Roasted Cauliflower and Cheddar Soup

Now. If you are like me, you really want to incorporate more produce into your cooking. If you are like me, you don't do so hot most of the time.

In an effort to keep my pregnancy weight gain down, and maintain a healthy lifestyle during and after pregnancy and help my family do the same, I like to try new dishes.

This is one that I came across a couple months ago and I think I've made it 3-4 times since. I realllllly like it. Husband likes it too and we can even get Liam to take a few bites when we make it. Baby steps.

The thing I like the most about this soup is that there is no cream in it but it is really creamy and has a good texture that tricks you a little bit. Its mostly vegetables. The other thing that really makes it a winner is that I usually have all the ingredients and they usually realllly need to be used before they go bad and I throw them away.

So, heres how you make it.

Take an onion and some celery and throw it in a soup pot. Add some chicken broth or stock or vegetable broth if you wanna go the vegetarian route. Get that boiling and then let it simmer. (don't mind my wilty looking celery, like I said, it realllly needed to be used.)

Meanwhile chop up a head of cauliflower into florets. I usually cut them just a little more. Also, peel a couple cloves of garlic and throw it all in a bowl with some olive oil. Mix it all up so its coated and the pour it out on a baking sheet. I like to cover it with salt, pepper and maybe some thyme.

 Put it in the oven and let it roast for 20-25 minutes until the cauliflower is a nice brown color.

Sometimes this is the only step I do and I eat the cauliflower as my meal. It is seriously so yummy, it gets kind of caramelized and crispy and tastes super yum.


Then put your roasted veggies in the soup pot and let it all simmer together for a while. I just wait until its all soft and tender. Then blend it all up with an immersion blender or food processor or anything that will make it smooth.

Add in your shredded cheese and let it melt and enjoy.

YUM!

Here is the recipe I follow. I hope you try it. Let me know if you do!!

Sometimes we go to Las Vegas

The person who said "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" was a big fat liar. They must be delusional, or anorexic or both and probably not skinny.

Seriously.

I'm sitting here eating my 5-day-late St. Patricks Day meal of corned beef and cabbage (no red potatoes, thanks for asking) and I keep wishing that it was that delicious pizza I ate earlier this week with reckless abandon. And then the Shamrock Shake I had later that evening. Or any one of the awesome diet-unapproved meals I had while taking the mini-vacation with husband.

It was divine.

And let me tell you about our little trip south to Sin City.

It was also divine.

We caught a concert (quite possibly the most amazing one I've been to yet...), toured Hoover Dam (with plenty dam jokes flying), walked and walked until we thought our legs and feet would fall off, relaxed by the pool, had fun laughing at the plentiful drunks walking the streets with us on St. Patricks Day, slept in, stayed up late and ate whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted.

And I remembered why I like being with Darrell.

Don't get me wrong, I always love that man of mine but being able to spend almost four days together with no kid, no responsibilities and no time frame was awesome. I remembered dating him and laughing with him. I always love him, but I remembered why I like him too. And it was nice.

If I could get my pictures to load to my computer I'd post them cause I look cute because I even got ready everyday of our trip. Showered, hair fixed AND makeup. I'm usually pretty good at getting 2 out of the 3 on a daily basis but on our trip I hit ALL three everyday!

So here's to the diet that we jumped right back into.

And to paying off debt.

And living beautiful lives together!

Check in: Week 3

I am writing this post today from the midst of a level one disaster kitchen.

Fact.

I'll tell ya why in a minute.

So we have successfully completed three weeks of the "Battle of the Bulge 2013" over here and it is going quite well.

We have gotten rid of a total 19.6 lbs of chub and $287.40 of debt which brings the debt payoff total to $778.40!!

I'm pretty pleased about it all really. I think that after this week we will have paid off the last of one credit card and we will have started making headway on the next! That is pretty exciting news for me!

Upsides:

We got our dishwasher and its lovely (or it would be if it were hooked up)
I have lost almost 10 lbs
Husband has lost 10 straight up! (I like when we lose at the same rate, though I know that pretty soon here he will probably keep losing and mine will... taper off somewhat. Darn men. Lucky sons...)
I have finished sanding all my cabinet doors
Its pretty much warm enough that Liam and I can walk to the park
I've really started branching out on recipes and have discovered a few DELICIOUS ones that are diet approved :)

Downsides:

Not having a car really doesn't get easier
The dishwasher isn't hooked up and I cant use the sink otherwise water starts spilling all over the place



So the upsides obviously outweigh the bad this week and thats good. This week wasn't nearly as hard as last week was. Hopefully things continue to go smoothly next week!

So back to the disaster. We got our dishwasher and husband thought that we had everything we needed to hook it up. We do have all the parts we need but because of where we need to put our dishwasher, none of the hookups are long enough. So basically the hot water is disconnected and if I run the cold water in the sink, water starts pouring out from under the dishwasher (that isn't hooked up but is put in its proper location). Also, my cabinets currently have no doors or drawer fronts. They are all either in the garage or in the laundry room. So that just adds to the overall look of disorder and confusion. (Anyone else imagine Sir. Topham Hat saying "you've cause confusion and delay"? Just me?)

Anyway, now that I'm almost 10 down, I think I can start looking towards making a plan of how much I actually want to lose. And how ambitious I think I should be. Am I going for my first year of college skinny (probably the smallest I have ever been) or more like the day I got married skinny (which was also pretty small but about 15 pounds heavier than the first year of college). I dunno. I don't think I'm going to worry about it too much. Yet. But its on my mind.

How did your week go? Any accomplishments you're proud of?

Check in : Week 2

Here we are again! Battle of the Bulge 2013 is still going on over here...

Upsides:

We paid off $155 of debt
We got our fridge fixed for realsies
We found a dishwasher for pretty cheap (and we didn't have to use a credit card to buy it)
Its finally getting warm so Liam and I are going to start exploring the public transit options for getting around
We found a long lost gift card to Lowes! $125 dollars baby!

Downsides:

We lost a total of 0 pounds over here
BUT
We didn't gain any, so win(?)
I get cabin fever not being able to leave


This week was hard. We didn't completely stray from our diet plan but we had alot of hang-ups. We have recommitted to following the plan and hopefully we will see some results next week.  I've had some health concerns so I went to the doctor and had some blood tests done and luckily those all came back normal, so thats a good thing for sure!

While I was in college, I had some really super awesome roommates. One of them had (and still does) a serious love for Diet Coke... come to think of it, I think almost all my roommates did (and probably still do). Well, we didn't really drink alot of soda in my house growing up so I had no preferences either way, until my first year of school. I developed a love for the Diet Coke. I don't have any false assumptions that is in anyway good for me. I just like it. I like how it tastes, and I pretty easily form an addiction to the caffeine that is a bear to get over. Well, its just not good for me and I think that this week I will work on quitting the Diet Coke. It'll probably be good for me. We'll see.

Now the debt diet part of our week. Darrell got his yearly bonus this week, so we made some extra purchases that we have been putting off. We got a new computer (the day it arrived our old laptop had a crash of epic proportions, I'm surprised it turned back on) and we bought a new dishwasher (unexpected but I'm glad it happened when it did), tires for our car (which as we've learned is a VERY expensive one to maintain) as well as a new pair of pants for me. I'm a pant snob, and I usually spend a little bit of money on them BUT I only own one pair at a time pretty much so when they wear our, I have to get new ones and my old ones wore out this week. The good thing is, we didn't have to go into any debt to make any of these purchases! And when I say that we paid off $155 dollars, that is in addition to our regular monthly payments. We have two credit cards we are working on getting rid of as well as a car loan, a student loan, a loan from Darrells dad and our mortgage. Our number one priorities are the two credit cards (one of which will be gone after I get paid for piano lessons this month!) and the car loan. We think we can get rid of those in 7-8 months. I I really hope so, cause then we can hopefully look at buying another car.

On the horizons for this week:

I just finished filling the gouges in my cabinets with wood filler, so sanding the kitchen cabinet doors and frames (this'll get its own post later this week)
installing the new dishwasher
getting new tires on the car
keep working on potty training liam
take down the changing table in his room

Things are looking good!

What are your goals for the year, month, week, today?


Want to know what "Battle of the Bulge 2013" is? Read here: We're going on a diet

We're Going on a Diet.

I debt diet. And a food diet. We're a dieting sort of family these days.

It all started with our house.

We've been in the process of refinancing for like 7 months. Seriously. That long. Its driving me nuts-o. And we should be done with that this month. YAY! This has prompted a series of plans on my part (and husbands loving nodding along) to get out of debt. That monster. The debt monster. We need to break up, and this is the year to do it. So we aren't spending money. Obviously we'll be spending money, but no more unnecessary spending, you know Lowe's, Home Depot, Target... The list really could go on but I'll spare you. All of our excess cash is going into paying off credit cards and our car. The real motivating factor was when our car died last week. Literally. Died. While I was driving. At night. In the cold.

Awesome.

We got to get that crap taken care of so we can get a new shining vehicle (or old and slightly loved, I'm not too terribly picky about the newness state). But I've found that with my freedom restricted, I really don't spend money anymore. And I also can't really escape the house. This prompts me to quit procrastinating and take care of business.

Speaking of business, I'm teaching Liam how to take care of his and so far we seem to be having a pretty good round. He's only pee'd on the carpet once (so far) and seems pretty excited about his "choo-choo" underwear.

I've created a list about a mile long of things to get done and I'm slowly checking things off. Like, I FINALLY got some blinds in the mail (that I ordered the day after thanksgiving!) and I didn't even wait to install them. Put 'em up and got rid of the evidence. I painted my bathroom cabinet (again) and I finally called the refridgerator repair guy. Little things, things I would just leave the house instead of taking care of. Its going to be a productive couple months and I have a feeling me and Liam'll be getting good use out of our stroller as we walk everywhere we can.

And while our debt is shrinking, so will our waistlines. We're trimming the fat round these parts, (so we won't have anymore round parts, thanks very much) and even though its only day one, I think we're off to a good start.

If you don't hear anymore about these diets, just know that I'm being serious as a heart attack, we're taking care of the uglies around here. The battle of the bulge has begun!