14 Degrees and Soup!

It is soooo cold out right now. 14 degrees to be exact. We got a bit of snow but nothing much. Im soooo glad its Thursday and that tomorrow is payday! YAY! Mr. Gaunt and I have plans to get our tree tomorrow night and go see A Christmas Carol 3D, Im pretty excited, never seen a movie in 3D before. Saturday were gonna go to the museum with a friend and then Sunday hopefully I can do a bit of Christmas shopping. We are by no means going crazy this year with gifts, so I really dont have much to do.

Today I came home a little early and had great plans to make a Thai Coconut Shrimp soup recipe that I had copied out of a book weeks ago. Of course when I got home I couldnt find the recipe anywhere…grr! So I looked up a few online and finally ended up just dumping a bunch of stuff into a pot and praying it was yummy.

Mr. Gaunt liked it a lot, and I thought it wasnt too bad. I wish I had had more vegetables to put in but I didnt.  The basic jist of it is:

1 can of light coconut milk

1 can of broth

2 cups shrimp

1 Green Pepper

1 Red Pepper

1/2 an onion

Cooked Brown Rice

Peanut Sauce

Chilli Flakes

Garlic salt

fish sauce.

Dump all into a pot and simmer. Yup thats pretty much it. I would not follow that recipe to a T by any means, google a good one and go off that, but it goes to show that you can make soup from pretty much anything. And its not too bad for you either!

New Pants, New Shirts

Umm It’s still snowing. Yup we are going on two days of non stop snow. I skipped work today because my car was plowed in. Anyways Mr. Gaunt and I left the house for a short while (dont worry the roads are pretty clear) to get some last-minute Halloween costume pieces and to hit up Goodwill to see if we can find some long sleeve shirts (all of mine are too big) and maybe some snow boots. Anyways the boots were a bust but I got some shirts! Oh and today I wore a size smaller in pants! These are pants Kelli gave me, and they fit now, yay yay yay! I never even wore this size in highschool! Im actually looking forward to weigh in on Saturday.

Hula and I all warm in the house

 

New sweater $2.99

 

Side view...hmm does my butt look rounder?

Green Shirt $3.99

Mr. Gaunt Sweeping off my trunk

Me trying to unbury my drivers door!

Soup and Snow

I’m on my soup kick, so last night I tried a low fat version of the Olive Garden’s Zuppa Toscana. This is my favorite soup when I do that whole Soup Salad and Breadsticks deals, but Im SURE its full of fat and sodium two things I don’t need to partake in. So anyways I decided to make my own version!

Ingredients:

-One Quart FAT FREE Half and Half

-3 cups Low Sodium Vegetable Broth

-1 Large bunch of chopped Kale (I think like 4 or 5 cups worth)

– 3 Medium Yellow Potatoes

-1 Medium onion Diced

-1-2 Cups Sliced Turkey Sausage or Ground Turkey Sausage

-1-2 table spoons of Red Pepper Flakes

-Salt and Pepper

-1 Teaspoon Minced Garlic

-1 Tablespoon Olive oil

DIRECTIONS:

-In a medium frying pan saute olive oil, garlic, onions and sausage.

-Meanwhile wash and slice yellow potatoes (skins still on) and roughly chop Kale. Place chopped kale into a large soup pot with the Vegetable broth, bring to a simmer and cover.

-When kale is limp, add the sauteed onion and sausage mixture to the kale and broth in the pot. Add all the half and half, bring to a boil. Add sliced potatoes, red pepper flakes, bring to a simmer and cover.

The sausage I used was an apple turkey sausage so my soup was a little sweet at first. To salt-en it up a bit I added about a tablespoon of salt (start with a little at a time) and a good few shakes of Worcestershire sauce. Add more or less red pepper flakes depending how spicy you like.

Let the whole thing simmer for about 1/2 hour or until potatoes are soft but not mush.

This soup is soooo yummy! And it tasted like a rich cream soup only its fat free cream! Holla! Oh and it was even better on day two with the snow we have falling right now!

Snow and Chili

It has snowed all day. It was snowing at 5:00 am when I got up and is still snowing at 7:45 pm.

Dear Colorado,

What happened to fall?

Love,

Me (who loves fall!)

Anyways it is cold and when it is cold I like nice warm cozy foods…ala…Chili! Mr. Gaunt and I made this in a GIANT pot (lots of leftovers) and it was so easy and so yummy! Here is the recipe, its kind of dump and stir sort of deal:

INGREDIENTS:

1 Medium Onion

1 lb Extra Lean Jenny-o Ground Turkey (the lean had 8gr of fat and the extra-lean has 1.5)

1 Can Black Beans

1 Can Pinto Beans

1 Can corn

1 Can Diced tomatoes with Chili’s (or any kind of tomatoes)

1 Small can of Tomato Paste

1 Packet Low Sodium Chilli seasoning

1/2 Can Water

Fat Free Sour Cream

Low Fat shredded Cheese

DIRECTIONS:

Dice and saute onion, add turkey and cook throughly.

In a large pot add everything (except cheese and sour cream)! Then stir in the onions and turkey. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer on low for 10 minutes. You can add more water if it’s too thick. Top with a dallop of Soup Cream and a sprinkle of cheese.

P.S. Hula says hi! And a little peek at the entry way paint job.

A Fall Weekend in Pictures.

Mr. gaunt and I had a pretty busy weekend. money is tight right now so we have been trying to do more less expensive or free things (like yesterday’s pumpkin patch) instead of shopping or anything like that.

For the last three years we have been trying to make it up to the mountains to see the Aspens in full yellow leaf lovelyniss, but always seem to miss it. We tried to go the last few weekends in a row but stuff came up, so Friday after work we headed up into the mountains all excited, but realized quickly that once again we had missed it. Oh well, we still strolled around in the woods, we even found a giant pig rock!

Us in the woods

See a giant pig rock in the woods!

Riding side-saddle?

Shadow Kiss

Windy and Cold!

Cute town of Idaho Springs

Today we decided to ditch house cleaning and go stroll around Denver’s Pearl St. and window shopped. It was BLAZING hot today, I think around 85 degrees, so we ate lunch on the Patio at The Crushery and had totally fattening Paninis! They were amazing, so if your down there you should try it! After that Mr. Gaunt drove us over to Washington Park and on a whim we rented a two person paddle boat ($15 for an hour) and paddle ourselves around for a good while, I even made a little video of us:

Anyways that was really fun! Tonight we carved pumpkins and watched Casper! Overall a great weekend! Not so great on the eating front, but Ive decided to move my weigh-in to Saturday so I wont be doing that for a week. That means gym gym gym for the next five days!

Pumpkin Patch!

Mr. Gaunt and I went to the Denver Botanical Gardens at Chatfield Pumpkin Patch today! It was a pretty good time, a little crowded and hot (75 degrees) and the pumpkins were not looking too good, probably because of the snow last week. But still we had a great time with our friends Jenny and Justin and their little one Liam:

I guess thats what we would look like with a baby.

How darling is he!

Thats our pumpkin!

White Pumpkins! Very Martha Stewart.

Jenny, Liam and Justin

we skipped the corn maze because they said it took and hour to get through!