Either way, I have a solution for you.
Sorry for the delay in posting. Friday was crazy busy, and I just couldn't find the time to post. I worked all night Friday night, so Saturday was a total doozie... We stayed on the couch until 4 pm, ate some dinner, and then played a board game with friends and called it a night. Mike was hungover on Saturday, so he was no help getting the motivation train going. :)
Let's go back a few days, shall we? Thursday, Mike had put some white beans in the crock pot to cook all day, so that we could make some rosemary braised white beans. When we got home, the beans were very soft. A little mushy even, and had quite a bit of water still over them.
I scooped out a few cups of the beans and tried to start making the recipe that I had in mind. I added in some rosemary, salt and pepper, and started stirring. Before long, they went from whole beans, like this:
to mushed beans like this:
I knew they were not going to work for the recipe that I wanted to make. After a swift evaluation of our fridge and pantry, we decided to attempt to make a white bean soup. Mike was the brains behind this, I just threw in a few ingredients that I thought would make it tasty. We didn't have any broth (chicken or vegetable) so we got creative by using the bean "broth" that was left in the crock pot. It worked perfectly!
Rosemary White Bean and Vegetable Soup
1 lb dry white beans, overcooked in the crock pot (we put the beans that were soaked overnight into a crock pot with water and allowed to cook on low for about 8-9 hours.
2 medium carrots, sliced
1/2 white onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 stalks of celery, chopped
1 cup frozen corn
1 cup water
Sea salt and pepper - about 1/8 tsp each
Thyme - 1/4 tsp
Parsley - 1/4 tsp
Rosemary - 1/4 tsp
2 roma tomatoes, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
We started by chopping all the vegetables and putting the carrots, onion, celery and garlic into a skillet with the olive oil and water. Allow to cook until soft (next time, I will put the carrots and celery into the bean pot, so they can cook longer in the fluid and get softer). In a large soup pot, combine soup, soup broth, and corn, bring to a boil. Once the vegetables are soft, add them to the soup pot, along with the S&P, thyme, parsley, and rosemary. Allow to cook for about 5-10 minutes, until everything is hot and cooked through. Add the roma tomatoes just before turning the burner off, so they have a chance to get warm, but not get soggy.
This soup is a perfect warm and cozy meal for the winter. It had elements of a chowder, but we used absolutely no dairy. You can adjust the seasonings as you wish, I found it to be perfect, but Mike would have liked a little more salt. I wanted a hunk of crusty bread to go with mine, and to my surprise, we had a half of a loaf of Italian bread in the freezer. I cut it up, threw it in the oven and used it for dipping.
Next up... Sauteed purple cabbage!
I had an entire other half of a head of purple cabbage and didn't want to let it go to waste. I decided to give sauteing it a try, since green cabbage is so good that way. While we were cooking our soup for dinner, I threw some shredded purple cabbage in a skillet with EVOO, S&P. It was sooo good! And, so pretty and easy.
I told Mike we could share this bowl while we were waiting on the soup to finish, but I ended up eating it all.
No formal recipe needed, but now you know what to do with any leftover purple cabbage!
Gym Time
I 100% blame Michael P. for me not going to the gym on both Friday and Saturday... yup, I said it. :) He pretty much begged me not to go on Friday, so he could sleep in. Then, on Saturday, as I was getting in my weekly dose of complete trash TV (it is pretty much mandatory for me to watch trash when I first wake up after working all night), I started to get antsy, and mentioned going to the gym. Mike let out the biggest, whiney, wimper every time. Poor little, hungover, Mike... lucky for him, I was not really in the mood to go either, so we remained on the couch a few more hours.
Sunday, we went to church, Sunday school, and then straight to the gym. We got in about an hour and 20 minutes of chest, abs, and cardio, so we are both quite sore today.
I got in a great hour long work out this morning, doing arms and cardio. The juice must be helping, because I am getting in some serious sweat sessions on the treadmill these past few days. :)
I hope everyone is having a great Monday so far!
Thursday's Stats:
Calories (+) 171
Sodium (-) 179
Protein (-) 6
BTW - That soup has some AMAZING stats... Just in case you are interested, using the Spark Calorie Counter, I found the following:
Calories: 220
Fat: <1
Sodium: 262
Total Carb: 41
Protein: 14.4
and -
Nutritional Analysis
Good points
- Very low in saturated fat
- No cholesterol
- High in dietary fiber
- High in iron
- High in manganese
- High in magnesium
- High in potassium
- Very high in vitamin A
No comments:
Post a Comment