Category Archives: soup

Mini Grocery Haul and Some Soup

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Hey everyone! Happy Sunday! Sunday is officially my favorite day of the week. I get to enjoy the laziness of it AND I still have the next day off! It doesn’t get any better than that. And today I made sure to make the most of my Sunday. By 9 am I had already made quick trips to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods and by noon I had a big pot of soup finished and ready to shove into my face ;)

First I’ll show you my small grocery haul. This was mostly stuff to fill in.

Cauliflower, mirepoix, Earth Balance sticks (for baking), Sweet Potato Tortilla Chips, Candy Cane Joe Joe’s (These are hard to find in stock so when you see them you grab them! I am going to use them in baking I’m sure), Daiya backup, zucchini, peppermint extract, medjool dates, hummus, macro sushi and potatoes.

So a little after I got home from grocery shopping I decided to not be a lazy ass and to actually make the pot of soup I was intending to make this week. Believe it or not, I’ve never actually made a home made veggie soup before so I was kind of making it up as I went along. It came out so delicious, I’m so happy with it!

Here it is simmering away on the stove. I’m a big fan of really chunky soup so I chopped up my veggies nice and large so I can actually taste them. I’m so happy with the results and I figured I’d share my recipe with you!

Chunky Veggie Soup

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil

1 large clove garlic, minced fine

2 large carrots, diced

2 large stalks celery, diced

1 large onion, diced

2 medium-large white potatoes, diced

2 medium zucchini, diced

1 small head cauliflower, chopped

1 can red beans, rinsed and drained

6 cups vegetable broth or water

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Once your oil is hot, add carrots, onions and celery.

2. Cook until translucent, 5-7 minutes then add garlic. Saute another minute or two. Add potato and cook for another 2-4 minutes.

3. Add your broth or water, salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Drop heat to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes. Add cauliflower, zucchini and beans and simmer until veggies are fork tender.

4. Ladle into bowls and enjoy!!

Check out this gorgeous, hearty bowl of soup. It’s nice and chunky, just the way I like it. You can cut everything smaller if you like but I prefer large chunks. I made mine even easier by getting the container of pre-chopped mirepoix from Trader Joe’s and just dumping it in the pot with oil to saute rather than chop everything separately.

I’m also submitting this soup recipe for Healthy Vegan Friday this week! It is a perfect recipe with Thanksgiving and some cold weather coming up :)

I hope you are all enjoying your day! I spent a little time with Delilah before and now I’m just going to relax and hang out for the rest of the day. I see some tea in my future too :)

Tomorrow is my follow up appointment at the Dr. to get my test results. I think she is also planning on doing another vitamin D test to see if 4000 iu per day is enough. Hopefully I get good results all around! I’ll let you know!

Have a great day everyone!

Sick Saturday

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Hey everyone. I woke up with the sniffles today but it wasn’t too terrible. It seems like everyone around me is sick so I guess it was inevitable. Anyway, I got my butt up and headed to the gym for 20 minutes of cardio before my training session. The session was great, pretty intense :) It’s a great feeling of accomplishment when you finish a session with a beet red face and sweat pouring down. Gross, but feels good :)

As the day went on I started to feel a bit yuckier and my appetite has been diminishing so I’m glad I got some nutritious eats down earlier when I had more of an appetite.

A big, thick green protein smoothie for my post workout breakfast. I can’t work out if I’ve eaten right before so luckily my session was early. This is the Peaches ‘n Green smoothie with frozen banana and peaches, almond milk, Vega vanilla protein powder (full serving since it was post workout) and about 2-3 cups packed spinach. It was really good.

Lunch was this snacky plate. Carrot, stuffed grape leaves, a few Mary’s Gone Crackers, some strawberries (random, I know) and some hummus. Also delicious.

For dinner I ate most of this hot and sour soup. You know something is up when you can’t taste the spice at all in hot and sour soup. And this place makes it hot!
This is the first day in a long time that I didn’t have a big green salad. I’m ok with it though, I’ve been doing pretty well with it and I’m planning on having one tomorrow. I know I haven’t eaten enough so hopefully I’ll get a little hungry later so I can have a snack. If I do have a snack it’ll either be a piece of avocado toast, some fingerling potatoes or some air popped popcorn. We’ll see what I’m in the mood for!
Tonight I’ll be resting and watching the prelims for the UFC fights. I’m actually really really bummed that I can’t see the main event (stupid $50 PPV) because I’ve been looking forward to it. Hopefully I’ll be able to track it down because it is going to be a great fight hopefully! 
Hope you all enjoy your Saturday night!

Saturday Eats and Treats!

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Hey everyone! Happy Saturday :) I had a crazy morning and afternoon and now I’m just relaxing in my warm pjs under my covers watching fights ALL EVENING leading up to the free fights on Fox tonight. I’m very excited! It is rare that I get to see a main event because I refuse to pay $50 for PPV every few weeks so I always make sure I get to check them out when they do the free events.

I woke up early today and was at the gym by 7:45 am. I got in 45 minutes of cardio then came home, took a quick shower, made my breakfast and finished up my boss’ birthday cake.  Today was his birthday and I always make the cake for an office birthday (except mine ha!) and I had such a cute idea for his!  Check it out!

It’s a sandwich birthday cake! I made the cake and frosting last night and cut up the strawberries. All I had to do this morning was put it altogether. Prepping everything ahead made all the difference because I knew I would be tight on time.

I decorated it to look like a cream cheese and strawberry sandwich. The cake is Isa’s vanilla cake recipe from VCTOTW in the sandwich bread mold and baked for about 55 minutes. The frosting is the basic vanilla frosting from VCTOTW and the fresh strawberries were gorgeous and super sweet. I didn’t partake in the cake because it obviously wasn’t gluten free but it was definitely a big hit!
So now that you saw what I didn’t get to eat, let’s check out what I did eat :)
Breakfast was another sludgy looking green smoothie. This one had a small frozen banana, the rest of the strawberries from the cake (about 7?), some Vega chocolate protein powder, a cup of almond milk and a big ol’ handful of fresh spinach. It was really good but I almost regret using the strawberries in there because they were so sweet and delicious and fresh but they got lost in the smoothie. Oh well, you live and learn.

I was starving when I got home from work so I made some avocado toast and cut up a HUGE carrot. It was so good.
After lunch I snacked on two stuffed grape leaves and a tbsp of hummus. Sorry no pic!
I went for close ups of my dinner :)
Small chopped salad.

Some veggie soup…from a can unfortunately but sometimes convenience wins. It was still good though!
Hope you had a great Saturday! I’m so tired from the craziness from this morning, I’m definitely looking forward to having tomorrow off! Enjoy your night!

A Few Meals

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Hey everyone! Sorry I didn’t post yesterday. It was my first day back at work, it was a ten hour day and I came home with a headache. No bueno. Today was much better, I’m feeling a lot better now and no headache! Yay!

Check out a few of the meals I’ve consumed over the past few days.

Swiss chard wrap! This one has hummus, sun dried tomatoes, carrots and mung bean sprouts. I read in CSD that these sprouts are SUPER good for you so I snatched them up from the store and have been adding them to everything.

Trader Joe’s minestrone and an apple makes a quick lunch.

Now THIS is a smoothie I can get behind! This is the Carrot Cake Smoothie by Angela at Oh She Glows. It was SO delicious! It is a veggie smoothie I can get behind. I made a few adjustments. I used 2 carrots instead of one, used the flax seeds instead of chia, didn’t use protein powder because I don’t have vanilla and I blended a tablespoon of shredded coconut right into the smoothie. It was amazing and I was able to enjoy a veggie smoothie :)

Chopped salad. This one has greens, mung bean sprouts, carrots, cucumbers and sun dried tomatoes. Very delicious.
I’m not gonna lie, I was quite sad when I was supposed to be at my training session today. Even just taking a week off is a major bummer for me, but I know it is really important for me to rest until I’m all better, then I can hit the gym hard again. Can’t wait :)
Hope you all had a good couple of days!

This Is What I Eat: The Bronchitis Edition

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Hey everyone. I’m still stuck at home in bed, wah. I’m dragging my butt to work tomorrow though so hopefully getting back in the routine will help to snap me out of it instead of draining my energy.  I only took photos of my food I’ve been eating while I was sick when I remembered or wasn’t too lazy, which wasn’t often. Luckily, I’ve been craving super clean, healthy and nutritious foods. I’m sure it is my body’s way of trying to combat the sickness as well as the antibiotics I’m on. Yuck.

I grazed on these veggie rolls throughout the day yesterday.

“Hearty Minestrone Soup” from Trader Joe’s. I love that they use brown rice instead of pasta making it gluten free. I’m going to get three servings out of this one, I’ll probably eat the last of it tomorrow at work.

Lots of fresh fruit including this bowl of orange segments and some grapes.  
Some unpictured food includes veggies and hummus and some gluten free crackers, lots of herbal tea and some green tea. I’ve been grazing mostly since my appetite is lower but I’ve been making sure to eat some nutritious foods so I can get my energy back.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to deal with the cleanse that got interrupted by getting sick. I kind of feel like it is silly to just pick up again after a brief hiatus and I don’t want to start over again. I think for now what I’m going to do is basically adopt a lot of the lifestyle and then make some adjustments to a few aspects of it. Then, in the spring, I’ll do the full cleanse again, by the book.  
This is my round up of my week on the Crazy Sexy Diet Cleanse:
Caffeine – This was undoubtedly going to be the hardest thing for me to give up. I was clearly addicted and suffered the withdrawals but I am so proud to say I got through it and I’m still planning on maintaining a caffeine free lifestyle. I can’t promise that I won’t have a cup of coffee from time to time, but it certainly won’t be often, and it will ALWAYS be decaf. I’m totally hooked on herbal and green tea!
Green Smoothies – This was another difficult one for me, especially in the winter. I had a hard time coming up with a good combination because I tend to like sweeter smoothies so what I decided to do was to start making drinking smoothies a habit and then work on the fruit:veggie ratio. I’ll start by adding a handful of spinach to smoothies and then work on adding more and more greens and less fruit. I think that easing into it will make me more likely to maintain it for the long run. I won’t drink smoothies EVERY day, but I definitely understand the idea of easing into your day by drinking your first meal so I’ll do my best to work them in often.
High Raw Diet – This will be the part of the diet that I can dive into. I think I’ve been doing a good job with this aspect of it and I think that I just need to carry it forward. This doesn’t mean I won’t indulge in a cooked comfort meal from time to time, but I’ll know to balance it out and you better believe a green smoothie would follow it up ;) I’ll be aiming for the 60-80% raw that Carr suggests.
I’m also hoping to keep up the few minutes of yoga per day I’ve been doing. It helps me to get relaxed ad it just feels really good and peaceful.
I’m not going to lie, it was difficult for me to decide to stop the cleanse instead of start it back up. I’m definitely not someone that gives up on things but I just really don’t feel like I’m doing it justice if I just start back up after a few days off. I think that I’d rather work on adopting these things into my every day life as opposed to doing it for 21 days and then going back to drinking coffee and eating fewer veggies and whatnot. It makes sense in my head I guess, but my head is also foggy right now ;) I think this is the right way to go about it and I’m excited about it. I can’t wait to share my journey with all of you too. You’ve all been incredibly supportive and I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you by this decision.
OK, I’m going to go relax for a bit. Thank you all so much for your support and kind words. XO

Sunday Sunday Sunday!

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Well everyone, this is it. My last day before starting the Crazy Sexy Adventure Cleanse for 21 days and possibly adopting a new lifestyle. They say it takes 3 weeks to create new habits so maybe this cleanse is exactly what I need to get in the wellness game for good.

As planned I started off my day shopping for groceries and also a water filter. I know I know, I should have had a water filter all along, but it just was never something I really gave much thought to. I decided that if I was going to do this cleanse I needed to really dive in which mean getting a filter.

I didn’t take a picture of my groceries because I was a little overwhelmed by them! First, it was really great, about 70% of my groceries were green :) I expected my bill to be HUGE but it was pretty much exactly the same as my regular shopping. The only difference is I walked out with twice as much stuff. Go figure!

Since I didn’t take a pic, I figured I’d list out what I got so you can get an idea of my haul (everything organic):
4 stalks of broccoli, 1 bunch green swiss chard, 1 container mesclun greens, 1 huge container of baby spinach, 8 carrots, 4 zucchini, 3 english cucumbers, 2 avocados, 7 carrots, 1 lg bunch basil, 7 limes, 3 lemons, 3 heads garlic (small), 1 package shiitake mushrooms, 4 pears, raw agave, toasted sesame oil and a small container of mellow white miso.

Yeah, that’s a lot of produce! I can’t wait to cram it in my face ;)

So, now that you have a little peek of what’s to come, let’s check out what I ate on this last day before my cleanse:

For breakfast I had two of my Carrot Cake Pancakes and a banana.

For lunch I finished the last of my veggie soup and blurred out in the background is a slice of millet toast with mashed avocado. This was a really great meal.
For an afternoon snack I had my Cashew Cranberry Orange Zing Bar and decided to try some herbal tea. The lovely Isobelle included some Sweet and Spicy Herbal Tea in my Vegan Care Package and for some reason I forgot about it until now. I know herbal teas are good for you so I decided to give this one a try. OMG it is so good! It is certainly sweet and certainly spicy so drinking it straight up was perfect. I feel like if I added almond milk it would make a lovely chai latte substitute. Hmmm, I like the sound of that! The Zing bar also had a nice flavor…a nice citrus punch and it is much lighter than the rich chocolate coconut flavor. It also has a lovely texture from brown rice crisps that they add. It is very good but I’d probably favor the Chocolate Coconut over this one.
For dinner I had my leftover moo shoo veggies. Very delicious.
OK everyone, that’s all I’ve got. Starting tomorrow it’s alkaline city. I’m actually really excited about it, and I hope that it’ll help me stay healthy and heal quickly. I’m always sore after workouts for longer than I should be and it takes me forever to heal from cuts and bruises. I have 3 bruises that are a week and a half old on my arm that still have a few days left. Totally ridiculous.
Hope you all had a lovely weekend. I’ll check in tomorrow with my Day 1 eats. Expect a lot of green ;)

Happy Friday!

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Hey everyone!! We made it through another work week. I’m very excited for my mostly shut in weekend coming up. I say mostly because I’ll still go to the gym tomorrow morning but after that, it’s hibernation time! Very stoked.

Let’s check out my Friday eats!

For breakfast I had some Carrot Cake Pancakes I made the other day. I put all the leftovers in the freezer so I’ll eat it probably one more time before the cleanse and then I’ll save the rest of a treat after. Served them up with an orange…my last one! I’ve read that lemon, lime and grapefruit, although acidic, actually have an alkalizing effect on the body. No word on oranges though. Anyone know?
Here is an Instagram pic of my midmorning snack. I’m trying to be smart this time and I’m weaning myself off of the coffee rather than going cold turkey. I had a small coffee (half regular half decaf) and a pear. Hopefully three days of weaning will be good enough because that is what makes me the most nervous!
My lunch was very random but consisted of exactly what I wanted so I had a slice of gf millet toast with avocado and some stuffed grape leaves with hummus. Very delicious!
After lunch I decided to do my nails. I don’t paint them often enough at all and I got tired of looking at naked nails. I would say 7 out of 10 times I paint them I end up taking the polish off because I become too impatient to let them dry and mess them up. This time they survived! The color looks a little more red in the bottle and brown on but I still like the way it looks :)

After my nails dried I decided to have a Zing Protein Bar in the Chocolate Coconut flavor. It was really really delicious. It tasted like a candy bar and not a protein bar. This is the perfect alternative to the Vega Protein Bar since it is the same exact flavor and I can NEVER find the Vega Bar. Yum! I’ll have to remember this as an occasional treat after my cleanse. 
Dinner was another bowl of that delicious soup from last night. I switched bowls so you could tell I took a new pic ;) Just as delicious tonight! One serving left…will I eat it tomorrow or Sunday? Riveting cliffhanger, I’m sure.
I have only read a few parts of Crazy Sexy Diet (I plan on reading it through this weekend) and I’m completely inspired. Her story is amazing and really truly inspiring. I know that green smoothies are going to be my breakfast for the 21 days so I’ve been looking up alkaline green smoothie recipes and collecting them so I can have a little variety over the three weeks. It is going to be difficult for me to drink my breakfast for 21 days so I figured as long as I have a little variety it’ll be a little easier. I’ll share the recipes as I try them. I found a few that sound really good so I’m excited to try them. I’ll probably stick to spinach as my greens of choice but maybe I’ll be bold enough to try kale eventually.
I should be back to check in throughout the weekend! I hope you all have a really lovely weekend. I plan on resting and cleaning….then resting again ;) Enjoy!

Thursday, January 5!

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Sorry everyone, I couldn’t think of a title so I just went with the date :) I’m so glad it is Thursday! I made the conscious decision to take this weekend and basically not leave the house after the gym Saturday morning. I’m going to start my big cleaning and just relax. I’ll go to the gym as soon as it opens in the morning, then I’m taking the weekend completely off. I can’t wait!

Let’s check out the food!

For breakfast I had this big, beautiful bowl of oats. This one is oats, cinnamon, raisins, walnuts and coconut. SO GOOD!
Midmorning snack was an unpictured pear.
Lunch was stuffed grape leaves, carrots and hummus. Yum.
After my workout I made a protein shake and just drank it out of the mini blender cup. The all natural pea protein powder I got is not very tasty so I just try to get it down quickly. We did weight training today so it was a must.
Dinner was some veggie soup out of my gorgeous measuring bowl turned soup vessel ;)

Finally, I found an old gift card that still had money on it so I decided to treat myself to Crazy Sexy Diet by Kris Carr. I’ve wanted to read this book for a while. I have the general idea that your body should be alkaline (but I don’t know HOW) and that you should be gluten free (which I am for the most part) and low glycemic (again don’t know HOW) so I decided that this book will help. I hate that I get sick so easily so I decided to see what this book had to say and maybe I’ll try the 21 day cleanse she discusses. I’m not going to lie, I bought pH testing strips already so I can see what the difference is from beginning to end. I’ve been inspired by Bianca of Vegan Crunk to give it a try. I’m going to read the book this weekend and hopefully be ready to give it a go by Monday. We’ll see :)
Hope your week is going quickly! Happy Friday tomorrow!

Detox Week 3 and a Birthday!

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Hi everyone! I hope you are all doing well. Been feeling pretty good until I started to get really bad back spasms this evening. It’s kind of a bummer but I’m starting to just kind of get used to it…so I deal with it and then move on. It kind of stinks because it can get really painful but you just have to power through I guess.

I only have pics of 2 of my meals today.

For breakfast I had some more oatmeal. I cooked 1/3 cup of oats in 1 and 1/3 cups of water (the good ol’ volume trick! look at how much it cooks up!) and mixed it with ground flaxseeds, cinnamon, banana and walnuts. I read somewhere that the way you cook your oats determines the texture. I usually add my oats to boiling water and it tends to come out clumpy and dry. I like creamy oatmeal and I could never figure out why mine never cooked up creamy. Then I read that if you add your oats to the water first then bring them to a boil together it’ll end up creamy. I tried it today and it was amazing! Super creamy and delicious, this is the way I’m definitely going to cook my oats from now on! I wish I could credit the person that wrote about it, but I don’t remember who it was!
For lunch I had a small container of rice and beans and veggies from the deli next door.
I went to my brother’s house today to celebrate my niece’s first birthday. I can’t believe it has been a year :) They all ate pizza and I ended up with some split pea soup (I found vegan at the deli near his house where I get my chopped salads!) and a little tangy cucumber salad. Very delicious.
So I want to introduce you to my gorgeous niece :) Her name is Delilah.
I can’t even deal with how cute she is. We thought it would be hilarious if we put the giant cupcake in front of her and it definitely was :X I’m the only vegan in the family so the cake was not vegan but it was just so cute I had to show this to you!

This was the aftermath of the cupcake massacre of 2011. She’s the best little peanut. Love this kid :D

Vegan MoFo Day 29: Snow Day and Some Changes

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Hello Chickadees <3 First of all, I just want to thank you all so much for your support and well wishes for me. Unfortunately the journey to figuring out what is going on with my should hasn't even begun because I'm still looking for a primary care physician. I doubt I'll have any tests done for at least a month. It is really upsetting and really frustrating but I just have to make sure I stay diligent in my search for doctors and for answers. This has been going on for years and I doubt it'll ever really get better. For now, I think it is a matter of learning how to live with it and how to maintain the most comfort possible while still participating in activities that I love. 
My body has been rebelling against me. I’ve been feeling crappy, never completely getting over my illnesses, my shoulder is flaring up and I am just tired and in bad spirits. I don’t like feeling this way. I’ve decided that for the month of November, I’m going to do a 30 day cleanse. It will be a repeat of the cleanse I did when I decided to go gluten free. For the first two weeks to completely clean my system I completely took all grains, starchy veggies and added sugars from my diet. I ate mostly fruits, veggies, beans, nuts, seeds, and a little tofu. It was clean clean clean. After two weeks I felt phenomenal, I had energy and just felt so much better. I added back some grains (obviously gf grains only) mostly in the form of oats and brown rice and tried to limit it. This was for another two weeks. Then I started to use a little more of the added sugars such as maple syrup, etc. Recently with all of the baking I’ve been doing and because of my schedule I’ve eaten more processed food, gluten and sugar than I like so starting on Tuesday I’m ridding my body of the crap and getting back on track.
I found these two photos and they are truly inspiring…they are so beautiful and vibrant and they make me crave fresh produce!!


   
I’ve got a major hunch that my shoulder issues have stemmed from a pinched nerve somewhere. I’m not sure where but I just really believe that’s what it is. I’ve read that posture is key in maintaining comfort with pinched nerves and I know that yoga helps with posture so much. I’m going to try and practice for at least an hour every other day and hopefully the combination of stretching and proper posture will help alleviate it. In addition, over the next two weeks I won’t be hitting anything, just working on core and lower body. I’ll probably only cut down to 2 sessions a week while I have to limit my workouts and then use the other days to focus on yoga and cardio.
It is a really yucky day here in NY. Heavy wet snow is coming down and it is just ugly. I went to the studio to do some work for a few hours and then I just came home to relax. I’m in warm pjs relaxing in bed with tea watching old UFC fights in a UFC Unleashed marathon on Spike. It is an ugly day, but it is a perfect day to rest enjoy a day inside. Now, lets check out the food!
For a snow day treat I enjoyed this slice of GF Carrot Spice Oat Bread and a mug of spearmint tea. It was the perfect treat! I warmed up the bread and the warmth of the spices were really lovely on this chilly day.
To continue the theme of warming from the inside out, I had a bowl of hot and sour soup. Check out all of the chili flakes! Super spicy and delicious :)
Just as a reminder, you can vote in the second round of the Holiday Baking Bracket until midnight tomorrow – Sunday, October 30! Get those votes in! The final round is approaching!
Stay warm and dry everyone and travel safe!