Yummmmm!
I just ate two bowls of the best vegetable soup ever! So easy to make and super delicious. I'll include the recipe at the end of the post. :)
My family got together at the beginning of this month, and the one thing we all got out of the gathering is that our whole family (almost) is grossly overweight. It's sadface, but true. So my aunt that lives in Illinois decided that we should all do a Biggest Loser-style competition to see who could lose the most weight between now and Thanksgiving. We're weighing in weekly and everybody (except myself and my cousin Ann) contributed $125 bucks to the prize money, which adds up to over 500 bucks to buy new clothes at the end of the competition. \o/
Anywho, the point of all that is that my whole family is pretty preoccupied with counting calories and portion sizes and general healthy eating. Which means that we're finding new recipes and eating a fucking ton of raw veggies, lol. My mom and I made Vietnamese spring rolls with chicken and shrimp for dinner last night, and they ended up at about 40 calories apiece. This veggie soup from tonight was 80 calories for 1 cup (about 1.5-2 cups per bowl) and it was really filling and super cheap/easy to make.
I'm also finding that I'm learning a lot about my food habits. I have two different eating styles that I go back and forth between. The first one is eating anything that's around (usually sweets and junk food), eating too much of it because I'm bored and eating is the best diversion around. The second is that I will go for hours and hours, whole days even, without eating anything or eating very little. Then when I finally do eat, I go overboard and eat way too much. I have a hard time resisting fast food and drive thrus especially trip me up. Right now, I'm feeling deprived of my Diet Dr. Pepper, but that's just because I'm super broke and can't afford them, haha. I tend to eat too many sweets if they're readily available, and I neglect the veggies unless somebody puts them in front of me. I forget that a couple pieces of lettuce on a sandwich does not count for my entire daily allotment of vegetables.
My solutions have included individually packaged string cheese, tiny little mandarin oranges (you can eat like, 4! almost no calories!), baby carrots, sliced cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes. I can grab a handful of any of those, except the string cheese, and munch for a while, and it keeps me from eating the bad stuff because I'm bored. It also really helps to keep the bad stuff out of the house. Find a sweet that doesn't kill you with the calories and allow yourself to have some. If you absolutely feel the urge to eat something bad, JUST DO IT! I've never really been a person that feels guilty about eating, unless I go crazy and absolutely gorge myself, so I don't really understand this crazy expectation that you shouldn't ever eat anything good when you're dieting. That just doesn't make sense to me. All things in moderation is quickly becoming my motto, so if I'm craving a cheeseburger, then I'm gonna eat a junior cheeseburger from Wendy's with extra lettuce, tomatoes, and onion, and not feel like a cheater. Keep the portions small and eat frequently, that's my advice.
In news that is unrelated to food, I went to Cobra Starship on Saturday with Katie and Juanita while most of my other friends were in Chicago seeing the Fall Out Boys and Panic. I got to the venue around 10am and chilled with Juanita for a couple of hours until Katie fiiiiiinally showed up. LOL, I can't be to hard on her though, she had a really rough night of boozing and dancing with the band the night before. XD
Anyways, the show was kinda weird, tbh. There was a kinda shitty DJ that opened up and did two whole boring, mind-numbing sets, then The Friday Night Boys (who were unimpressive), and The Audition. The Audition was actually pretty darn good from what I could hear, but the lead singer was super excessively sweaty and he felt the need to shove his crotch in my face a lot, and the bassist was adorable with a super curly jewfro, but he got really really into the music and didn't pay attention to me and Juanita ducking to avoid his bass hitting us in the head, lol. When Cobras FINALLY came on, they were fucking on! Gabe sounded really good, and JFC Suarez was a GQMF for real. I've seen them a dozen times and I've never seen him get that into it! Plus, he got a haircut recently and it looks hot as fuck. I was standing between Suarez and Vicky-T, so I missed 90% of the Gabe action, but I got crushed by all the douchebags that wanted to fondle Vicky-T and give her bandanas and their belts. >:| Back off, motherfucker, or I will cut you next time. >:(
After the show, Katie, Juanita, and I decided to hang out and get some photos/signatures. We found Suarez first, then Ryland and Nate, and sometime around then, Gabe came out. He was pretty immediately swarmed by kids, so Mattbro herded everybody over to a different part of the parking lot. The different part of the parking lot ended up being Gabe sitting on the back of Juanita's car and everyone clustering around him! So we ended up sticking around until everybody was finished with Gabe. We sat in Juanita's car and blasted some Gym Class Heroes (it was hilarious to watch Gabe shake his ass while talking to 12 year olds, jsyk) until everybody was gone and it was our turn.
Gabe was really sweet and he definitely wanted our opinion about the album. He asked what all our fav songs were, and seemed disappointed when nobody mentioned Nice Guys Finish Last as a favorite. :( Poor Gabe, we don't love his favorite song as much as he loves his favorite song. XD
All in all, it was a great night. Tons of fun and the sunburn was only mild, lol.
Hahaha, after all that talk about food and dieting, I'm planning on making a sweet-ass cookies and cream cake to take to Austin tomorrow. It's arielchan's birthday (almost) and we're gonna go out and drink a lot. Cake first, though, because I'm not gonna let my masterpiece get smushed up by a bunch of drunks, lmao!
So, here's the recipe for the soup if anybody wants it.
:Quick and Easy Vegetable Soup:
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cups onion, chopped
1 cup celery, sliced thin
4 cloves of garlic, minced
4 tsp Italian seasoning
salt and pepper to taste
2 32 ounce boxes of chicken broth (you can use low sodium or vegetable broth if you want)
3 cups of water
2 14.5 ounce cans of diced tomatoes
4 tsp tomato paste
2 zucchini, sliced
15 baby red potatoes, chopped into bite-sized pieces
8 cups of frozen mixed vegetables
Directions:
In a large stock pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat, add the onions, celery, garlic, italian seasoning and cook until the onions are translucent.
Add the chicken broth, water, tomatoes (with the juice), and tomato paste and bring the mixture to a boil. Once it has reached a boil, turn the heat down to low and simmer for 20-25 minutes.
After 20-ish minutes of simmering, add the vegetables to the liquid and cook for roughly 25 minutes, or until the potatoes are cooked tender, add the salt and pepper to taste, then dish up a bowl and enjoy!
My family got together at the beginning of this month, and the one thing we all got out of the gathering is that our whole family (almost) is grossly overweight. It's sadface, but true. So my aunt that lives in Illinois decided that we should all do a Biggest Loser-style competition to see who could lose the most weight between now and Thanksgiving. We're weighing in weekly and everybody (except myself and my cousin Ann) contributed $125 bucks to the prize money, which adds up to over 500 bucks to buy new clothes at the end of the competition. \o/
Anywho, the point of all that is that my whole family is pretty preoccupied with counting calories and portion sizes and general healthy eating. Which means that we're finding new recipes and eating a fucking ton of raw veggies, lol. My mom and I made Vietnamese spring rolls with chicken and shrimp for dinner last night, and they ended up at about 40 calories apiece. This veggie soup from tonight was 80 calories for 1 cup (about 1.5-2 cups per bowl) and it was really filling and super cheap/easy to make.
I'm also finding that I'm learning a lot about my food habits. I have two different eating styles that I go back and forth between. The first one is eating anything that's around (usually sweets and junk food), eating too much of it because I'm bored and eating is the best diversion around. The second is that I will go for hours and hours, whole days even, without eating anything or eating very little. Then when I finally do eat, I go overboard and eat way too much. I have a hard time resisting fast food and drive thrus especially trip me up. Right now, I'm feeling deprived of my Diet Dr. Pepper, but that's just because I'm super broke and can't afford them, haha. I tend to eat too many sweets if they're readily available, and I neglect the veggies unless somebody puts them in front of me. I forget that a couple pieces of lettuce on a sandwich does not count for my entire daily allotment of vegetables.
My solutions have included individually packaged string cheese, tiny little mandarin oranges (you can eat like, 4! almost no calories!), baby carrots, sliced cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes. I can grab a handful of any of those, except the string cheese, and munch for a while, and it keeps me from eating the bad stuff because I'm bored. It also really helps to keep the bad stuff out of the house. Find a sweet that doesn't kill you with the calories and allow yourself to have some. If you absolutely feel the urge to eat something bad, JUST DO IT! I've never really been a person that feels guilty about eating, unless I go crazy and absolutely gorge myself, so I don't really understand this crazy expectation that you shouldn't ever eat anything good when you're dieting. That just doesn't make sense to me. All things in moderation is quickly becoming my motto, so if I'm craving a cheeseburger, then I'm gonna eat a junior cheeseburger from Wendy's with extra lettuce, tomatoes, and onion, and not feel like a cheater. Keep the portions small and eat frequently, that's my advice.
In news that is unrelated to food, I went to Cobra Starship on Saturday with Katie and Juanita while most of my other friends were in Chicago seeing the Fall Out Boys and Panic. I got to the venue around 10am and chilled with Juanita for a couple of hours until Katie fiiiiiinally showed up. LOL, I can't be to hard on her though, she had a really rough night of boozing and dancing with the band the night before. XD
Anyways, the show was kinda weird, tbh. There was a kinda shitty DJ that opened up and did two whole boring, mind-numbing sets, then The Friday Night Boys (who were unimpressive), and The Audition. The Audition was actually pretty darn good from what I could hear, but the lead singer was super excessively sweaty and he felt the need to shove his crotch in my face a lot, and the bassist was adorable with a super curly jewfro, but he got really really into the music and didn't pay attention to me and Juanita ducking to avoid his bass hitting us in the head, lol. When Cobras FINALLY came on, they were fucking on! Gabe sounded really good, and JFC Suarez was a GQMF for real. I've seen them a dozen times and I've never seen him get that into it! Plus, he got a haircut recently and it looks hot as fuck. I was standing between Suarez and Vicky-T, so I missed 90% of the Gabe action, but I got crushed by all the douchebags that wanted to fondle Vicky-T and give her bandanas and their belts. >:| Back off, motherfucker, or I will cut you next time. >:(
After the show, Katie, Juanita, and I decided to hang out and get some photos/signatures. We found Suarez first, then Ryland and Nate, and sometime around then, Gabe came out. He was pretty immediately swarmed by kids, so Mattbro herded everybody over to a different part of the parking lot. The different part of the parking lot ended up being Gabe sitting on the back of Juanita's car and everyone clustering around him! So we ended up sticking around until everybody was finished with Gabe. We sat in Juanita's car and blasted some Gym Class Heroes (it was hilarious to watch Gabe shake his ass while talking to 12 year olds, jsyk) until everybody was gone and it was our turn.
Gabe was really sweet and he definitely wanted our opinion about the album. He asked what all our fav songs were, and seemed disappointed when nobody mentioned Nice Guys Finish Last as a favorite. :( Poor Gabe, we don't love his favorite song as much as he loves his favorite song. XD
All in all, it was a great night. Tons of fun and the sunburn was only mild, lol.
Hahaha, after all that talk about food and dieting, I'm planning on making a sweet-ass cookies and cream cake to take to Austin tomorrow. It's arielchan's birthday (almost) and we're gonna go out and drink a lot. Cake first, though, because I'm not gonna let my masterpiece get smushed up by a bunch of drunks, lmao!
So, here's the recipe for the soup if anybody wants it.
:Quick and Easy Vegetable Soup:
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cups onion, chopped
1 cup celery, sliced thin
4 cloves of garlic, minced
4 tsp Italian seasoning
salt and pepper to taste
2 32 ounce boxes of chicken broth (you can use low sodium or vegetable broth if you want)
3 cups of water
2 14.5 ounce cans of diced tomatoes
4 tsp tomato paste
2 zucchini, sliced
15 baby red potatoes, chopped into bite-sized pieces
8 cups of frozen mixed vegetables
Directions:
In a large stock pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat, add the onions, celery, garlic, italian seasoning and cook until the onions are translucent.
Add the chicken broth, water, tomatoes (with the juice), and tomato paste and bring the mixture to a boil. Once it has reached a boil, turn the heat down to low and simmer for 20-25 minutes.
After 20-ish minutes of simmering, add the vegetables to the liquid and cook for roughly 25 minutes, or until the potatoes are cooked tender, add the salt and pepper to taste, then dish up a bowl and enjoy!