Cauliflower Soup

Although the weather has yet to cooperate, tomorrow is October 1st, and that means ITS FALL!

Fall to me means:

-Pumpkins EVERYTHING! Lattes, scones, muffins, decorations, EVERYTHING!

-Scarves

-Soups

-Snuggles on the couch watching either A. When Harry Met Sally  B. Stepmom

-Crisp walks in the woods

-Halloween at all the thrift stores!

-Candy Corn and Carmel Apple Pops on my coffee table

-My two BFF’s Birthdays!

But this post is about soup, not fall, lets not get too excited now, it’s still in the 70’s this week (although there are signs of rain and 60’s ahead). And this soup was amazing!

Mr. Gaunt swears he hates Cauliflower, but in this household BEGGERS CANT BE CHOOSERS! You eat what I make you! No picky eaters! End of rant.

So I made Cauliflower Soup, and I made it so delicious that he ate it all up and loved it! He also had it for lunch two days in a row! Beat that picky eaters!

Ok the recipe (which I wont post on here because it’s the same thing) is from this blog CLICK HERE and I only made a few changes.

1. I hate cooked carrots, so buh-by. Instead I replaced the Carrots with a smaller head of Kale, which is the most amazing food on earth.

2. Right after the onions were sautéed I added diced Apple Chicken Sausage (that I get at Costco or Target)

3. I didn’t have any Parsley so I did Thyme and Basil. I also did a good shaking of Red Pepper Flakes (which belong in all soups)

4. I used Fat Free Milk and Sour Cream

5. I used 3 cups of Chicken stock and 4 cups of Vegan Beef Flavored Bullion Cube stock (because that’s what I had)

Other than that I followed it to a T! And it was Perfect! And could feed a family of four for two days, or a family of two for three days! Enjoy folks!

Oh and I kinda destroyed my lightbox and its getting dark so early these days so all my pictures suck. This weekend Mr. Gaunt and I will be building a new one for me.

As a Dog.

Umm we woke up sick. We went to bed completely fine and woke up sick. This sucks. I really thought we were going to make it through the winter sans colds, apparently I was wrong. Mr. Gaunt seems to have it worse than me (unless he’s just a bigger baby) but the throats are sore and the nasal’s are a drippin’. Yuck!

We had plans today to go to the Stock Show after work (baby animals!) but instead we took a long nap. I’m bummed. We also have Liam’s 1st Birthday party tomorrow that we cant go to if were sick.  I also have plans to do a drop in hip-hop dance class with my friend Casey tomorrow that Im hoping Im up to. 

For diner we ordered soup from the chinese restaurant next door. Sweet and Sour for Mr. Gaunt and Egg Drop for me. vegetable Egg Rolls may have also been consumed. Yum.

Christmas Soup and Grilled Apple and Cheese!

Two parties down, one to go! I have tons of pics to put up, lots of things have been going on this past week (hence the limited blogging) that I want to share with you. I decided to break up the pictures into a few posts so yah don’t get bored. We are now a week away from Christmas (I know…crazy) and just two weeks left in 2009! My weight loss goal is pretty much NOT going to happen. I mean I’m sooo close, but I just don’t think I’m going to be able to lose 7 pounds in 12 days. I’m kind bummed, but its ok I worked hard and to think that I started this goal with 25 pounds to lose in three months, I’m ok with only losing about 20 of it.

Ok on to the food! YAY! Earlier this week we went to Mr. Gaunt’s mom’s house to help her decorate her tree and have a little family dinner. We really want to start doing a weekly dinner at her house (like on Gilmore Girls…Friday night dinner anyone?) in the new year, we just have to figure what day works best. This week Mr. Gaunt’s mom (we should really give her a nick name…hmm…I think I’m gonna go with Ms. G) so Ms. G recently discovered Clean Eating, one of my favorite food magazines, and decided to make the cover soup. It’s a vegetable soup with Quinoa and Chicken sausage. I tried to find the recipe on their website, but it’s not there. Maybe Ms. G will post it in the comments (wink wink) anyways it was so freaking good! Sometimes vegetable soups are a little bland, but this one was full of flavor, I loved it!

To go with the soup we had the ultimate comfort food Grilled Cheese! Of course we made it healthy with whole wheat bread and fat free cheddar, but the best part was adding thin sliced Macintosh apples into it before grilling! So good and totally changes the flavor. I will never make grilled cheese without apples again. So yeah both of these recipes are in the January/February issue of Clean Eating, go buy it!

And a sneak peek at my tree decorating post tomorrow…

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!

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!

Soups!

Vegan Potato Soup

With the weather getting colder I really would like to try some new soup recipes. I was talking to my mom today and she has been making soups for Honeymoon (her work) and I want to make some yummy ones for us too! Plus you can often freeze them and save them for lunch. Oh and I HATE 90% of all canned soups so home made is better.

Anyways here is a list of soups I would like to try soon:

-Vegan Mexican Pumpkin Soup

-Easy Vegan Potato Soup

-Weight Watchers Tortilla Soup

-Weight Watchers French Onion Soup

Im sure Ill think of more, but making lists like this helps me store recipes and make a game plan for meals. Ill of course post anything I make. Do you have any fave soup recipes? Please share!