give them a bit of a reward for taking part in our household, this allowance has come in.
On Monday, they each start with 7 one dollar bills, essentially a dollar a day. We hold their money throughout the week {in a hidden place, they already found it once, those little devils}.
At the end of each day, we determine if they earned their dollar. If they did? Great! If they didn't, I put a little tally mark next to their name for that week on the fridge and the countdown begins. On Sunday, we look at those tallies and subtract them from the original seven. This ending money is then divided between spending money, savings and church offering.
And for a little humor....
Our eldest child can be described as this: focused, a bit serious, organized, practical and a rule follower.
Our middle child can be described as this: free-spirited, adventurous, hilarious, everyone's friend and a rule breaker.
I'll let you determine who consistently has the most tally marks.
I had my middle child help me with this chowder one day last week after school. She does best when given tasks, and cooking is her forte {enter my heart skipping a beat}.
She'll do anything to chop a vegetable or stir something in a bowl. Our family seems to big soup eaters, or that is at least what people have told me, and this chowder was no exception! I had originally planned a basic chicken noodle soup, this version is our favorite, but my mind wandered and I tried something different.
You can easily make this chowder and let it sit on the stove on super low all day until dinner. That is what I did. I was too lazy to put it in the fridge once finished, so I just shut off the heat for most of the afternoon {cast iron holds heat very well} and then later turned it on very low when I felt it was losing some of it's heat.
Right before dinner, I cranked it up a bit and we were ready to eat within 30 minutes.
Oh, and how could I forget? I made these mile-high buttermilk biscuits to go along side. They almost stole the show {so good!}, but in the end the chowder won.
