Pot Pie Soup with Crust Crackers

I'd like to start off by saying that this recipe (in it's entirety) is not for the working mother in the sense of a quick, easy weeknight meal. I will go on to say that if I had read the recipe in advance (rookie move) I would have prepped the crust cracker dough and refrigerated it, as well as chopped up the ingredients, the night before.

Luckily, this recipe makes enough for two dough balls and tells you to freeze one for later use. This will be helpful for when I make this at a later date and will cut off an hour of time.

Scene: It's 5:15 pm. I walk in the door with a cranky toddler and a 5 month old who wants food. I realize how quickly I need to begin if I want to feed my family before tomorrow and avoid hunger induced meltdowns. Calvin is pissed off because he shoved a toy car somewhere and now he can't reach it. I'm trying to spoon pureed green beans down Andrew's throat as quickly as I can, because he likes it that way, while simultaneously pulling out all of the ingredients for this 2 part recipe.

I read over the first part of the recipe again, to make sure I've got it, when I notice the first road bump: the recipe calls for ice water. Ice water? What that fuck does that mean? Does that mean water that is ice cold? Does that mean I need to measure out water and then dump a shit load of ice cubes in it? And if so, does it need to measure out before or after the ice cubes are added? Oh, God I know I'm smarter than this!
*small child screams in the distance* 
I decide to use cold water, with 2 ice cubes, that measures out after the ice cubes are added. I stuck it in the freezer to make sure it didn't become warm before it was used.

Next stop: the garlic press. I bought one because this cookbook seems to ask for a lot of minced garlic and I hate mincing garlic. So much, actually, that I bought some already minced garlic (submerged in some questionable liquid - eh, whatever) and I've been using that for my minced garlic needs for a little while. But then, my sister told me that a garlic press does it for you! I bought one on the spot and was so happy when this recipe called for garlic so I could use it.

What I did not know, until just now when I googled it, is that you are supposed to leave the skin on the garlic when you use it. That would have been helpful information before I got pissed off that nothing was happening except for my garlic getting smashed and stick in this devil contraption. I wound up mincing it by hand, and in my frustration, wound up knocking a clove...somewhere...and I have yet to find out where it went. So here's to hoping that in a few months I don't find Andrew gnawing on a rotten garlic clove.

After Calvin found the ipad and Andrew ate both of his dinners and had his bath, the prep work was done and I could prepare the soup. It was smooth sailing from there. This recipe is not difficult, just very involved and I do not recommend doing it alone with no extra person to aid fussy children (if you happen to have them). I, of course, did it alone because I'm fantastic...but mostly because I drink.

This recipe makes quite a bit. She says it serves 10-12 and I believe it. This was good. I had to bake the crust crackers for about 15 minutes longer than suggested, but I may not have rolled out the dough enough (I'm sensing a pattern here - see the hash brown post). I preferred to crumble the crust crackers in with my soup, and so did Calvin. This got a very audible "MMMMM!" from Calvin and I have to agree. I mean, this recipe calls for ham so it was pretty much a slam dunk to begin with.

I crumbled the crust cracker in my soup. Yum!