Cooking it up!

I have been falling in the health trap that I knew would happen with school being here. I am tired and anxious - and that translates into stress eating and grabbing whatever I can find and stuffing it in my mouth. I was determined this weekend to cook some healthy food up to eat this week, so I didn't explode out of my jeans and have to live in sweat pants until the semester was over. 

Searches on the Internet found me some great Weight Watchers friendly recipes. I made a crock-pot of Skinny Slow Cooker Hearty Vegetable and Bean Soup which turned out just fabulous. I chopped up all the ingredients and threw them in the crock pot and just studied away while my dinner cooked. 9 hours later my brain was melted from all the studying, but I had an awesome dinner of hot homemade vegetable soup. The only alteration I made was to throw a little more ground pepper on it when I ate it and then I threw a small hand-full of oyster crackers in there when I ate it. I scooped the soup into two cup Rubbermade containers and had 7 servings left after a generous dinner. I froze half and put the rest in the fridge for lunch for the next few days. I love that I could put fresh veggies in the soup and I could control the salt an seasoning. It turned out just so good and it was really filling.

Then today, when I couldn't stand to study another minute, I made Make-ahead, Healthy Egg McMuffin Copycats. I found this recipe a couple of weeks ago and purchased the pan on Amazon along with the deli-quality wax paper sheets. (They were a splurge - but I wanted them and they will last forever!) My Amazon order arrived this week so I was just itching to make these, but school had to come first. So the pan and papers along with the recipe sat on my table for the last several days - taunting me. So today was the day and it actually went great! the eggs came out perfect and they taste great. I used a slice of lunch meat instead of turkey sausage, but otherwise I followed the directions (which were just Eggcelent!) and they turned out perfect. I tried one for my dinner, put one in the fridge for the morning, and the other 10 are in the freezer for the next two weeks breakfast.

Again - I love that I can control the ingredients and that I am not eating something processed and of questionable origins. I also love that it was easy, inexpensive, and I have a breakfast that I can nuke and take on the road. Win Win Win!

Immersion Blender - Where have you been all my life?

So I have been looking at a few toys quite a bit lately. Kind of chewing on the idea of them like a dog with a bone. One of them is a Dutch Oven. I don't own one and I want to. But do I buy a cast iron one? Do I buy one from Rachel Ray? Tough decisions and a lot of time spent looking at them in stores and on-line. The other one is an immersion blender. I have wanted one for awhile, but recently got really obsessed with the idea of one. So I finally leaped into the abyss and ordered one on Amazon that was in my price range (Under $30.00 US and free shipping), had pretty good ratings, and was easy to clean. This is a picture of my new immersion blender and since I ripped off the picture from Amazon - here is a link to look at it on Amazon as well. 

I got my blender yesterday and we ran to the store a few hours later to get the makings for soup. My first soup is a Butternut Squash Soup recipe that I got off Weightwatchers.com. A simple soup with just a few ingredients: Squash, Vegetable broth, an apple and an onion. The recipe called for a Vidalia onion - which I couldn't find at my local store, so I just chucked a yellow onion in there. It was really easy - although it took longer to cook than the recipe suggested as I would not crank the heat up to high until I got a good boil on. Bad for the stock pot! So I had to wait a good half an hour to get a boil at medium heat. Then I had to let it boil until the onions were translucent. Then I got to play with my new toy!

I hauled the pot over to an outlet (placing a pad on the counter for the pot to sit on) and placed the immersion blender into the pot almost touching the bottom of the pot. There is a nice guard on this model so I was able to rest it on the bottom of the pot without hurting anything. Oh was it fun! I had to use both hands to control the blender and it just went to town on the soup! Soon all those large chunks were blended into a smooth as silk soup. YAY!

I poured myself a bowl and had to taste it immediately. Good but it needed a little something. The recipe said to garnish it with a little nutmeg, but I didn't have any on hand so I ended up adding a dash of cinnamon on top and then threw in a small handful of oyster crackers. Perfect! I think a side of homemade Rosemary bread - thick crust and full of butter - would be the perfect side to this. But since I am making this to sublimate my Weight watchers diet, that is out for now. When I get into maintenance mode I will so make some crusty bread to go with this recipe! I am thinking about using it as a low cal sauce to top some ravioli though. I think that could be very tasty!

I ended up with 12 double servings (One Points + per bowl!) and froze all but two. Now when I am craving a snack I can grab a bowl of homemade soup from the freezer and have a healthy snack. Go me!

Now I am off to the store. I saw a wonderful recipe for Vegetable soup......