February Favorites: Winter Weeknight Meal

I love cooking.  And I love soup.  I love cooking soup!  And after a shitty, long-ass day at work, there is nothing better than straight up comfort chow.

BUT.  Its not always practical to cook some amazing, totally from scratch soup on a weeknight...we don't get home until around 5:30...we wouldn't be eating until 9 pm!  What follows is my version of sorta homemade chicken noodle soup that satisfies all the cravings with only about an hour of cooking...hello normal 6:30 dinner time!!  (And it tastes and smells WAY better than stuff out of a can.  Trust me.)

(Katie!  This is the soup we talked about this weekend.  !!  xoxo)




Sorta Homemade Chicken and Noodles

1 Rotisserie chicken from the grocery store.  (I've also used a rotisserie turkey breast-YUM- left over home roasted chicken also works, of course, if you are one of THOSE people.)
1-2 tbs. olive oil
1 Onion, diced
1 1/2 tsp. salt
2-3 carrots, chopped (I like bigger, rustic pieces of carrot but that's just me)
2-3 celery stalks, chopped  (Opposite on this- I like little, tender pieces of celery)
2 tsp. basil
black pepper to taste
lots of chicken broth (8 cups or so?  I usually use (2) 32 oz. boxes of store bought broth)
6 oz. or so of dry egg noodles


 First, rip that chicken apart!  Its good for getting out any end of day frustrations.  Collect bit sized chicken pieces in a bowl and set aside.  (Some days, to speed things up, I'll do this on the weekend or at lunch and just refrigerate the chicken until I need it.  Time saver!!)
Heat the olive oil up in a heavy bottomed soup pot, medium to medium-high heat.  Add the onion and salt to the pan and saute for 5 minutes or so.  Add the carrots, celery, basil and black pepper.  Put a lid on it, turn the heat down to low and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Remove the lid, add the chicken broth and the chicken pieces.  Bring it up to a simmer and cook until the veggies are almost tender (10 min or so?).
Bring the soup up to a boil and add the noodles.  Cook until done. 

Devour with crusty french bread and salad.  Cozy up with a book or in front of a movie.  No judging.

Chase with something chocolaty.

Our little family of 3 usually gets dinner and lunch out of this recipe.  Score!

February Favorites: (Non-alcoholic) Beverages

Ha!  I love me some beverages, people.  I drink water all day long and feel kinda naked without access to a water bottle at all times.  (A related favorite:  my favorite water bottle is a big, wide-mouthed Nalgene bottle with a little sip-guard thingy in the top to keep me from spilling it allover myself.)  Water helps me feel good, my skin glow and generally keeps my body running on all cylinders.   I carry water with me on any runs over an hour long and always glug several ounces after any workout.

Aside from H2O, my day usually involves some coffee with organic half n' half in the morning, a cup of tea at lunch (black or green depending on mood) and another cup of tea (herbal- chamomile is my fave) at bedtime.

Treat-wise, I've recently begun drinking Almond Milk.  Holy shit, people!  How did I not know about this before?!?  It is SO GOOD.  Otto loves it too and we've been known to argue over who gets the last bit in the carton. 

Fall Cooking-Minestrone Time!

Image source here

Aaaaaaaaaand......just like that, Fall is here.  It's like the occurence of Labor Day signaled some shift and what was warm and summery is now cool, crisp and swathed in morning fog.

This slight nip in the air, accompanied by a steady, cold drizzle yesterday drove us indoors and into the kitchen.

Otto and I decided to make Minestrone- a great soup to make with kids and, let's face it, fucking delicious to boot. 


Minestrone (Adapted and changed a little from Mollie Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook)

2 tbs Olive Oil
A big onion, chopped
Lots of garlic (5 cloves or so), minced
Some sea salt...maybe 1 1/2 tsp.
One or two celery stalks, diced
One or two carrots, diced
One chopped bell pepper, any color (we chose orange, but red and green are great too)
One zucchini squash, diced
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
A well rinsed and drained can of Garbanzo Beans
Some dry pasta- (any shape-we like penne) , 3/4 to 1 cup, give or take
15 oz. can of tomato puree or sauce
3 tbs. or so of dry, drinkable red wine (optional)
4 cups of organic chicken broth (or water or veggie stock, if you wanna go vegetarian like Mollie)
2 ripe, fresh tomatoes, diced
Parmesan cheese
Fresh parsley, chopped


First,  chop all the choppables and set them aside, ready to be dumped in the soup pot when the time comes.  Then heat the oil in a big ol' soup pot, and add the onion, garlic and salt.  Stir and cook and smell for about 5 minutes.  Next, add the carrots, celery, oregano, basil, and black pepper.  Stir and cook and smell again until it's all mixed up.  Put a lid on it, reduce heat to low and cook for about 10 minutes.

"Onions hurt my eyes but they smell good, Mom."

Pop the lid off, throw in your bell pepper, your zucchini, the chicken stock (or water) and tomato puree and wine if you've got it.  Stir it up, bring to a simmer and cover and cook for about 15 minutes.  Throw in the chick peas.  Cook another 5 minutes.

Bring the soup to a gentle boil, throw in your pasta and cook until its done.

Don't you feel comforted and warmed just looking at that?

Inhale deeply.

At the last minute, once your pasta is nice and edible, toss in the diced tomato and stir.  Serve with parsley and Parmesan and maybe some crusty bread and butter on the side.

Oh, and pour yourself a glass of that wine.

Chucky Jesus

On weekend mornings, its become habit for us to allow the kiddo to watch an hour or so of PBS.  Mostly so that we can sleep in.  An hour of Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers is less harmful than a cranky, under-rested parent for an entire Saturday.  Or so we tell ourselves.

Anyway, even though PBS doesn't air commercials, all the shows have sponsors that have announcements and Otto pays as much attention to these as he does the actual shows.  Consequently, for weeks and weeks now, he has been singing the praises of Chucky Cheese's - When pressed to explain what, exactly, Chucky Cheese's is, all we got was "Its where a kid can be a kid, Mom!!"  So otherwise, he had no idea WTF the place is.  All he knew was that its COOL.  This was simultaneously adorable and completely annoying. 

On Saturday, due to some kid swapping as a result of run/biking schedules, after a 10 mile trail run, I ended up alone with Otto in the big city for a bit.  We went thrift shopping and then I nonchalantly suggested we get some lunch.  Against every instinct in my body, I made a decision based solely on the desire to gobsmack my child- and it worked.  As we pulled into the parking lot and he saw that huge weird cartoon mouse staring down from the sign, the sheer joy and surprise on his face was priceless and totally worth the 2 hours of beeping and booping and robotronic animal singing and screaming children I was about to live through.

"HOLY GUACAMOLE!!!!" he said from the back seat. 

What followed can only be described as an orgy of shitty pizza (he ate 3 slices and honestly, after my run I was so hungry, it even tasted good to me), video games, and excited exclamations of 3 year old ecstasy.  The place was way cleaner and better run than I had expected and honestly, although we won't be going back any time soon, it was super fun just to watch my kid be that. fucking. happy.

At the altar of cheesy, noisy, crazy 3 year old joy

That said, its gonna be a loooooong time before we go back.  One can only handle so many surprise cheesy, noisy pilgrimages in a lifetime.  Heh.

So good...so good...I got you!

 I started counting calories and upping my daily workouts a bit in the beginning of April.  I didn't really have a specific goal in mind, weight or size-wise,  I just want to be...fit.  I wanted to feel good and be able to do stuff.  Like run a 5k.  And hike.  And do push-ups. 

And here, for the first time, are some stats.  Please don't think that I'm bragging or bemoaning or anything like that.  I'm just stating what's going on with my body and certainly not passing judgement on anyone else's.  Health certainly doesn't correspond with size!  I just wanted to document what's up here because 1. I suck at keeping a journal...this blog is pretty much it most weeks, and 2. it's motivating to put this stuff out here for you guys...keeps me honest :-)

At 5ft, 8 in. tall, my starting weight, back in April was 160 lbs. and I was pretty consistently wearing a size 12.    I was already excersising moderately 4-5 times a week (ususally alternating days of 30-60 min. of cardio or strength training).  I don't feel like I was out of shape, really, but I wasn't watching what I was eating (or drinking)...at all and I wasn't pushing myself in my workouts.   I could only do 2-3 push-ups before I was cheating and going down on my knees. 

Since April, (I think I've mentioned this before, heh) I've been journaling every. single. thing. I put in my mouth here which might sound a bit obsessive but its actually kind of fun. And addicting.   After a few days of doing this, I learned (duh) that I could eat more of stuff that was better for me, i.e.,  fruits and veggies and non-fat dairy as opposed to cookies, breads, fatty delicious Tillamook cheese, etc.  

For example, a huge salad, complete with spinach, avacado, baby carrots, tomato, cucumber, 2% monterey jack and salsa and even a little bit of light sour cream for lunch was under 300 calories!  And filling!  And super delicious! Add a couple of homemade masa corn tortillas and I'm stuffed and in at about 400 calories.  Compare that to a lunch I might have had pre-calorie obsession of turkey sandwich with the before mentioned delicious full-fat cheese, mayo, and much smaller serving of veggies and maybe some chips and a piece of fruit and there is a HUGE difference, calorie wise.  And overall feeling-wise.  I've discovered that I just plain feel better when I eat the salad... the turkey sandwich/chips lunch would tend to make me kind of heavy and bloated or something.  I just don't need that much food.   But I would eat it because it was there.  And because that's what my 230 lb. 6'2" husband was eating.  See if you can spot the error. 

As of this weekend, I'm at 148 lbs. and fitting into 8-10's, depending on brand.  (We went to Old Navy, Target, and Macy's over the weekend to get the husband some shorts and I tried on pants just for shits and gigs.)

More importantly, I have achieved my bigger goal of feeling good.  I can now comfortably run 4 miles.  I can do this grueling workout with relative ease.   I can do "real" pushups (not a lot, but even 10-15 push-ups off my knees is better than where I started!)   I have energy and a certain clarity of mind that I feel is directly related to increasing the intensity and duration of my work-outs. 

My shoulders and arms look...dare I say...muscular.  Ish.  And my legs are firmer.   My collar bone stands out a bit.  I'll probably never lose the little "I've had a baby paunch" around my middle, but that doesn't bother me because HELLO I created a person out of thin air and housed and fed him there for 9 months.  My little tummy is a fucking badge of honor and honestly, I want to keep a little roundness there to remind me of how connected we once were and of the amazing shit a woman's body, MY body is capable of.  

Most of this shit may be totally obvious to you and you very well might be sick of reading about it.   But.  This journey so far has been a huge adjustment for me and kind of all-encompassing.  I've had to change the way I see exercise (fun! and challenging! and stress relieving instead of a boring chore that has to be completed) and how I see food (fresh, delicious fuel to be savored as opposed to whatever crap is there to shove into my pie-hole.)   I'm now planning on running a 5k in 2 weeks.  And I'm totally excited.  I'm also going to walk a half-marathon on July 4th.  Because I can do it.  And because its in a beautiful place and will be fun. 

I feel good, you guys.

No S. And 300.

Holy shit, this is my 300th post. I'm kind of sorry I don't have something epic/splendid/affecting to write. But that wouldn't really be in keeping with the spirit of this blog, now would it? ;-)

* * * * * * * * *

In my on/off quest to get/stay healthy and fitting into all my clothes, I recently came across this diet.

Now, first off, the word "diet" is an immediate turn off to me. I am simply not interested or motivated to count calories, omit entire food groups, count points or anything else like that. I know those things work for some people and kudos to you if they do, but for me? Not so much. I like food. And cooking. And we don't eat crappily...we don't eat fast food, we do lots of fresh veggies and fruits and whole grains but also BUTTER and CHEESE and PASTA and mmmm...I'm hungry.

Maybe that's why this whole "No S" thing makes sense to me. The entire thing is, well, pretty easy. And really, just common sense. From the website- the diet in a nutshell:

"There are just three rules and one exception:

• No Snacks
• No Sweets
• No Seconds

Except (sometimes) on days that start with "S""

And that's pretty much it. You can click the link and keep reading if you want. Not everything the author writes is all the politically correct or sensitive to people of all sizes, but the core idea makes sense to me. No snacks. No sweets. No seconds. Except on days that start with "S", which would be Saturdays, Sundays, and Special Occasions.

As you'll notice, if you click the link, the author has penned a book, but pretty much lays everything out on the website. Its intriguing! In fact, he deliberately makes the point that he feels spending money on fancy diet crap is silly.

Since I (all to easily) fall into the habit of medicating my 3:00 pm doldrums with snacks and I'm TERRIBLE about helping myself to seconds (sometimes thirds) because "it will never taste as good as it does right now!,"I like how the No S idea doesn't say you can NEVER snack, NEVER have seconds (or thirds, heh). It just provides some parameters for this behavior. I'm gonna try it. I'll let you know how it goes. I have a sneaking suspicion that it might be harder than it sounds...

Hold Me Closer, Tiny Thanksgiving

Every year we go to the husband's aunt's house for Thanksgiving. I don't mind, really. His family is close- mine is far away. They drink alcohol and tell poop jokes. My mom would faint at the thought. They DON'T watch football which is awesome. It works.

But.

The food? The food is good, don't get me wrong, but you know how when you are growing up the things you have at Thanksgiving just become, in your mind, what Thanksgiving IS? They just don't have those things that ARE Thanksgiving to me. They have their own things. The things they grew up with.

Examples:

My family menu growing up had a very southern influence:

-Turkey (of course) usually cooked with big thick bacon strips carefully laid over top which simultaneously baste the bird in succulent pork fat and fill the house with the best smell in the world...BACON,

-Cornbread DRESSING (crispy and cooked in its own pan-NEVER stuffed in the bird. Gross),

-creamy mashed potatoes with turkey gravy

-Candied yams with marshmallows (hello DELICIOUS),

-white dinner rolls,

-green beans with almonds and/or green bean casserole (you know, with the french fried onions?),

-and finally, pumpkin AND apple pie.

It may appear to be a little WT but its what we did. Its what I grew up with. Its what I came to think of as Thanksgiving.

The husband's family is Italian. They do things differently. AS IS THEIR RIGHT:

-Salami stuffing INSIDE the bird,

-antipasto,

-corn casserole,

-sweet potato rolls with RAISINS in them (really, WTF),

-pecan pie.

Its not that bad (in fact, I'm sure some of you think it sounds infinitely better), but I'm always left unsatisfied, as though I haven't really had the TRUE cuisine of the holiday. I need my bacon fat and brown sugar, people.

So this year, I'm making my own mini Thanksgiving meal, just for our family. Tomorrow. I'm calling it Tiny Thanksgiving and I'm goin' all out. I'm making all the stuff we had when I was a kid- the dressing, the bacon-y bird, the marshmallows...the whole 9 yards. Maybe this way, I'll achieve a sense of satisfaction this year...a feeling that YES. I experienced Thanksgiving.

I'll also probably gain 5 lbs or so but that bacon basted bird is SO worth it. Believe that.


Question:

What things did you have for Thanksgiving when you were a kid? Do tell.

Eating While Female.

First, go check out this post at Bitch PhD. And read the comments. It is a fabulous discussion of an issue that any woman and many men, I'm sure, can relate to. Go 'head. I'll wait.

Done? Good.

I think that Eating While Female can definitely be hazardous to anyone's sanity- especially in an office like mine where no matter what your body size or what is on your plate, people feel free to offer any and all kinds of commentary on whether you are "good" or "bad" or "thin" or "losing weight" or "being healthy"...It's completely ridiculous.

If people see me eating veggies or fruit, the comments are usually along the lines of "oh, you're so good! I wish I could be that good! I just ate PIZZA!!" Oh the horror.

If I'm eating, say a cookie, the comments are usually "oh I wish I could have a cookie! That looks so yummy! But I have to be good, you know chuckle chuckle...my ASS is so HUGE (insert pause where they wait for you to vehemently deny this)"

Completely fracking ridiculous. What gives us the impression that it is completely ok and acceptable to pseudo-competitively comment on what other women choose to put in their bodies?

Thoughts?

Sick Day Baking

Donut Muffins from my new favorite food blog: Bread & Honey. Yum.

Since I had to be home with the puker anyway, I figured I might as well have some fun. The muffins turned out great and were very quick to make. Oh, and the puker helped. He doesn't look sick, does he? :-)

Now, however, I'm feeling a little baker's/eater's remorse. I think I'll hop on the stationary bike and do some reading. Ciao!

Edited to add: Maybe not...I think I just heard the puker waking up from his nap...curses!

Take This Food and Shove it!

Ok, what is WITH the pickiness??? Over the weekend, the only, and I mean ONLY things that Otto would eat were little organic veggie crackers, freeze dried apples and frozen blueberries. That. is. it. Mac n' cheese? No thanks. Quesadilla? Nope. Mixed veggies? Negative. Broccoli, chicken, organic o's cereal, noodles...No, no, no, NO!

Really, I knew this was a part of toddler hood...but I was thinking more like 2 years old as opposed to 12 MONTHS. Gah.

He is still nursing (mostly evenings, overnight, and early morning- we're almost day weaned) which might have something to do with it. Its like he's holding out for the good stuff. And while I wish we could still nurse on demand, (and in a perfect world we would!), I have to pump wean. Enough is enough. Pumping at work is starting to effect my sanity. I still nurse him over the noon hour and as I mentioned, whenever we are home together so I don't feel like I'm being all that withholding.

Another issue might be that he just wants to MOVE. Walk walk walk...he's all over the place now. I've been trying to take the Drs. Sears' advice and feed him finger foods as he is 'on the go' and that works to a certain extent although he still rejects a great deal of what we offer him and asks for blueberries or crackers. (He does this by signing "more" and then pointing to the freezer/cupboard. Smart little shit.)

Ideas??

On a related note, I have a new recipe for Beef and Barley stew in the crock pot for tonight. I hope it turns out. Crock pot recipes can be so crappy sometimes...but the lure of the 'easy' keeps me coming back...