Yesterday I was trying to think about what to make with the stuff I had on hand. I had boneless chicken tenders, veggies, only a pound of ground sirloin (not enough for my family of 5!). I didn’t have any tomato sauce – and then it hit me – I’ll make soup! But what kind?

Since I had the chicken tenders and I had lots of veggies since we had stir fry the night before I thought I would make chicken noodle soup.

Jenn's salsa chicken noodle soup

Ingredients

3 garlic cloves, chopped
4-5 mini bell peppers (I had red and yellow), diced
3 green onions, chopped
4 carrots, peeled and sliced
4 stalks of celery, chopped
1 package boneless chicken tenders
2 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. garlic salt
1 tsp. pepper
dash of crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 bottle of Pace salsa (or your favorite salsa)
8 cups water
6 tsp. chicken stock (the powdered kind in a jar)
3/4 bag of egg noodles

In a big pot, I added a few teaspoons of Canola Oil. Add all the chopped veggies and cook for about 5 minutes. I cut the chicken tenders into bite sized pieces and added that to the pot. I cooked that until the chicken was almost done, but still pink in the middle. Add the water and chicken stock and the egg noodles and salsa and simmer for about 20 minutes or until the veggies are cooked through and the egg noodles are done.

I know my family likes what I make when they ask for seconds! I was proud of myself for sticking to my one serving – since December I’ve banned myself from 2nd helpings and I’ve stuck to it

After dinner, we talked about what homework everyone had and I went back into the kitchen to clean up. I figured with the leftovers I would bring some for my lunch. When I walked into the kitchen I quickly realized that was not going to happen. This was what was left….

Yep – not a morsel left!!! I was shocked. But also a part of me was happy that my family liked this soup so much!

Do you make dinner so you have leftovers – or do you like to make just enough so there are no leftovers?

I personally love leftovers because then it is an easy choice for what I’ll have for lunch the next day.

***

Now onto my work outs for the last few days. I could have run outside since its so warm out, but I have been working out after 8:30 p.m. when my daughter goes to bed. Over the weekend I found some more work out videos, I got 3 more Taebo work out tapes as well as a Beach Body one with Tony Horton.

So last night, I did a double work out – 40 minutes of Billy’s boot camp. Then I wanted to see if I could do any of the Beach body tape. It was level 3/4 and it had a huge label on it not to attempt unless you could complete the first 2 levels without stopping. Ha! I was going to try it anyway. I lasted about 20 minutes. It was so hard. At one point he did 1 1/2 minutes of straight push ups. One set with your arms wide, the other side with your arms closer together and the last set with your arms REALLY close together. Nope, that was not going to happen. Although I did do one 30 second set with my feet on my stepper (the actual way was putting your feet on top of a chair and doing push ups). During that set, my son happened to enter the room and he said “That’s impressive!”

And last nights workout brought back lots of memories. It’s the Taebo advanced workout and it is at least 13 years old I would say. My twin sister Biz and I once lived in a 2 flat together. She lived upstairs with Hannah and my family lived downstairs.

We would talk the night before about working out before work. So I would set my alarm clock early, get up, bring the baby monitor upstairs (the boys were small) and we would workout with Billy. We always had a great time and would laugh at each other if we couldn’t get a move right. I forgot how hard that work out was!!! It’s crazy hard. But I’m glad I did it!

Have a great day everyone!

Last week before work, I was thinking of what to bring for breakfast to work. I had run out of frozen fruit, so I couldn’t make my smoothie. Then I remembered I had bought some ground chicken and decided to make a breakfast sausage out of it.

If you’ve never worked with ground chicken, it is SUPER moist! I took 4 oz. of the ground chicken, 1/4 bread crumbs, and the added about 2 tsp. of the breakfast sausage seasoning. In a small skillet coated with cooking spray, I cooked each side for about 4 minutes, until it’s cooked through.

I didn’t have any eggs in the house, so I ended up making a weird, but delicious breakfast. I had 2 cups of mixed veggies, added the chicken sausage (chopped up) and 1/2 oz. of cheddar cheese.

My breakfast sausage veggie breakfast!

This was so good! The best part is the breakfast sausage seasoning is so flavorful, you don’t have to add anything else, which saves calories!

So last week I tried 2 things I’ve never had before…a kumquat and pea shoots!

Kumquat

A coworker of mine brought these to work and gave me one. I said “How do you eat it?” She said she really didn’t know! So we googled it and found this video. You can eat the skin. You just need to wash it, then you roll it between your fingers to release the oils and pop it in your mouth. It does have a few seeds – kind of like eating a grape with seeds, you just need to be careful about that. Anyway – I thought it was fantastic – sweet and tart.

And we brought salad club back at my office a few weeks ago. This last weeks salad was spectacular!

Setting up for salad club

For those of you who don’t know a few coworkers and I bring a fruit/veggie to share and any kind of greens and we set up a salad bar. My friend who brought the kumquats brought pea shoots and I had never seen/had those before, so I added them to my salad.

My salad!

What are pea shoots? They are the leaves of the pea plant. I thought they tasted great. My friend bought them at Trader Joe’s – they came in a plastic package found near the fresh herbs. You can read more about them here.

How was everyone’s weekend? Happy Monday!!!!

So quick and easy!

I made this quick and easy recipe last night for dinner and it turned out great. All it was was turkey kielbasa, potatoes, peppers and onions and put on Kabob! Since it’s colder than heck here in Chicago, there was no outdoor grilling, but your broiler can work in a pinch!

I didn’t peel the potatoes, I used red potatoes and just washed the skins really good. I cut those into quarters and cooked in a pot of water for about 20 minutes or until they were cooked through.

Since the kielbasa is already cooked, you just need to cook these for about 5-7 minutes per side until it’s heated through. Just watch it if your broiler is really close to the flames and maybe place it lower so they cook and don’t get charred.

I will definitely be making these again soon.

Now on to my Half Marathon training. My husband and I are raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. If you can make a donation – here is our fundraising page – no amount is too small! THANK YOU FELLOW BLOGGER FRIENDS LORI AND JOANNE WHO HAVE MADE DONATIONS!!! I REALLY APPRECIATE IT

On schedule this past Saturday was a 6 miler for me and 8 miles for my husband who is doing the full marathon. We opted out of the group training, since we had a lot of snow late into Friday and it would be super cold at 8:00 a.m. we thought the path wouldn’t be cleared by then. So we had to train by ourselves. My husband runs way faster than me, and the thought of running laps at the local high school didn’t seem too fun, so I went on to Map my Run and mapped a 6 mile loop from my house.

To be honest, after sleeping in and hanging out in my jammies all morning, the thought of getting bundled up and running by myself did not appeal to me AT ALL! I really wanted to just blow it off, but I have to run another 6 this weekend and already 8 miles the weekend after that, so I can’t miss the long runs. I think that’s how I was able to finish both marathons I did, I didn’t ever miss a long run.

It took me a long time to finish – because some of my neighbors hadn’t shoveled their walks AT ALL from the day before. So I would run a half a block, climb over snow, run a block, walk a block over snow pretty much the whole way. But, I thought about all the people we’ve met dealing with cancer, and other people in my life who are in poor health and I thought about how lucky I am that I am healthy and I can do it – so that kept me going! And in reality, once I got started I wasn’t cold at all and it was 22 degrees outside!

So, my work out area in my basement is now all nice and clean. Thanks to my son Mark for hooking up the VCR – I bought one at Good Will for $2.50 so I can play my VHS work out videos. When I brought it home, he said “where are the cords for the TV?” Ummmm… I don’t know – it didn’t come with that! So he went digging in a basket where we have all sorts of cords, found one that would work and set it all up for me! It pays to have a teenage son who can figure all that out for me!

Over the last 2 weekends I bought about 9 more work out videos so I won’t get bored. Taebo, The Firm, etc… most were 3 videos for a dollar, so you can’t go wrong with that.

Have a great day everyone!

I think it’s a great way to start the day on the right foot, and if you have trouble fitting in fruits and veggies – this could do the trick!

My power smoothie

What am I making my smoothies with??

This week it’s been:

1 cup plain Greek yogurt
1/2 cup orange juice
handful of frozen mango chunks
2 kiwi
1/2 cup fresh cranberries (which I keep in the freezer)
1 leaf of kale (too much will make the smoothie taste gross)
1 carrot
squeeze of honey
1 tablespoon chia seeds
1 tablespoon flax seeds

I just put everything in my blender and blend until it’s super smooth.

It’s about 300 calories, I bring it to work and sip on it and it’s been keeping me full until lunchtime – which is nice!

Also, I have a site to share www.thislunchrox.com. She has great ideas and recipes!

One of which is no bake granola bars. I’ve made them before, but they NEVER stay together and end up just being granola. This takes no time to make and is great for your lunch or your kids lunch!

Ingredients

Granola Bars (based on a recipe from This Lunch Rox!)

1/4 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 cup oats
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons other dry ingredients (like flax seeds, chia seeds, sunflower seeds, nuts, protein powder, etc)
(I used 1 tablespoon of chia seeds and 1 tablespoon of flax seeds)

In a microwave safe bowl, melt the chocolate and peanut butter

Add the rest of the ingredients and stir until combined.

I used an 8×8 pan, and just pressed the mixture into that dish. Refrigerate 10 minutes of until set.

These were delicious and it’s nice to know all the ingredients that are in there vs. buying a granola bar that is store bought – and it’s cheap too!

Not the best picture - but you get the idea!

Do you have a recipe for granola bars you like? What’s your favorite things to put in a smoothie??

So good!

I made this soup before work – it took about 15 minutes to make. If you have chicken base on hand (the powdered stuff in a jar) then you can whip up a soup in no time. I prefer that than buying cans or cartons of chicken broth – and it’s cheaper too!

I had three Trader Joe’s vegetarian pot stickers in the freezer, so I decided to add those too.

Serves 1 HUGE bowl of soup 5 WW+ points (according to my twin sister Biz)

3 cups chicken broth
½ cup broccoli slaw
1 small red pepper, diced
½ small bag mixed veggies, (mine had green beans, peas and carrots
3 Trader Joe’s vegetarian pot stickers (found in the frozen section)
2 tablespoons Thai chili sauce
1/8 cup uncooked elbow noodles

In a small pot, add the chicken broth, the frozen veggies, broccoli slaw, red pepper, and broccoli slaw. Heat on low for about 5 minutes. Add the pot stickers, elbow noodles and Thai sauce and cook for another 10 minutes or until the noodles are done.

This was a gigantic serving – I thought having so few pot stickers would make me sad and I wished I had more, but to be honest – it was just right!

You could do so many variations of this. Just start with whatever kind of broth you like, add some veggies, leftover chicken, or steak, if you want to add noodles or pasta – and whatever spices you like and you are done!

What is your favorite soup?

This is the chili sauce I used. It’s so good! You can find it in the Asian section at pretty much any major grocery chain: