Recipe: Turkey Meatball Soup

Turkey Meatball Soup (We got two meals out of this)

INGREDIENTS:

1 TBSP. olive oil
2 carrots, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped (I hate celery, I used a dash of celery seed instead)
1 small onion, chopped
2 tsp. fennel seed
1 can petite diced tomatoes
5 cups chicken stock (I used 4 as that is what size I had)
1 lb. ground turkey
Handful of parsley, chopped
1 egg
1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese (I used the low fat stuff)
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 pinch nutmeg
4 handfuls fresh spinach (I used an entire container of the organic stuff in the plastic bin)
Salt & Pepper to taste
For Spice if you want: a few dashes of Tobasco or Red Pepper Flakes - this is what we did.
 
1. Heat a large pot to medium heat and add olive oil. Sautee the carrots, celery, onion, and fennel seed until onion is a light golden brown. Add the diced tomatoes and chicken stock, then turn up the heat and bring the soup to a slow boil.
 
2. While the stock is coming to a boil, mix ground turkey, egg, parmesan cheese, garlic, and nutmeg together. Roll into about 20 balls and drop into the soup - a note here: I would roll them into much smaller balls. It is a little boring, but I wound up chopping the meatballs into quarters as I ate it.

 

Wait until you have all the meatballs rolled out before you drop them into the soup and try to add them all quickly so they all cook at the same rate. Cook the meatballs in the soup while it simmers for about 10-15 minutes. Add the spinach and cook for an additional 10 minutes!
 
It will smell, and TASTE amazing, and best part is super low in calories carbs and high in protein!

 

Nutrition: 256 calories, 26 g protein, 11 g carbs, 12 g fat, 4 g fiber, 2 g sugar, 832 mg sodium

 

Adapted from Muscle and Fitness Hers magazine, and given to me by Sara B.!

Lemon Chicken Recipe

Lemon Chicken - From Jillian Michaels Master Your Metabolism Cookbook

1 tsp. lemon zest

Juice of a lemon

1/4 cup chopped fresh basil or oregano

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon Dijon Mustard

2 garlic cloves, minded

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

6 (4 to 5 ounce ) boneless, skinless chicken breast

1/4 pitted kalamata olives, halved ( I skipped this)

Olive oil spray for the grill.

To prepare the dressing.. whisk together the lemon zest and juice, the basil, honey, mustard, garlic and salt and pepper. Whisking constantly, add the olive oil in a slow stream. Set aside.

To prepare chicken: It is best to POUND the chicken breasts so they are all the same thickness. I sometimes don’t have time for this and things seem just as tasty but if I can I do it. Other than that, just plac the chicken breasts in a plastic bag, poured the half the dressing over them, and allowed them to marinate for a few hours. Sometimes I only do 30 minutes depending on how much time I have. So 30mins to 3 hours!

If using a gas or charcoal grill, spray the grill with olive oil spray and prepare a medium hot grill.

Discard the marinade and grill the chicken until it is opaque in the center, 5 to 6 minutes per side.

Place the chicken on platter and drizzle with the remaining dressing.

No Yoga.

That's right... I said it. No yoga! The P90X program incorporates Yoga once a week. For us, it is typically on Thursday. We hate it. We loathe it. It is insanely boring. We do an hour of it, but it is actually a 90 minute program. I can't imagine doing all of that!

For our first 90 days, we did pretty much do the yoga. We hated it all the way...but I definitely saw tons of improvement on both our parts. Downward dog, plank...vinyasas...warrior this and warrior that... Its torture. We liked the balance poses a lot though. When we first started I could barely do any plank, etc. By the end of our 90 days I could do them all! Kevin can even do crane...crazy! I can get crane for about 1/8 a second. LOL

Anyway, for our second round, we decided not to do Yoga, except once during our Recovery weeks (every 4th week).

YAY FOR NO YOGA! We can't make this a lifestyle change if there is something we hate so much..it's just a fact.

So tomorrow is Kenpo day, woo hoo! Kenpo is super fun and a great calorie burn!

Movie Review: The Help

If you haven't read the book you should. It is very good. The movie is well done and a great adaptation from the book. The did a great job making it different enough to be interesting, and the characters were spot on. The things they left out were fine and weren't missed by me.

The movie is about a young white woman, fresh out of college back in the late 60's in Mississippi. She aspires to be a writer, and is a bit unconventional. She decides to write a book with stories from the help...so really it's about the help and they went through at the time. The book was more serious, and sometimes horrifying. The movie was a little lighter and funnier.

I saw a lot of folks crying in the movie and being very moved. I wasn't, but perhaps it was because I had already read the book and gotten even more from it?

All in all, it's a great flick with some eye opening stories to make you grateful to live NOW, and not bald then. Can you even imagine? I can't, not at all.

Dinner at The Pub...

There was a time we ate dinner at the Rhinelander Cafe & Pub every Friday night....literally for two years in a row. There is a large variety on the menu from lobster to a burger. The service was good, although a bit slow at times, but we were willing to put up with that because the quality of the food was always good.

This is no longer.

In the past six months to a year, we have walked out after sitting with no service for 20 minutes, had awful waitresses, and awful food. Case in point last night: we waited a good 30 minutes for a table....ok we can deal with that. Our table was in the back, next to the door....not ideal but hey, there are worse tables we've sat at! Our waitress waited on people who were seated AFTER us....then walked away but came back real quick when she saw us gawking at her. Exceptionally slow food delivery... And then the steak. Normally Kevin orders the strip steak, which is AMAZING! But he ordered the fillet, which is leaner. Well, it was awful. The taste was just wretched. We told our waitress, and she asked if we wanted another, no thank you! I shared my broiled, blackened shrimp ( which was exceptional). When we got our bill, they had taken $5.00 off a $20.00 steak we ate one bite of.

Needless to say, we weren't pleased. After 10 minutes of speaking nicely, and I hope constructively with the manager, we were given a $20.00 gift card. So, I'm satisfied, but not sure when we'll be spending that, as we aren't going back.

Hope they get their isssues worked out!

Movie Review: Crazy, Stupid, Love

Overall I really loved this movie! Oh my gosh I laughed so hard at parts of it! Truly hysterical, and nice that it wasn't the gross-out raunchy humor that has been so popular lately (Bridesmaids, The Hangover, etc). This is a solid "adult" drama, comedy I'd say. Steve Carell, Julianne Moore, bunch of other actors. One of those movies with lots of characters and story lines.

Don't know that you need to rush out ASAP and see this - there are no cool special effects or anything. Just lots of laughs, some sad times, some heartwarming times, and a few good snickers! It was a perfect getaway for me though - a break from the realities of the work week.

If I want to get picky, I'd say Julianne Moore's character could have used more development, as she pretty much was the same in the whole movie. Maybe they did that on purpose and it was supposed to be focused on Steve carell's part.

Dangling Conversations

Today was Shoulders & Arms workout. I like this one because there are no pushups or pull ups involved! So you can't really go wrong. Also another torturous 16 minutes of Ab Ripper X. Good times at 6am....good times.

I listened to the collective works of Simon & Garfunkle at work today. Very calming, which is nice. Such good lyrics.... Lots of good memories of working at Batawagama as well. Old friends...

(more drowned fruit flies!)

This recall election is getting out of hand on tv...the ads are worse than I have ever seen, and insanely frequent. One more week until the recall election and I cannot wait to have these ads go away.

Nice Hummus Recipe

Love the foods on this blog! Made this Sunday night and it is a great way to use up basil when you have an overabundance.

http://www.dailygarnish.com/?s=Basil+hummus

Plyogenics & Fruit Flies

Today was our first stab at Plyogenics after 3 weeks absence. I have to say I was impressed with us! Normally we start cursing at the tv around 20 minutes in, but this time it was more like 40 minutes in before the words started flying! Also by now, we know we can do it, and do it even more than before.

Fwiw- Plyogenics is cardio with lots of jumping. I attribute it to my better speed and coordination at agility lately.

Oh and the fruit flies are back. UGH!! I have two bowls of vinegar with soap in them sitting out and they have been sinking many a fruit fly! Hate those things...

My abs are killing me...another round of Ab Ripper is up tomorrow.

Tired, Achy, Sore... Ahhhh... Welcome back to P90X! Round 2 starts TODAY!

Well, after two weeks of very little activity on the workout end - we are finally back at P90X. We finished our 1st 90 days a couple weeks ago and decided to take a little break in between. I think 2 weeks was a bit much, or, we should have done one or two workouts in there. I did a few cardio workouts but it wasn't enough.

I feel 100 times better this morning now that we are back at working out! Yay!!! Today was Chest & Back, + Ab Ripper X. We haven't done any strength or Ab Ripper for THREE weeks because our last week of the 1st round was Recovery Week, which doesnt have strength or abs. It was tough, but felt good.

Trying to keep track of reps/weights so can make sure we improve and dont dog it!

Also going to try to do a Shakeology Shake once a day this round. I do think it is helpful. Seems to quench the appetite a bit, and is full of your daily vitamin needs, plus is low cal, low carb. Going to try to have it in the a.m., as p.m. for me is more munchies, and carrots work for that.

REBOOT!

I am going to try to reboot this Blog. Blogs are great fun, and it was really enjoyable to look through some of these old posts. Love it! So, let's start fresh NOW.