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!

And then some Veggie Soup

Sunday I was still in a cooking mood so I made a huge pot of Veggie Soup. I started with a bunch of broth and then cut up a red pepper, 2 zucchini, a bag of shredded cabbage, a bunch of mini carrots, an onion, a bag of broccoli, ( I know -  A bag - I was lazy!) and half a lemon that I did bother to cut and juice. (Awesome smell - a REAL simple pleasure that!)

The house smelled so good! Steaming boiling veggie yum! I let it cook for an hour or so, and then I went crazy with my Immersion blender. Yeah - I love that thing!

I ate a steaming bowl before I put them all in freezer safe containers. YUM! It was almost a little sad to chop all those veggies down to nothing. But I got over it quick. I have this theory that it will be easier to digest broccoli and cabbage if it's cooked to within an inch of it's life and then chopped to high hell. :) Yup. Way easier to digest cabbage you can drink.

I put a little cracked pepper on top of each one before I froze them. Yum! I am SO Betty Crocker lately! WOOT!