posted by Jennifer on chicken, exercise, general ideas, kid friendly, soup, vegetables

Usually when I grocery shop every weekend, I have a plan about what I am going to make every week. When that doesn’t happen, I just buy things that I know I can make things with. Chicken, veggies, ground beef, etc… and work around that.

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.

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!