Recipe: Leek and Potato soup

Another one of my absolute favorite fall soup!!! Use home made chicken stock, it's sooooooooooooo much better... I replaced the leeks with wild leeks once, and it was absolutely divine. Again, I don't use cream or milk, just a veggie puree. So good!

In the recipe below, I'll sometimes omit the onions all together and add more leeks.


Yields : 1125 ml (roughly 5 cups)
Total calories: 722
Calories per 1 cup serving: 145






Ingredients

1 medium organic red skin potato (about 1/2 pound)
1/2 medium organic onion, chopped fine
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 medium organic leeks (white and green parts), halved lengthwise, sliced thin crosswise, and washed well
3 cups organic chicken broth
1 cup chopped fresh f
Peel potato and dice fine. In a 3 1/2- to 4-quart saucepan cook onion in butter over moderately low heat, stirring, until onion is softened. Add potato and leeks and cook, stirring occasionally, 2 minutes. Stir in broth and parsley and simmer, uncovered, 15 minutes, or until potato is very tender.

If desired, in a blender purée soup in batches until very smooth (use caution when blending hot liquids), transferring to another saucepan. Stir in parsley, salt and pepper to taste and heat over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until hot.

Recipe: Winter Squash Soup

This is one of my very favorite fall/winter soup. The original recipe calls for cream to be added after. But to be frank, I've never liked veggie purees with milk/cream. So I just leave it out. That way, I can taste the vegetables much better, and oh my GOD is this one yummy!!!!

Use organic products as much as you can - they are so much tastier!

Adapted from:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Winter-Squash-Soup-with-Gruyere-Croutons-2997





Ingredients

1/4 cup ( 1/2 stick) butter
1 large onion, finely chopped
4 large garlic cloves, chopped
3 14 1/2-ounce cans low-salt chicken broth
4 cups 1-inch pieces peeled butternut squash (about 1 1/2 pounds)
4 cups 1-inch pieces peeled acorn squash (about 1 1/2 pounds)
1 1/4 teaspoons minced fresh thyme
1 1/4 teaspoons minced fresh sage


Preparation

For soup:
Melt butter in large pot over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and sauté until tender, about 10 minutes. Add broth, all squash and herbs; bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until squash is very tender, about 20 minutes.

Working in batches, puree soup in blender. Return soup to same pot. Season with salt and pepper. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Chill. Rewarm over medium heat before serving.)

BLECH!!!!

I hate being a woman sometimes. BLECH!!!! I get horrible cramps, want to eat chocolate all day (but didn't! I'm so proud!) and don't feel like moving around very much.

BLECH.

So yeah, I busted my exercise regiment yesterday. All I did was stretching. I feel terrible, but my body could not be bothered with doing more than that.

I'll be better at exercising in a day or two, once the worse of "this" has past.

BLECH.

My food choices

I love eating. I love food. Bouffe in french means food. Yes, it does.

I think my diet is usually healthy. Yes, of course, I do eat the occasional potato chips, or the odd chocolate bar, or some candies. Fries, burgers, hot dogs, onion rings... Of course I eat that stuff. I'm human. I have a HUGE sweet tooth. And I like junk food.

But I think generally, I eat healthy. The food I've been eating this week are very reflective of how I've been eating everyday of my life. I do eat lots of veggies and fruits. I love fish and chicken, although I do crave red meat once every week or so. I don't eat lots of processed food - I almost never buy premade cakes and cookies and all of that stuff. And while I like the stuff, I NEVER buy pop. I KNOW that's all I'd want to drink if it was in my house. So I just plain don't buy it. I buy ginger ale when one of us is sick, and that's it.

I have chosen to eat organic foods as much as possible. It has not always been that way in my life, but now that there are more and more GOOD organic foods available, I go for that as much as possible. If I want strawberries and there are no organic ones, or they don't look good, I just don't buy them. I'll buy the organic kiwis instead, or the organic pears. I buy organic dairy products, organic eggs, and I'd say half of the meat I buy is organic. Organic meat is SO expensive, but it's worth it... It taste so much better, for starter. If I can't find organic meat, I go for the stuff that has no antibiotics, free range, etc, as much as possible.

I do eat REAL sugar. DO NOT talk to me about aspartame, sucralose and all the other sugar replacement crap. IT'S POISON. And it taste awful. EEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. I have come to reduce the amount of sugar I eat, so I feel comfortable eating real sugar when I want to. Maple syrup, honey are my fav. Brown and white sugar, too. I tried Stevia, but I can't say I love it.

I do eat REAL butter. I hate hate hate margarine. It use to be that I could justify eating butter because there was so much trans fat in the margarine. Now that that has changed, I cannot say anything else other than I prefer butter. Besides, we don't eat lots of it. At 4 in my family, a pound of butter lasts close to a month...

And I eat products that contain fat. Do not talk to me about buying fat free yogourt for example. They replace the fat with more sugar, gelatin, sucralose and other sugar replacements (often 2 or 3 of them at the same time). If there are lower fat options that don't contain more sugar or more crap than the regular stuff (olive oil mayo comes to mind), of course that's what I go for. But if my option is between full fat something and fat free something + added crap, I go for the full fat stuff and just don't eat as much of it. That being said, I can't say I buy a lot of stuff that contains huge amounts of fat to begin with. It's 2% milk here, 2% yogourt, olive oil mayo, lean meat (fish, pork, chicken are the regular meats in my house), etc...

Perhaps that is why I carry some extra weight, and have a hard time loosing it. But my goal here, my ULTIMATE GOAL here is to be HEALTHY, have healthy eating habits and give my kids those healthy habits. Loosing weight is the extra bonus...

Yes!

Yesterday was a good day. I was able to do my bootcamp tape, and the time flew by! I only stopped it once to go get some water, as oppose to the 4 times when I first did it on Monday. WOO HOO! I also felt like it was bit easier, and that I was able to keep up much better. So yeah me!!!!

And today? I am not really sore! WOO HOO! I feel GREAT, actually.

I hope this continues!

I am wondering what I'll do for exercise today. A 5km power walk, or the bootcamp tape again? Decision, decision...

Aille aille aille...

Can chasing a 4 month old kitten who escaped outside be considered exercising? Can lifting two 11k (roughly 22 lbs each) boxes of cat litter, carrying them through the store, to the car, inside the house, down the stairs considered exercising? What about vacuuming? Believe me, with the curious 4 month old kitten we have, it's quite a challenge.

I love my cats to death, but the biggest con to having cats is definitely changing and cleaning the cat litter.

But back to this back in shape bootcamp business. My legs are still sore. Man they hurt. And you can ask anyone who knows me, I'm no wuss. If I say it hurts, it really fucking hurts. It's a bit better than it was yesterday, but I'm still sore like crazy. Which totally reinforces for me how badly I needed to take care of my body. How out of shape I really am in. If I am THAT sore after doing only an hour of video taped exercising, it was more than time for me to get back to doing regular exercise again.

I use to play ultimate frisbee once a week. I have been playing year round for 6 years. Last winter was the first season I had not played. And of course this spring and summer were totally crazy, so I did not play either. I miss it. I love doing exercise, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE playing sports. Before children, I played ice hockey for 7 years. God I loved it. I miss it like crazy. I had a chance to be part of team this fll, but the team was full, so no spot for me. I was disappointed, but it's all for the best. Seeing how sore I am today, 2 days after starting this bootcamp... I'm not sure how I would have handled playing ice hockey every week, at least not in the beginning. I do hope I'll be able to be an assistant coach for my youngest hockey team. That will mean being on the ice once a week for practice with them. I've been coaching his team the last two years. That was absolutely amazing.

This whole thing also made me realize - I'm old. Ok, 36, almost 37, is not old. But I'm OLDER than I was. My body's older. I realized I can't do what I've always done, which is go head first and full board with whatever I want to do. I need to take my time more with this exercising thing. My legs are paying dearly today for my over eagerness.

Today will be light exercises again. No I'm not already giving up. No I'm not throwing in the towel. I promise all of you 2 and a half readers (I'm the half) that I am really committed to this, and that tomorrow, I'll do that hour bootcamp tape again. But I need to let my body rest up a bit more today.

OUCH!!!

My legs are KILLING me today. My quads are so sore, I can barely go up and down stairs. Nevertheless, I am happy I did that bootcamp exercise hour yesterday. I may be sore today, but I feel GOOD. Good that I'm finally kicking my own ass to do something for ME.

Doing the squats today will be killer. But I need to do some lighter exercise today to allow my body to recuperate from yesterday's bootcamp.

So far, so good. I made some mistakes yesterday as far as how I spaced my calories throughout the day, but I am adjusting as I go, so it's all good. So far, my body is adjusting well. Granted I am not cutting the number of calories I am ingesting very drastically, so it's not so bad. It really is the HABIT of snacking in the evening that is hard to curb. But I'll do it. I know I will!!!


“Where I am today, is where my mind put me, and where I’ll be tomorrow, is where my mind will put me.” -Billy Blanks

Hey ya'll!

Hi everyone. Welcome to the "back in shape" part of my blog. I don't expect anyone to read. I don't expect anyone to comment. This side blog is for me, to hold myself accountable for what I am setting out to do. Of course if you want to leave words of encouragement, go for it! :)

I currently weight 140lbs. Not bad you'll say. True, I'm not in horrible shape, nor am I obese, or in danger of any weight problem related illness. But at a mere 5ft3in, I'm on the heavier side of my healthy weight range. Before kids, I was around 120-125lbs. Far from being skinny, I've always had a little belly. I am not delusional enough to imagine one day going back to that weight. Although quite recently, I went down to 127lbs. WOO HOO me!!!! But that was 18 months ago. Since then, I let myself go. My eating habits are not great, and I'm not exercising.

I've always eaten healthy - lots of organic fruits and veggies, very little processed food. My bad eating habits are that I snack at night, and not always healthy stuff. So that's gotta go!

So. Here are my goals.

1 - not snack at night anymore, unless it is a piece of fruit, a glass of milk, or a piece of veggie.

2 - eat proper balanced meals, with a range of 1200-1500 calories a day.

3 - exercise daily

4 - loose 10 pounds

5 - fit comfortably in my size 8 jeans, without the muffin top.

So. There are my goals. I don't think they are unreasonable. I've done it before. I can do it again! Every day I will post a compte rendu of what I've done during the day. No more hiding!

I do have to come to term that I'll loose weight not in all the places I want. Right now, my boobs look AMAZING. Full, plump, just perfect. I Know I'll loose weight there - I always do - and that makes me a little sad. *LOL* Oh well, I guess I can't have big boobs and a tiny stomach! *LOL*

If you've got tips, words of encouragement, or related stories, feel free to share!



“Where I am today, is where my mind put me, and where I’ll be tomorrow, is where my mind will put me.” -Billy Blanks