How Life is Stacked Up

I officially got through my first week of going back to undergrad!! My brain is definitely not used to having to absorb all this information anymore and my note taking skills are a little rusty, but I am definitely excited!!!!

So here is how life is currently stacked up:

The top is how my time is spent and the bottom is how I saved time by making massive amounts of soup and freezing them before school started.

Well, my free time is up! It's time to get my workout done and charge back into school work head first!

Add a Little Zing to Your Winter Soup!

Since we moved to New Mexico, it has definitely been a little chilly! It even snowed twice and it's still snowing today. We are loving it! Since the temperatures have been low, I thought I'd bring up the heat in the kitchen with this spicy and delicious soup.

If you and your eating companions aren't a huge fan of spicy food, I'd use a Serrano chile instead of a jalapeño.

Picante Pepper Bisque

Ingredients:
1 medium green bell pepper - seeded and diced
3 medium sized red bell peppers - seeded and diced
1 jalapeño or serrano chile - seeded and diced
1 large onion - finely chopped
Pinch of paprika
1/2 cup cooked basmati rice
4 cups defatted chicken or vegetable broth
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
salt

Method:
Combine the peppers, chile, onion, paprika, rice, and broth in a large soup pot over medium heat. Bring this to a boil.

When it comes to a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low and partially cover the soup pot. Simmer until the vegetables and rice are completely tender.

Either transfer the soup to a food processor or blender or use an immersion blender in the soup pot. Process the soup until it is smooth. (If you immersion blend in the soup pot, make sure to remove from heat first).

Return the soup to medium-low heat until the soup is reheated.

Salt to taste.

Enjoy this soup with some crusty bread - I made sesame whole wheat bread to go with ours

On another totally separate note, you should all head over to One Fine Day, a blog written by a fellow AF wife. She's having a giveaway of these adorable chalkboard tags. Apart from the tags, her blog is just amazing and worth a visit (or a lot of visits)! Go here for her giveaway.

Warming Up a Cold Night with Green Chile Pork Stew

This recipe is pretty simple, delicious, and low cost. After buying my ingredients, I think it comes out to about $3.00 a serving. That is pretty good! It also tasted great reheated the next day.

If you think this is great, be excited for my Kale Pasta recipe going up later this week. We ate it tonight and I will just say, health food never tasted so delicious!

Green Chile Pork Stew
Ingredients:
1 lb. pork tenderloin
salt and ground black pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
3 7 oz pkg frozen pearl barley, carrots, and snap peas in olive oil sauce
2 4.5 oz cans of green chiles
1 tsp ground cumin
1/4 c. chopped fresh cilantro

Method:
Cut pork into 1/4" pieces. Sprinkle lightly with slat and pepper.

In a dutch oven or thick bottomed soup pot heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add pork and cook for 4 to 5 minutes or until browned.

Stir in 2 packages of the thawed vegetables, chiles, cumin, and half the cilantro.

In a blender, combine the remaining packet of vegetables, 1 c. water, and the remaining cilantro. Process until smooth.

Add pureed vegetables to pork. Bring to a simmer. Cook, covered, over medium heat for about 15 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Enjoy!

**This goes great with crusty, warmed up bread!

A great soup for a chilly day!

Cold and lonely weather down south!

I can't believe it's already been so long since my last post! I know because today is the next Siesta verse posting day. If you're interested in Beth Moore's Bible Memory verse challenge, you can check it out here. My verse for today is Ephesians 3:20-21
"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen."
I love this verse because it always reminds me that when we are seeking God's will for our lives, he WILL deliver more than we can ask for or imagine. So amazing, so reassuring, and a little scary!

This last week, I was a little lonely as hubs went off to Naval Air Station Pensacola for Water Survival Training. He was really looking forward to it, but ended up not enjoying it as much as he had hoped. It wasn't because it was too difficult, but because the South had a terrible cold stretch last week. One of the days he was out on the ocean, the air temperature was on 35 degrees! That is chilly! I was very happy to drive up to San Antonio on Friday to pick WM up at the airport. Hopefully he'll have a start date for his 3rd phase of training sometime next week!

I wanted to welcome hubs home with an exciting and delicious meal. Since it was still pretty chilly in Corpus Christi (A note to all my CO friends and family. I know that my upper 30's and low 40's weather  is not cold in comparison to your cold. Unfortunately for me, my body has acclimated to warm weather after almost two years in Texas. With 8 months of the year in my border town in the 100's, you start to get chilly pretty easy...) I opted for a luxurious soup. I made Pumpkin, Cheddar, and Chipotle Soup. It was delicious! The recipe is from the Rachael Ray Website and can be found here. I used canned pumpkin for my soup since our local grocery stores are no longer carrying fresh pumpkins. It was perfect soup to help warm WM up!

Warm Soup on a Cold Day

For dessert, I made a decadent Dark Chocolate Bundt Cake. That recipe can be found here.

Who says no to this kind of chocolatey goodness?

My first Run for the Bling of It  run is this coming Saturday. It's a pretty informal 5k put on by the Corpus Christi Roadrunners. I'm pretty excited to be kicking this 12 month challenge off!

My running buddy Alli is rocking out running (like usual) and I am hanging on. Right now it looks like we're both on the way to getting our January presents (exciting!)!

One of the best new parts of Corpus Christi we've discovered is the farmer's market. It's every Saturday at 9 am in the morning. It's definitely small, but there is a ton of great produce. Hubs and I have decided to choose a random veggie every time we go and figure out how to use it when we get home. Today  we bought:

Kale and Cilantro

The cilantro is easy to use. It actually went into a soup tonight. The kale is its own challenge. We found a recipe for kale chips and a kale in pasta recipe. We're giving both a try this week. It's almost sad to eat such a pretty veggie.

Look at those pretty ruffles!

This is post is going on forever, so I think I'll wrap it up here!

More Delicious Soup (Because it's fall and fall is soup time)

After many years of living in CO, I used to take seasons for granted. Now that I live in my tiny border town where it is still over 100 degrees in September, I have come to miss the change of season. My favorite season change is summer to fall. I love everything about fall. I love the smells, the tastes, and colors.
So, in honor of fall (even if it was 95 degrees out when I made this) I am posting a delicious fall soup recipe.

Minestra of Squash and Rice with Sage



Ingredients:
2 tsp Olive Oil
1 medium size onion, finely chopped
4 ribs celery, trimmed and finely chopped
4 carrots, finely chopped
1 lb of seasonal squash (I used butter nut squash) - peeled, seeded, and cut into 1/2 inch dice
5 cups chicken or vegetable broth (I used chicken)
1 cup Arborio or other short grained white rice
Salt and pepper
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1 large sage leaf, finely chopped or 2 tsp dried sage

Method:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cover baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray aluminum foil with non stick cooking spray
Cut squash in half and remove seeds.
Place inside facing down on the baking sheet and bake for 40 min or until you can poke a fork through the outside with ease. Remove after baking and let cool. After the squash is cool, peel skin off and cut dice according to ingredient directions.

Heat oil in a heavy soup pan over medium high heat.
Add onion, carrot, celery, and squash and cook, stirring often until they begin to soften (2-3 minutes).
Add broth and bring to a boil.
Stir in rice and cook, stirring frequently to keep it from sticking to the pan, until the rice is tender (about 20 minutes).
Season with salt and pepper to taste. Stir in parsley and sage.
Serve immediately!!

Makes 6 servings

Nutritional info per serving:
129 calories
2.3 grams of fat




***One of my favorite parts of soup is having leftovers. I label a gallon size plastic bag, pour in cooled extra soup and freeze. To make the soup fit better in my freezer, I put the bags flat on their sides on a small baking sheet and freeze on the baking sheet. This freezes them flat so they go in the side of the freezer like files!

Yum! I can now eat more than soup!

My mouth healed up great. Look at my wisdom teeth, they are huge!

Adapt, Substitute, and Enjoy!

Living and cooking in my border town always seems to present one challenging situation after another. One major challenge over the last year has been trying to find all the ingredients in my recipes. We have a Wal-Mart, a HEB, and a tiny base commissary. The HEB has the best selection of most things, but even they don't carry everything. With the closest speciality grocer about 300 miles away, you have to learn to adapt your recipes and make substitutions. Today's recipe is a great example of one such substitution! Apparently barley does not make its way down to my little border town, so some quinoa I had from a big city trip did the job!

The Friday before last I got  wisdom teeth out. Since then I have been on a liquid/soft diet. So, we've had a lot of soups. This was probably my favorite out of the new ones I tried.

Zuppa of Farro With Tomatoes and Spinach


Ingredients:
1 tsp Olive Oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
4 medium sized carrots, finely chopped
3 ribs celery, trimmed and finely chopped
2 cans fire roasted diced tomatoes
4 cups chicken broth
1 cup quinoa
4. cups chopped spinach
salt and pepper
2 tbsp parmesan cheese

Method:
Heat the oil in a heavy soup pot over medium-high heat.
Add the onions, carrots, and celery, stirring until the onion begins to soften, 2-3 minutes.
Add the tomatoes and broth and stir in the quinoa.
Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low, cover the saucepan, and simmer until the quinoa is tender - about 30 minutes.
Stir in the spinach and cook until the spinach is tender, about 5 minutes longer.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Garnish each serving with some cheese, if desired.

Nutritional Information:
163 calories per serving without cheese
Makes 6 servings

Yum!!!