Eat Your Greens Hearty Winter Soup

Greens, greens, they're good for your heart... well, that's not how the rhythm goes, but greens are very good for you. In fact, 1 cup of chopped kale contains nearly 3 grams of protein, and over 100% of your vitamins A and C. Not too shabby, right?  It isn't a budget buster, either. In fact, none of the ingredients in my kale and lentil soup are budget busters, especially if you make your own chicken stock. The bay leaf might be priciest thing, and it's pretty much optional. I have a bunch because my mom has a huge bay plant. Which reminds me, I need to beg for more bay leaves...

Kale and Lentil Soup

1 T olive oil

3 leeks, well rinsed, cut lengthwise and then thinly sliced

4 ribs of celery, sliced

4 carrots, sliced

1 lb of lentils

8 ounces of chopped kale, rinsed (that's 1/2 of one of these huge bags)

1 can diced tomatoes

4 cups chicken stock

2-3 cups water

1/4 cup red wine (I had it on hand, it's optional)

1 bay leaf (optional)

2 T Worcestershire sauce

Before serving:

2 T red wine vinegar - add at the end, before serving - it brightens up the flavors

dash of hot sauce

Set your pressure cooker to saute. Drizzle in your olive oil and let the pot heat up for a minute or two while you are chopping the vegetables. Add in your leeks and celery first, stirring them around to coat with the olive oil. Cook for a minute or two and then add the sliced carrots and cook for a minute. Next, add your lentils. Stir to combine with the vegetables, then add in the kale and diced tomatoes. The half bag seriously filled up my cooker

Lastly, add in the liquids: chicken stock, water, red wine, Worcestershire sauce. If you're using a bay leaf, throw it in now. Set your cooker to high pressure for 20 minutes.  When it's done, do a quick release of the pressure. Before serving, I like to add a bit of red wine vinegar and hot sauce.  Black pepper and red pepper flakes rock, too. Season as you wish. By switching out the stock and seasoning, you can make this vegetarian or vegan. It is a seriously flexible and flavorful soup. 

For stovetop cooking, simply follow the directions using a dutch oven and let the soup simmer for about 35 minutes, or until the kale is tender.

On missing #Fitbloggin and how real life takes over...

There's a lot of buzz going on this week on the interwebs about Fitbloggin. I remember hearing about it a couple of years ago from fellow fitness/health/weight loss friends. Timing wasn't good for me the first couple of conferences because of family events. Last year, though, timing was good. I saved my money, bought my earlybird ticket, and then put it out of my mind until the conference drew near. Then I started freaking out. I'm not an extrovert by any stretch of the imagination. If I'm comfortable with you and it's a small group, I'm ok. If I don't know many people and it's a large group, I'm going to latch on to familiar faces and stick to them like a barnacle. Whether they like it or not. Just ask Steve, Meegan and Tara, and Jack. Oh, no. It's you again.... sigh.

Much as I will miss seeing old friends I met at Fitbloggin 12, meeting new friends, hugging lots of friends, and posing for pictures while wearing a purple wig and pink feather boa, I will not be going to Fitbloggin 13. This year, my life has been turned upside down and taken turns in directions I never thought I'd be heading. (See my new blog page to see the first glimpse of what I've gotten myself in to.) I've also not been blogging very much these last several months, so I could scarcely justify needing to go, or the expense. Heck, after I got back last year I went and got myself a wordpress site. Have I blogged there? Once. Did I buy Wordpress for Dummies recently in the hopes of getting off my ass? Yup. Some day, when I'm not hauling brush, digging up stuff and pruning overgrown shrubs, I'll get back to it. In the meantime, I hope everyone has an amazing time at Fitbloggin 13. Tell Roni I say hi. Oh, and be sure to tell her "thank you." She works her ass off putting this together.

You got your chocolate in my peanut butter... my take on not-Larabars

I have been known to go overboard buying Larabars when Kroger has them on sale. But when they aren't on sale? Not happening. I love them, but man, they can get expensive. I have enough expensive habits, thank you very much. Do you have any idea how much pretty batik fabric is per yard?  So, I figured, lots of people have made homemade versions of Larabars, why not me, too.

I love the combination of chocolate and peanut butter, so I mixed up a batch of fudgie bites this morning with my Magic Bullet. Gotta tell you, blended dates are super sticky. Since less is sometimes more, I made mine bite sized instead of bar sized. Your choice. This came out to 16 pieces, at 1 WW +point each. The whole batch was 15 points total.

PB2 Chocolate Bites

1/2 cup (tightly packed 1/2 cup) of chopped dates
1/4 cup dry roasted peanuts
2 T PB2
1 t vanilla
1 T dark unsweetened cocoa powder

Put the dates in the Magic Bullet or food processor and blend until it's a rough paste. It can be a little lumpy. Add in the peanuts and blend until it's a coarse paste. I then added in the PB2 and cocoa powder and the vanilla, processed until mixed. Then I turned the paste out into a bowl and mixed until everything was blended together. When mixture is blended well, put on to a piece of waxed paper and flatten into a square. I then folded over the waxed paper and rolled it flatter, so that the thickness was even. Refrigerate for at least an hour, unwrap, and cut into your desired shapes. Enjoy!

Hunger Challenge Recipe

I had good intentions on following through on this challenge. Getting sick put a big damper on this plan as well as just about all others this past week. I'm still not 100%, but slowly I'm getting better. Here's an easy and inexpensive soup recipe. I've made it with chicken broth, but if you're vegetarian you could make it with vegetable broth. These prices come from my list that I've made up from my grocery receipts as well as my recent foray to Super H Mart and are broken down by how much I used. This soup makes 4 very generous servings. I had a half a package of the tofu in the fridge that needed using, otherwise I would have used the entire package.

Asian Soup
1 carton of Pacifica lowfat organic chicken broth ($1.67 Costco)
2 bunches of soba noodles ($.86 Super H Mart)
1/4 pound Shanghai bok choy, thinly sliced ($.55 Super H Mart)
1 carrot, thinly sliced ($.08 Super H Mart)
1 can whole straw mushrooms ($1.49 Super H Mart)
1/2 package firm tofu, cubed ($.60 Super H Mart)

Total: $5.24 for 4 servings ($1.31 per serving)

Heat the chicken broth in a medium-large pot. While this is heating, boil water to cook soba noodles. Add the sliced bok choy, carrots, straw mushrooms and cubed tofu to the broth to heat. Cook the soba noodles for 5 minutes, drain, rinse and add to the soup. I flavored this soup with 1/2 t sesame oil, 1/4 t chili oil, 1/2 t garlic powder, 1/8 t ginger paste and 1/2 t soy sauce. I do not have per serving price breakdown of these items yet as they are pantry staples. I will have to price them on my next trip out.

2011 Hunger Challenge

I'm not going to lie to you. This will not be an easy challenge to do. It will, however, be a worthwile challenge to try. Meal planning isn't simple for me, primarily because The Aussie tends to be a fussy eater. Meat and potatoes, meat and rice (plain with gravy or sauce) with some veggies thrown in, tend to be the way he rolls.

In preparation for this challenge, I started going through grocery receipts to see what I've paid for frequently purchased items, I've prowled through various grocery stores with a notebook and pen, jotting down prices and servings. What I'm finding has surprised me.

To start with, I did some grocery shopping at The World's Largest Retailer on Saturday morning. I purchased a few things that we were low on, and took LOTS of notes. On the way home, I stopped at another discount grocery store to write down a few comparison prices. Once home, I started writing down recipes and calculating cost per serving. Since I'm using the $4.72 per person, per day allowance, I need to know how much what I want to cook will cost.

Breakfast, at least for The Aussie, was easy. He basically eats 1 of 3 things, along with his coffee, every day.

Breakfast 1: Eggo Nutrigrain waffles (2), 1 T butter, 1 ounce of real maple syrup = .55+.09+.40=$1.04

Breakfast 2: 1 cup of Kellogg's cornflakes, 1 c 2% milk, 1 t sugar = .13+.15+.01=.29

Breakfast 3: 1 serving oats, 1/2 c 2% milk, 1 t sugar=.06+.08+.01=.15

Yesterday afternoon I went to an Asian grocery store in my town because I had some coupons for fruits and vegetables that were expiring that day. What a madhouse it was! It was also enlightening. The vegetables you can purchase at an Asian grocery store are super fresh, very reasonably priced, and there is a tremendous variety. If you like cooking Chinese food, you can buy your staples like soy sauce, hoisin sauce, sesame oil and chili paste much cheaper than you can in the specialty section at your regular grocery store. I also found chicken thighs (bone in with the backbone section) at this store for .69 per pound. That's a huge difference between the 1.08 per pound and 3.36 per pound at the first large store I went to. Do I like to buy organic? Yes. If I was on a food stamp budget would I have that luxury? No. The entire package of 5.28 pounds was $3.64 and it contained 9 large pieces. That's .40 per chicken thigh.

Last night for dinner I made a spicy chicken curry. The Aussie is sick, so I figured he might be able to taste something spicy (I was wrong). Here's my cost breakdown for TWO SERVINGS for this meal:

2 large chicken thighs (.80)
1 chopped onion (.20)
1 can diced tomatoes (.48)
2 garlic cloves (.08)
2 T vegetable oil (.06)
curry powder (.20)
rice (.12)
peas (.25)
Total for meal: $2.19 for two people