My Roasted Peppers and Butternut Squash Soup

My favorite toy! Thanks kids

I love the fall flavors. I had purchased some red, orange and yellow peppers, and a small butternut squash about a week ago. Yesterday, I decided to roast them and then see what I could conjure up with them.

On the other hand, Memo, Kasia and my lovely granddaughters gave me a Cuisinart Soup Maker for Christmas last year. It is one of my favorite gadgets! So easy to make delicious soups and sauces.

My Roasted Peppers and Sweet Potato Soup

Ingredients: 

Olive Oil

1 red, orange and yellow pepper - seeded and halved

1 large sweet potato - peeled and diced

1 cup red wine

3 cups chicken or vegetable broth

1 minced garlic clove

1/2 cup heavy cream

salt and pepper to taste

We love the fall & the Broncos!! 

Massage the vegetable skins with light olive oil. Roasted the vegetables - 400* for 30 mins or until soft with a browned skin. Immediately place into plastic bag and close until cool. Add 1 tbsp olive oil to your pot and then the minced garlic. Saute lightly and then add the broth and the sweet potato. Bring to a boil and cook until sweet potato is soft. Add the roasted peppers and cook for about 3 mins then using submersible blended, blend the soup together. Bring to a gentle boil and add the wine. Allow to simmer for about 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste and the heavy cream. Use the blender again once more to make sure all the flavors are well blended. Then allow to gently simmer for about 10 more minutes, serve and enjoy! 

Fruit Cobbler

Wedding Day 2008

I really don't know who told me about this recipe but it has become my go to recipe when I need to quickly take a dessert somewhere or I have last minutes guests for dinner.

I remember a while back, I shared this recipe with my daughter-in-law, Kasia. She told me that it has also become her go to recipe. Apparently, my son, Memo, likes it a lot. So I thought I would share.





Fruit Cobbler:

Any 6 cups of fruit -

• It can be fresh (cleaned and sliced or diced) This is the best!
• Frozen (rinse under cool water and let drain off all water)
• Canned fruit - like for fruit pies

1 box of vanilla cake mix
1 stick of butter - thinly sliced

Oven 400*

Use a deep dish (round or square) (glass or aluminum) and lightly spray the bottom. Pour fruit over the entire bottom of the dish. Sprinkle the cake mix, right out of the box, over the fruit. Now place the thinly sliced butter all over the top of the cake mix. Place in the oven, uncovered for 30-45 mins, depending on convection oven, toasted oven or regular oven.

All to cool down and serve with whipped cream and or ice cream.

Our beautiful granddaughters - Kaya & Chloe
April 2014

Mexican Chilaquiles Verdes – 

Stephanie, Jorge & Memo in Vero Beach, FL
Christmas 1974

This typical Mexican dish is mostly served for breakfast! It is usually served along side some over easy eggs, refried beans and even rice. I remember one time early in our marriage Jorge and I went to a party. The following morning we were hurting!!! LOL My neighbor saw me and suggested that I make these with "a lot of kick" or actual chiles. She said the dish helped absorb the alcohol in our stomachs and sober us up without upsetting the stomach. It worked! 

Over the years, it became not only a go to dish for hangovers but a delicious dish for supper! During supper, I did make refried beans and rice to accompany this dish. 

Mexican Chilaquiles Verdes

Chicken breasts – 1 boned, skinned breast per 2 people (double recipe for more people etc.)

1 tsp salt

1 clove of garlic

1 small onion quartered

1 Medium onion diced

2 garlic cloves diced

1 large can of Green Chile Sauce

1 regular bag of unflavored corn chips, preferably the triangle ones

Spray oil or paper towel with olive oil to grease the casserole dish

4 cups of shredded Mexican Cheese Mix

Best dish – deep casserole dish or lasagna type dish

Olive Oil

Chicken Prep:                                                                                                                 

Take Chicken Breasts whole and place them in a pot, cover with water. Add salt, garlic and onion. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 20 minutes. Remove chicken to cool off so it can be shredded. Save broth for soup or another dish. Or just add avocado and eat as a broth.

Chilaquilies Prep:  Oven to 350*    

In a large sauce pan, add oil and diced onion & garlic. Sauté on medium to low heat until the onions are transparent. Add the large can of green chile sauce and cook on low heat until flavorful and thick. Add the shredded chicken and fold. Remove the mixture from the stove.

Spray around the casserole dish and add a ladle full of chicken green chile sauce and spread over the bottom of the dish. Now add the bag of tortilla chips and then ladle the rest of the green chile sauce over the corn chips in the dish. Now sprinkle with the 4 cups of cheese. Cover with foil – TENT STYLE*. Cook the dish in a normal oven around 40 minutes (adjust for a convection oven) or until you see the green chile sauce bubbly.

*Tent Style – take a long piece of foil and fold in the middle and then loosely fit over the casserole dish to all the steam to release but no burn the cheese of tortillas.

Serve with sour cream, avocado chucks, refried beans.

Abuelita's Carrot Raisin Salad

Abuelita with Liz (5 months old)

Memo's 6th Birthday

Carmen Guzman de Jimenez was my mother in law. She taught me many things about family that I did not receive from my own family. She had a couple of sayings that I now live by:
"Tolerance is the pricing of having family!"
" Don't try to change someone, learn to gently mold!"
"Why get angry? Wait a few minutes and thinks will change!"

Seeing life through her eyes was a magical experience that I did not appreciate until about 10 years ago. I met Carmen when she was 60 years old, the age I will be in a couple of weeks! I look at her photos, remember her stories and only hope I can be to my kids and grandkids the wonderful role model she was. Up until the year she passed away at 94, she still asked about me. I miss her gentleness towards my children and myself.


Abuelita, as I too called her, was a terrific cook... on top of everything else. She taught me how to make food that was not frozen or out of a can!! She would invite Jorge, the kids and I over for dinner, which was always celebrated in the late afternoon around 4pm. One of her trademark salads was Carrot Raisin Salad.

Abuelita's Carrot Raisin Salad

Abuelita's birthday May 1981 with Memo, Liz and me
This was taken at our home in Monterry, Mexico

3 cups shredded carrots (shredding baby
peeled carrots make the recipe tender
and sweet)
1 cup raisins
1/2 mayonnaise
1/4 cup honey
1/4 tsp grated ginger
Pinch of salt
Optional: 1/4 finely chopped pecans (this is something I have added)


The secret to this salad is the sauce. Combine the mayonnaise, honey and ginger (you can substitute powdered ginger spice but add only 1/8 tsp. Stir until well blended and then add the raisins.

Shred the carrots and gently fold into the mixture, cover and refrigerate until served. Allow at least 2 hours before serving.

My Stuffed Peppers

Memo, Jenna, Liz & Brett - 11/1982

It is funny how you learn a recipe that ends up defining a time in your life or a place where you lived. Stuffed Peppers is just one of those recipes! As many of you know, I lived in Mexico for 10 years. Upon our return, Jorge, Memo and Liz along with our dogs Yako and Tana, lived in North Tonawanda, NY. We settled into our rented home in the fall of 1982. North Tonawanda was a depressed town during those years. The steel mills that had kept that area of the country employed, closed up and moved to the southern US States. Many families were moving, while others unable to do so, struggled to make ends meet.

Liz helping Nana cook Thanksgiving Dinner - 1982

We lived next to a family of 6 and the woman worked while her husband took on the responsibilities around the house and job searched. I remember her complaining that they were going to have "stuffed peppers" AGAIN, for dinner. She told me that it was easy for her husband to make, the kids liked it and it was inexpensive to make! She shared her recipe with me! I think I have changed it up some since then...but it still reminds me of North Tonawanda!

Memo's 9th Birthday Party - ET Party Theme!

The funny thing about this recipe, is that it has become a favorite also for both of my kids. I have made it for Dave as well, he loves it but only if I don't use green peppers!!!

My Stuffed Peppers

6 plump peppers - green, red, orange or yellow will work
1 lb. ground beef, turkey or chicken 
Rice - 3 cups cooked - instant rice, reg rice or brown rice will work
1/4 cup olive oil
1 medium onion - finely diced
1 can of diced/stewed tomates
Worcestershire Sauce
Pepper to taste
3 cans of Tomato Soup
2 cups cheddar cheese (or any other melting cheese you prefer)

While you are preparing the peppers, put some salted water in a large pot to boil. One of the most important things about making stuffed peppers is to make the peppers "standable"! They need to stand up in the casserole dish and not fall over. At the top of the pepper, slice off the top and clean out the seeds, dissgard. Now stand up the pepper. If it wobbles, slice a little off the bottom WITHOUT cutting any holes into the bottom of the pepper. (We don't want it leaking the goodness out!)
Once you have done that with all the peppers, place them into the boiling water for about 5 minutes. We want them tender but not wilted! After 5 minutes of a hard boil, removed open side down to drain out any water.

In a deep frying pan or pot, add the olive oil and onion to medium heat. Once the onions become transparent, add the meat. Saute until brown. Add the can of diced/stewed tomatoes, Worcestershire Sauce and pepper to taste. When well combined and seasoned, add one can of the tomato soup stir, 1 cup of shredded cheese and then add your rice. Be gentle and fold in the rice so it does not mush!

Arrange the peppers in a deep casserole dish. Then scoop your rice and meat mixture into each pepper. I like using an ice cream scoop with the release button. It allows me to add about the same amount of mixture to each pepper.

In a small bowl, mix the remaining 1-2 cans of tomato soup with 1/4 water. Once the peppers are filled to the top, filled the pepper with a handful of shredded cheese. Now pour the remaining tomato soup mixture aroung the bottoms of the peppers in the casserole dish. Cover with foil for 45 minutes then uncover. If you "tent-up" the foil a little, the cheese will not stick to the foil.

Bake 350* for 1 hour. Less time with convection oven.

Leighton's Sausage Gumbo



 Bernie (left)with George & friend
in 1920.

Bernadine Wilklow with son, George Wilklow in 1927.

My dad, Leighton Bernard Wilklow, the second son of Bernadine and George Wilklow, was born six years after his older brother, George Jr. Leighton has big shoes to fill as his brother had been the apple of his mother's eye! They had actually wanted a little girl but got my dad! How lucky were we!!!

Leighton's Sausage Gumbo:

1/4 cup olive oil
1tsp minced garlic
1 medium onion - diced
1lb pork sausage (I have actually used breakfast sausage or hot Italian or even sweet)
1/2 red, yellow, orange and green peppers - seeded and diced
1 tbsp. ground red pepper
1 tbsp. kosher salt
3 bay leaves
1 can of diced tomatoes
2 cups instant rice - white or brown

Heat a large soup pot or sauté pan add olive oil, add diced onion and diced peppers. Sauté until onions and peppers are soft. Remove from heat and add to large crockpot or remove while cooking the sausage so the vegetables do not overcook.

Brown the sausage until cooked completely add 2 tbsp floor. Then add to crockpot or leave in soup pot.

Add 4 cups of chicken broth then add bay leaves and can of diced tomatoes. Keep on medium high heat until the gumbo begins to bubble. Lower heat to simmer and cook for at least 3-4 hours. Add rice and keep cooking at low heat for another hour. If gumbo gets too thick, add another can of chicken broth.

Serve with baguette bread.