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.

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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!!!!

Her recipe also is inspire by Iowa Girl Eats.. It was super easy to put together and my whole family devoured it – not a morsel left!

I had lime rice on the bottom, topped with black beans, the seasoned chicken and cheese!

For the chicken, I made a rub from these ingredients:

1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon garlic powder
2 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

In a cast iron skillet, I added 5 cloves of garlic, sliced, 1/2 a white onion sliced and sauteed that for a few minutes. Next I added 1 jalapeno – seeds removed and cooked for another minute. Add the juice of 1 lime and the zest of 1 lime.

I added the chicken (however much you need to feed your family), then the seasoning (a few tablespoons) and cooked that until the chicken was no longer pink in the middle.

Meanwhile I cooked some brown rice. I used a quick cooking version of brown rice that’s ready in 15 minutes. Cook the rice according to your package directions. Once that is done, then I squeezed the juice of 1 lime and the zest of 1 lime into the rice. I unfortunately didn’t have cilantro .

For the black beans, rinse 1 can of black beans and I added 2 tsp. of the seasoning I used for the chicken and cooked that in the microwave for a minute so it was warmed through.

Next – build the bowl. I put the rice on the bottom, then the black beans, the chicken and topped with a little cheese. The only thing I really missed was not having any avocado. BUT, for making this with what I had on hand – I thought it was pretty deluxe!

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So tomorrow my husband and I are going to be running on the Lakefront for Team in Training. We are running the Christy Clinic Illinois marathon (I’m doing the half). My run tomorrow is 6 miles, my husband has to run 10!!!

We are raising money for The Leukemia And Lymphoma Society – we have started a $5.00 buck Friday – do you have an extra $5.00 to spare?

HERE IS OUR DONATION PAGE – PLEASE HELP IF YOU CAN

I just read an e-mail from one of our coaches that there is a half marathon on the Lakefront path tomorrow with 1,200 participants, so that should be interesting! We will probably cross paths at some point.

Have a great weekend and HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!

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!