Fall is the Perfect Time for Soup!

Whenever anyone says "fall" I immediately think of beautiful colorful leaves.  Such as this tree in my sister Kim's yard In Dover, TN... isn't it stunning?  So glad I got to be there this year to see it!

Then comes the thought of soup!  Yesterday I decided to go out and see if there was anythng left in my poor garden to make some soup with.  I found a few last veg standing, beets, celery and chives.  Just last week Dave was plowing his garden under  and unearthed these beauties...

so I figured that was a good start.  But let's back up...

Everyone knows good soup starts with good soup stock.  Here's my version...

I made this last week.  I've described before how I save all my trimmed veg ends, onions, celery, bell pepper bits along with the bones of eaten chickens in a plastic bag in the freezer.  :)  I know... sounds freaky and obsessive!  But the outcome is so delicious!  I didn't start making my own stock until we moved out here to the sticks.  When I was working from my home office it was easy to pop down and make sure the big vat of stuff most people throw away was not boiling over.  And now that I'm not working at all... well :) It really is sort of a two day process.  First day... boil the bones and veg bits, cool and pick through, scavenging the good chicken bits to be used in a casserole or soup. 

(Side tangent here... I never feel closer to my dear sweet mother in law - who has "moved to heaven" than when I'm making chicken stock.  She was the ultimate in thriftiness and using what was on hand and available.  I remember once at a family dinner at Lorie's (Dave's sis) house, probably Christmas Eve dinner, when Lorie was tossing out some left over peas, that she (Grandma Olsen) was appauled that she would waste them and actually dug them out of the garbage can - only to be thrown out again later by her horrified daughter.  Can you say run on sentence?  Haha!  Anyway... when I'm digging through those bones I can just feel her over my shoulder pointing out that one good bit that I missed.  She had more influence over me than she or I ever imagined.  :)  Good stuff!) 

Ok... Im back...Then strain liquid from the other stuff.  Let cool overnight then Day 2... skim off all the fat and fill the jars.  It freezes really well and can just be thawed in the microwave.

So knowing I had a good supply of stock on hand and some tasty chicken in the fridge I commenced the soup.  Usually I just start and whatever comes out is typically pretty good.  Now that I'm doing the weight watchers thing I sort of need to know what the points value is so I know how much I can eat.  I decided to actually build a recipe.  Weight Watchers e tools has a cool gadget for that.  That recipe is below but first just one more detail to share.  On my way in from the sad garden I was kind of dissatisfied because I didn't really find that much.  I was hoping to unearth a few more of the beautiful golden beets I enjoyed all summer but no... just a few red beets.  Bummer!  And then my eyes fell upon one small pumpkin sitting at the bottom of my front stairs.  Hmm... maybe... Upon closer examination I could tell that it had been frozen and was beginning to go bad so I was about to toss it over to the chickens when the image of that same dear little old white haired lady (Grandma Olsen) popped into my mind and whispered that I probably could use it anyway!  :)  So I lugged it to the sink and cut it open.  Sure enough... it was partially frozen but I figured... so what.  I cleaned, peeled and cubed it up and threw it in.  There was even some left over to stash in the freezer.  It about doubled the volume of the soup.  Score!  And here is what the soup looked like...

And the recipe...

3/4 C uncooked barley, lightly toasted

3/4 C orange (or red/yellow) bell pepper, chopped

1 1/4 C diced sweet onion (such as Walla Walla or Texas Sweets)

1/2 C celery, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

6 cups chicken stock

6 cups water

1/2 C raw beets, small diced

5 C fresh pumpkin, peeled, seeded, bout half inch cubes

4 C red potato, half inch dice

1/2 C dried shitaki mushrooms, torn in small pieces

1/2 C cooked chicken

olive oil in a spray bottle

1/2 t salt

1 t cracked black pepper

1/4 t crushed red pepper

1 t ground cumin

1 t curry powder

1/8 t saffron

4 T minced fresh chives



In a medium sized dutch oven lightly toast the barley in one spray of olive oil. Brings out the nutty flavor of the grain.

Add chicken stock to pan and heat to simmer/cook barley in the stock.

Chop onion, seeded bell pepper and celery. In a large skillet saute/lightly carmelize the veggies. Intensifies and deepens their flavor. Season with 1/4 t salt and few grinds of pepper.

Add the minced garlic and saute one additional minute. Add sauted veggies to pot. (Tip: in order to take advantage of the deep intense caramelized flavor on the bottom of the pan, deglaze the pan with a half cup of the soup stock and then pour that stock back in the soup pot.  Ok... you knew that... moving on!)

As the soup thickens, throughout the cooking time add the water... about two cups at a time and bring back to simmer.

Clean and cube pumpkin to half inch dice, add to pot.

Remove tops and tap root of beets. Peel any rough bumps or spots off then small dice the beets. Add to pot.  (this is when I began to panic!  At first the soup was RED!  Then it mellowed into this beautiful bright orange...)

Cube red potatoes to half inch dice, add to pot.
Add curry powder, cumin, crushed red pepper flake and saffron. Simmer until potatoes are tender.

Add chicken, let simmer until heated through.
Reseason with salt/pepper to taste.  Garnish each bowl with fresh minced chives.

 

By the way... if you happen to be on the weight watchers plan 1 1/2 C soup would be the serving size and that is calculated (by the recipe builder) at 4 PP.   

And this is how it looks served up:

 

We had a left over "everything" bagel in the pantry so I decided to split it into 4 slices and toasted it in the grill pan then melted Tillimook cheese on top.  I had one slice... Dave had three.  If you wanted to add the 1/4 bagle with half an ounce of cheddar cheese (really... that's all you need) that would bring the points to 7.  But a tasty and satisfying lunch.

There have been so many other tasty things I have whipped up either from a WW recipe in one of my vast collection of cookbooks...or online.  Usually just the product of my wild imagination.  Sometimes they come out ok :)  I'll just throw out a few of them just so you can have an idea of what I do all day long...

Stir-fried veg on shirataki noodles

Just using up the left over salmon that our neighbor Jeremy brought us from Alaska.

This was Dave's latest catch of the day.  A beautiful rainbow trout from Lake Roosevelt...

he likes garlic :)

Oh yeah... I almost forgot about this one... this is left over BBQ pork as a salad topper.  Add a little extra BBQ sauce and scatter it on top of your favorite salad fixins.  This time of year I go crazy over the little satsuma oranges... I threw some of those little segments too along with some avocado and pine nuts... this was maybe a little out of control for a salad on the weight watchers plan but... he who has never overindulged go ahead and cast the first stone.  :)  Yeah baby... this was good! 



Ok... I'm hungry so gotta go...

Caio!

Let it Snow!

This morning I opened my eyes and looked out the window to see a beautiful new coat of snow.  That's awesome because of the new (to me) ski equipment Dave and I bought at the ski swap a couple of weeks ago :) Yay!  But... This is our second snow... And it's only November 12th.  We may be in for a long winter!  I guess it's time to get out my snow UGGs and big purple ski suit.

Not quite light out.  The morning procession of turkeys stamping patterns in the snow.

So what to do, what to do.  I suppose I could do this all day...

I call this pic... fat cat on fat Kat.  Yes... this is my life

now.  Tough isnt it?  This is CaliCat.  Our adopted

not by choice kitty that Amberlyn brought to live with

us for six months... a year ago.  I sent Amberlyn this

pic showing her how rough this cat has it... but letting

her know she's really not this fat... she's just not sucking

it in.  Sounds like someone else I know :)  Anyway... we

are practicing for winter.

Recently Dave has taken an interest in my Weight Watchers cook books.  We thought it would be fun to do some cooking together.  Unfortunately today we (he) decided we should cook this... 
                                                         Multigrain Blueberry Squares.

This was supposed to be scones but I decided to make

them squares.  I thought it would be easier to cut them

into smaller portions.  Just to make it fair we cut the

pan down the center.  I then cut Dave's half into four

pieces and then I cut my half into 8 pieces.  One small

piece has a WW Points Plus value of 3.  I had one piece,

Dave ate his entire half of the pan.  Boar Hog!!!

I individually wrapped my squares and put them in the freezer.  I think I'm going to have to share with Dave though because even though they are in the freezer... I know they are there... and they don't take long to thaw!  Even with lighter Weight Watcher recipes... moderation must be practiced.  And that's my weakness!

Today I go for my weekly weigh in.  I had hoped to reach my (initial) goal wight this week.  Early in the week I was doing great and then... well we watched a movie three... no... four nights this week and somehow the air popper spit out enormous quantities of popcorn and since children are starving in Africa or China or where ever my mother used to tell me it was... I had to eat it all!  Arrrrrggghhhh!  Every day is a new challenge!

Well... I really want to share some of my pics from my fall road trip, and I will, but if I don't get off the couch I might as well just call it a day and go back to bed so... next time.

Ciao!

Fall 2012!

How is it possible that my last post was spring and this post is fall?  And not only fall... it snowed last night!  Enough to cover the grass, trees and barn roof!!!  but it's rain/snow now and melting off.  This spring, summer and fall have been full of life.  Some painful stuff but mostly wonderful (sounds like Dorthy describing her trip to Oz) and full of change!  Boy, how to fast forward 6 months?  Well... food wise... I believe it was just about June 1st when I took a good look at myself and decided that once again I needed an intervention - or at least a new plan!  I believe this was brought on by having to once again go to my upstairs closet and dig out my fat pants!  Ugh!  My Aunt and Unc had arrived to spend the summer with us by this time and somehow it occurred to me that maybe I should try Weight Watchers.  Aunt Jane is a lifetime member and has been very sucessful keeping trim for a long time.  Maybe I had gone to the trailer for a visit and caught her writing down points in her food log.  I don't recall what brought on the decision to join but join I did and it's been an interesting journey from that time to this.  Currently I am down 20ish pounds from June 1st.  I really want to loose another 5 or so but I'm proud of how far I've come.  Just so you know... they are the same 20 pounds I've written about over the last two years.  Anyway... when you fall off the wagon you just get up, chase after it for awhile and get back on right?  Oh, I may have rolled around in the road for awhile but I'm back on!  As of today I weigh 148.7 and my glucose level this morning was 79.  Yes... during my period of fatness my blood sugar once again climbed higher than is healthy.  And once again... now that I'm eating a much healthier diet it has come way back down and is now in the normal range.  Yay!  That is the ultimate goal.  I'm sure I'll have more to say about the Weight Watcher program later but for now... lets move on.

At the time of the last post I was about 9 months into to my new retirement and Dave was just getting settled in to his.  He found as I did that as wonderful as retirement is it definitely is a major adjustment and that even welcome changes can be confusing and scary.  At this point we both just don't want anyone to wake us up and spoil the amazing dream! 

Dave spent the summer working around the yard, fields, barn.  Messing with fences and animals and working a bit on our property across the hills at the Pend O'Reille river.  Here he is doing a little clearing so we could bring the old motorhome over to camp in...



And here is Lucy bout to climb out of the water after a nice swim ...





Tank looking for a little reassurance after the chain saw noise is over.  As you can see in the background... I was very glad to get the motorhome over there.  I'm not all that much into tent camping.  :)



And just one more shot of the lake front area



He also spent time thinking about and semi planning the fall road trip we have recently returned from.  More about that later.  He began every day the same... cup of coffee on the porch in his trashy and ancient Lazy Boy recliner with his legs in the sun and his kindle in his hand.  I loved seeing him be able to relax and smell the java :)  I spent the summer working in the garden and kitchen attempting to come up with food that was yummy, satisfying and did not exceed my weekly/daily allowance of Weight Watcher points.  I was mostly successful.  Once late summer came along it was good-bye home and hello road.  My first road trip was accompaning my daughter to southern CA in order to become daughter Katie's live in nanny.  

This is a pic of us as we were getting in the car to take off.  Look at my beautiful sunflowers in the background.  :)  And Lucy & Tank :)  And the shirt that I'm always getting razzed about wearing in every picture.  Hey!  It's comfy!  :)

The drive down was fun for the first 8 or 12 hours and them miserable once I figured out that she wasn't stopping until we arrived!  But once we did arrive I loved spending time with my beautiful grand daughters!  I also enjoyed the desert heat and playing with the babies in their little swimmy pool.





Charlotte and Kami splashing







Walking the GRAND daughters :)



We celebrated Michele's birthday while we were there...

We went to San Diego...



Charlotte at Sea World





Me at the waterfront

             



 

Katie with babies at the Hard Rock San Diego







Oh and here is revenge for Michele posting my 1990's big
hair with Tweety Bird glasses pic on facebook :)
Michele at Coronado Beach :)
Actually... I absolutely love this pic.  It's my favorite
current pic of Michele.  A great memory :)

 




























And one of my all time favorite pics... Sst Mary Katherine Muhammad with babies.
Looks like Charlotte is saying... Uncle Sam Wants You!


But all good trips must come to an end right? 
So I can go on another one!  But... that's another story... especially since I can't get my text format to behave :) 

Ciao!