More food with Zip!

 So, I have to post about this Hellofresh meal that I made tonight. It was called  'cheesy smothered mushroom chicken'. It was supposed to have mashed potatoes but I roasted potatoes with the carrots instead which made it so much easier. 

This was really delicious and so easy.

 Roasting veggies of course, could not be much easier. Pan-frying chicken, again very easy. And then the sauce was made from sauteing mushrooms and some sliced green onions until soft and then adding a little bit of water, some chicken bouillon, and about a tablespoon, maybe a little bit more, of sour cream. 

I'll make this again without the kit as it was so tasty and so easy.

I sprinkled some Penzeys spice on the vegetables while they roasted, it's a red pepper kind of blend so they had a little bit of zip.

So speaking of zip. That's something Dad and Ev always said about preparing food to cook. They wanted everyone to use enough seasoning so that the food had a little zip. I never could argue with that as I love my food hot and spicy.

I've been thinking about them quite a bit this week as I got an email from cousins Ron and Cathlee  asking me to fill in some gaps in their memory of how our family came to move to Colorado. They had a couple of specific time frames they were trying to line-out and asked me to give them a hand. So I wrote back some of the details of what I remember about the why in the world we packed up and moved from Luck Wisconsin to Lakewood Colorado. 

We went back and forth a couple of times filling in the blanks and then I realized that I have a pretty good start on putting together that story for future Johansen generations. I can imagine that long after I'm gone, one of the great nieces or nephews might be wondering, how did we ever end up in Colorado. 

I also chatted with Laila a  little bit about what she remembered.  My next step is to rewrite those emails and combined what Ron and Cathlee remembered, with what I remembered and get it into a chronological timeline so that both Laila and Glenn can weigh in on what they might disagree with or be able to add.

I really meant to do some writing about the family right after Dad died 

so maybe now the time is finally right.

☮Peace☮