Cream is the Theme

Happy Sunday!  We’re enjoying a beautiful day here in Texas. The SUN has decided to grace us with its presence once again, and we’ll be seeing the 70s this week!  Let the pool party season begin.

After enjoying some Amy’s soup this past weekend, Dustin and I realized that we really love soup..a lot.  This week shall be devoted to finding lots of new soup recipes to make.  It seems like one of the easiest and most delicious ways to eat veggies if you ask me.

Today’s soup was inspired by a recipe we found on Taste of Home, called Garden Chowder.  We wanted to be a little adventurous and make our first “creamy” soup from scratch.  We took the original recipe and adapted it to make a healthier version with some added flavors.  Definitely check out the original recipe, where you’ll also find about 22 more pages of vegetarian soups.

“Creamy” Vegetable Soup

THE INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup each of the following chopped ingredients: carrots, celery, broccoli, red potato, onion, bell pepper
• 2 T of olive oil
• 4 cups of water
• 2 vegetable bouillon cubes
• 1/2 cup brown rice
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 3 T pre-mixed garlic and herbs blend (sesame seeds, black pepper, dehydrated garlic and green onion, lemon peel)
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 cups rice milk
• 4 sprigs fresh thyme
• 3 green onions (chopped)
• Colby jack cheese (optional topping)

1. Chop the carrots, celery, potato, onion, broccoli, and peppers into bite-size pieces.

2. Heat your soup pot on high and add 2 T of olive oil.  Then add the peppers and onion.  Add 1 T of garlic and herbs blend.  Sauté for about 3-5 minutes or until the onion is browned.

3. Once the peppers and onions are sautéed, throw in the rest of the chopped vegetables.  Mix together.

5. Add 4 cups of water.  Mix.  Bring to a boil.

6. Add 2 vegetable bouillon cubes.  Mix.

7.  Put in one dry bay leaf, 1 T of dry parsley, and 2 T of garlic blend.  Mix.

8.  Once it reaches a full boil, add 1/2 cup of brown rice.  Bring to a simmer and cover for about 35 minutes or until rice is tender.

9. While soup is simmering, prepare your “cream” mixture to the side.  Pour 1/2 cup whole wheat flour and 2 cups of rice milk into a mixing bowl.  Mix until smooth.

10.  When the soup is finished simmering and the rice is tender, slowly add in the milk mixture.  Stir until it is fully mixed in.  Cook on medium-high heat for another 5 minutes or until you reach your desired thickness.

11.  In the final 5 minutes, throw in 4-5 thyme sprigs and 3 chopped green onions.

12.  After about five minutes, remove the bay leaf and thyme sprigs.  Your soup is ready to serve and eat!

We cut up some little cheese cubes and added a DROP of habanero hot sauce.  Delicious!!

Honestly, we were extremely nervous about how this would turn out, as we chose whole wheat flour over white flour and rice milk over whole milk.  It turned out so great!  Obviously, the appearance won’t look as “creamy” as traditional cream-based soups,  but the flavors were phenomenal.  I highly encourage you to try it or create your own adaptations of it.  We were satisfied, but not stuffed.  It also didn’t leave me with an icky feeling after eating it, as most dairy dishes tend to do.

And finally, a new green smoothie recipe!

BLUEBERRY-STRAWBERRY CREAM GREEN SMOOTHIE

We experimented with some new flavors in our green smoothie today.  Vanilla coconut milk was on sale this week (plus $1 OFF coupon I had). I snagged a carton for $1.99!  Blueberry pints were also on sale for $1.77!  Hellooo, antioxidants!

THE INGREDIENTS:

• 1/4 cup vanilla coconut milk
• 1/2 banana (frozen if you can)
• 3 frozen strawberries
• 1/8 cup blueberries
• Handful of spinach
• 2 T vanilla yogurt
• 3 ice cubes

Throw in a blender (or Magic Bullet), blend, pour, and enjoy!!

This may be my new favorite green smoothie.  That is, until the price of blueberries goes up.  Then, I’ll be getting creative again.  The combination of blueberries and coconut is out of this world! 

Have you ever had a green smoothie?  If so, what is your absolute favorite recipe?  We’re always looking to try new ones!

Just Keep Blogging, Just Keep Blogging

“Just keep swimming, just keep swimming” – Finding Nemo

Why hello friends!  I just have to say, I give the big-time bloggers some major props for being so consistent with writing multiple blog entries a day for multiple years.  I didn’t realize how time consuming it can be!  Have no fear, though.  We absolutely love it!!  Now, we’re just working on creating a consistent schedule of blogging times.

Anyhoo, here’s a quick recap of some our EATS from the past couple days.

We were a little more adventurous with our breakfast dishes this week! Woohoo!

First up is a very KathEats-inspired breakfast.  A few days ago, she had posted some French toast with warm pears and, no lie, I literally booked it to the kitchen to recreate it!  SO YUMMY! It was my first time actually making French toast too.

The ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 2 slices of Sprouts Wheat and Oats bread
• A splash of vanilla rice milk and vanilla extract
• A dash of cinnamon and brown sugar
• A chopped up pear (for topping)

Mix eggs, milk, vanilla, cinnamon, and brown sugar in bowl:

Place bread in bowl and cover both sides with the mixture:

Heat on stovetop, flip, plate, top with pears, drizzle with maple syrup, sprinkle more cinnamon, and ENJOY!!

We also ate some veggie, rice, and bean wraps.  A STAPLE dish in this house!

Load up a whole wheat tortilla with rice, beans, peppers, onions, avocado, spinach, salsa, and Greek Yogurt.

Exploding with goodness:

Mmmmm.

Oh, hey! Another breakfast surprise and another KathEats-inspired dish:

OATMEAL!!!!

Do I dare say, this is perhaps my new FAVE breakfast?  It kept me full and satisfied until lunch time!

To the pot, I added:

• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup rice milk
• Sprinkle of cinnamon and brown sugar
• Splash of vanilla extract

Cook on medium heat and swirl around until it reaches your desired consistency.

Pre-toppings:

With toppings:

• Honey and almond granola
• Scoop of peanut butter
• Maple syrup

While I ate oatmeal, Dustin prepared his fave:

Omelette and pancakes!  He is willing to give oatmeal a chance this week though!  Wahoo!

FITNESS

Finally, some fitness news.  After a few days of trying to squeeze in running, yoga, and Whittle My Middle, we realized we were totally overwhelming ourselves.  It was our first week working out in a LONG time.

We’ve decided that we’re going to make RUNNING our priority for the next week, really enforcing it as a habit.  Then, we are going to introduce yoga and core exercises each following week.  It seems that in order to make a habit stick, it’s best to focus on ONE thing at a time, which is where we messed up.

Although we are just focusing on running this week, it doesn’t mean we won’t try to fit in other exercises.  We simply won’t stress it to the point where we feel bad if we don’t fit it in.

We also joined 24 Hour Fitness, since our apartment gym has been packed even in the morning now.  This ensures we have NO excuses for not finding the time to work out.  We’re also pretty pumped about the lap pool and some of the classes.  I think it will help us keep focused as we can add some variety to our workouts.

In regards to our running program, we are still doing the Couch to 5K (week 2, baby!).  From now on, however, we are walking/running for 50 minutes 6 days a week.  I read somewhere recently that for the first 20 minutes of running, your body is simply using up its glycogen stores and it’s not until after those 20 minutes that you begin burning fat, which is one of our aims.  So bring on the burn!!!

Oh, and we also haven’t been forgetting our daily green smoothies and salads!

I’m working on a Ten in 10 update post that will include our first two weeks and give you a glimpse into our progress so far.

Catch ya later!