Friday, October 7, 2011

hearty bean and barley soup + pregnancy cravings strike!

So last night… was complete win, followed by complete fail.  I’ve been doing well most of this week – getting more active, eating a lot healthier, just promoting a healthier lifestyle for myself by trying to be less of a train wreck.  When I rolled out of bed yesterday morning, I reminded myself that I needed to get up when my alarm went off rather than hit snooze because I needed to put together soup in the crock pot, so we would have a meal ready when we got home, rather than have to grab something on the way (as Thursdays are the nights when we have 30 minutes to change, eat and leave again). 

I found this recipe online and decided to tweak it for my own liking.  I can follow recipes, but I don’t… like to, mostly because I’m kind of picky and also because I like my food spicy.  So here’s the changes I had made.

- I filled my crock pot about ½ the way with water, added two packets of chicken bouillon powder (no sodium) and mixed that up nicely.
- Then, I added 2 cans of (rinsed) kidney beans – one dark, one light – and a can of Great Northern beans (rinsed).
- Sprinkled in a dash of crushed red pepper, a nice dose of cayenne powder, another dash of rosemary (dried) and a tablespoon of minced garlic.
- Threw in half of a bag of baby carrots and 6 stalks of celery, sliced.
- Added 1 can of (no-salt-added) diced tomatoes.
- Topped off with a bit more water to cover everything, put on the lowest setting and covered.

The night before, I made the barley so when we got home from work, I threw in a carton of frozen spinach and the barley, stirred and let simmer for 10 minutes while we let the dog outside, changed, etc.  Then, we served it topped with some freshly-ground black pepper…


 Sorry, I know, I own an expensive and wonderful SLR and what do I do?
Post a photo from my iPhone.  My crappy, ghetto, flash-less phone.

It was delicious!

As you can see, I’m great with measuring and stuff – I tend to just wing it if I’m buzzing around doing things, especially first-thing in the morning.  But seriously, this soup was great.  It was super filling, and tasty; also, definitely had a nice little bite to it, but nothing too overwhelming.  I don’t “do” onions, hence leaving them out and hubby didn’t say a word about it.  I have a ton of soup left over, so some of it will be for lunch in an hour, some will be frozen for later this winter (post-baby probably) and the rest will be dinner tonight, as an accompaniment to cube steaks.

Highly recommend trying this if you like hearty, filling soups!  Try it their way, my way, take your own spin on it; whatever.  But if you do change it up a bit, let me know what you did differently and the result of it!  I always like new suggestions for meals. 

Anyway, so that was win.  We went to choir with full bellies and when we came home, I thought for sure a simple apple would be a good snack to accompany my prenatal (horse pills) vitamins before bedtime.

Then, it hit me.  Like a tidal wave, I felt this insane desire to eat a quesadilla.  Mind you, it’s 10pm and we have no cheese and no tortillas in the house.  Well, we had hubby’s fake-cheese (sliced American) but nothing that would appease my cravings for a quesadilla.  So he looks at me and goes, “What my baby mama wants, she gets; what about Applebee’s?  Half-price appetizers until midnight, right?”  Well sure, why not?  I’m trying not to gain a zillion pounds and suddenly we’re at the bar at Applebee’s and while he nurses a pitcher of Oktoberfest, I guzzle down two waters and snarf a cheese (with bacon, as that’s their ‘thing’ – whatever) quesadilla.  I housed that thing in a manner I’ve never experienced before, I swear it, and it was SO GOOD.  He had wings too, and however much I love their wings, they didn’t even remotely smell good because all I wanted was tortillas and cheese and salsa. 

Needless to say, I woke up this morning feeling hung-over because me + late night eating = bad news bears.  Especially when the late night eating is NOT of the healthy variety.

I still feel awful and I’ve been awake for 6 hours already, and have been drinking water and already ate my breakfast (cereal, almond milk and an apple).  Blech.  I think at 1 I am going to eat my soup and pray for the best.  Hopefully that’ll settle me, because I’m really looking forward to my cube steak for tonight. 

Darn pregnancy cravings.  I’m watching you… o_o

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