Chicken and Gnocchi soup

So, I have had this recipe for awhile and finally made it last night. It was very good! My husband said it was excellent and is definitely a do again recipe :) Of course I altered it a little because like usual I thought I had everything and didn't check until it was time to start cooking. I am posting the recipe as I got it and then at the bottom what I changed.

3-4 chicken breast cooked and diced
4 cups chicken stock
2 cups half and half
1 stalk of diced celery
1 garlic clove chopped
1/2 carrot shredded
1/2 onion diced
1 cup fresh spinach
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon thyme
salt and pepper
16 ounces of potato gnocchi

1. saute the onion, celery, carrot, garlic, in oil over med heat until onion is translucent
2. add chicken, chicken stock, half and half, salt and pepper, thyme. Heat to boiling, then add gnocchi Gently boil for 5 minutes, then turn down to a simmer for 10 minutes
3. Add spinach and cook for another 2 minutes until spinach is wilted


Towards the end, I did add just a few additional seasonings (randomly whatever was in my cabinet) and I also sprinkled a little Bisquick into the soup to thicken it up a little.

**CHANGES I MADE**
~I had skin on bone in chicken breast so they still had the tenders and rib meat, so after taking the meat off of 2 I had plenty of chicken. I think it I was using bl/sl chicken breast it would probably need 3-4.
~before cooking the chicken I diced it up and tossed it with a little bit of poultry seasoning
~Of course I did not have half and half so instead of using that and adding the bisquick I made a quick bechamel sauce w/ butter, flour, and whole milk to help the soup thicken and it was the perfect thickness for us.
~Instead of fresh spinach I used a whole box of frozen chopped spinach, which is way more than the recipe calls for but it really helps boost the fiber and iron content and probably made it a little more filling.

Getting back in the swing of things

So its Monday, the beginning of a new week so I am trying to get back to eating better and excersing more again. First step is to start actually blogging and making myself accountable again.
The whole thing that made me start the blog was the weight loss challange I was doing with some friends. That ended a few weeks ago, but they had the awards ceremony last Tues. I was the only one from my group to win a prize, which I feel kinda bad about but it was still great to win something. My prize was a $50 visa card :) They are also having another weigh out in Sept, so that should help keep me motivated to maintain adn hopefully lose more over the summer.
In other news, we found a house!! If everything goes according to plan we should close at the beginning of June. We are very excited!

Eats so far today:

Breakfast:
strawberry shortcake :)
*I know this does not sound like a good diet breakfast, but it is actaully pretty low cal and took care of my sweet tooth for the morning. A serving of the little cakes is actually 2 (160 cal) but I only used one, strawberries can't be too high cal and it was light whipped cream(15 cal serving)

Snack:
1 deviled egg
1/2 orange

Lunch:
tortilla pepperoni pizza

*Dinner is going to be chicken and nouche soup w/ fresh baked bread. This is a new recipe a friend gave me, that is supposed to be very close to what they serve at Olive Garden. I'll share tomorrow if we like it!

Ugg, I have been super slack w/ posting!

So this past Friday, the 26th, was the last day of the weight loss challenge I have been doing. So everyone had to go be weighed, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that in the past 10 weeks somehow my scale has gotten knocked off balance! I went in thinking that I had lost 12-13 lbs but when they weighed me it was actually 19 lbs!! I am super excited about the loss, but can't tell it in most of my clothes yet which makes it hard to keep it up but I am going to try to keep losing. Hopefully in another 5lbs I will actually be able to feel it.

In other news, I have been taking cake decorating class this month at Micheal's. I am loving it and so far it is coming pretty naturally for me. This week is the last week for class one and next week I will start class 2. I am hoping that I continue to excel and can maybe start making cakes to make some money on the side just to help pay off some debit we have. One of my goals for the year is to pay off both of our credit cards and Robert's truck. But we are also hoping to buy a house in the next couple months so I am not sure if I will actually get both cards paid off. I have already been asked to make a few cakes for people so one of my projects for this week is to research cake prices at bakeries to get a feel of what I can charge to get people to order from me, but still make a little profit. But to actually make this a business I am going to have to jump through some hoops, because I have to have the health dept come out and inspect my kitchen and do a few other things. So for now I am going to not advertise and use friends and family as genie pigs. :)

On a side note, if anyone knows anyone looking to move to our area we need to sell our trailer!! We are looking for someone to assume the loan. Not trying to make any money off of it, just need to get out of it. The washer/dryer will stay. Buyer would be able to move in here or move it if they prefer.

Well, I guess that is most of what has been happening in my world. Have a great day! And I am going to try to get better about posting more regularly :)

Back in the saddle...

So today was weigh day...I lost 1 lb, sad but better than a gain! It was overcast but soo nice out today. The kids and I went to the museum and walked the trails. I didn't notice if it actually said anywhere how long each one is but we spent not quite 3 hrs walking around so I would say it was at least 2 miles total. Not much else going on today, hope everyone had a good day!

Breakfast:
1/2 pack peanut butter cracker
water
Lunch:
Chick-fil-a sandwich w/ extra pickle and hot sauce
med fry
med diet lemonade
Dinner:
baked sweet potatoe w/ butter and brown sugar
peppercorn marinaded pork loin
water

Bad weather, Vacation, and sickness...

these are my excuses. We had like a week of cold wet weather, where we didn't really get out of the house all week. Then me and the hubby had our kid-free cruise! We had a great time, but I gained 5 lbs back!! :( This week since we have been home, I have had a horrible cough that I can't seem to shake, Christopher and Robert have both had a terrible horrible stomach bug, so not much got done this week either. Tomorrow is weigh day and I will start back eating and excerising again! Me and the kids did get out today and walked to my dad's and dollar general.
I post again tomorrow :)

Quite Thursday

All in all, it was a slow quite day today. No excerise, did some housework nothing exciting. The kids were very good today and Robert actually came home early today which was a great suprise. Me and Hailey got to go visit with some friends and see a new baby tonight while Christopher and Daddy had "boys time" as Christopher told me. on to the eats:
Breakfast:
banana cream oatmeal
water
Lunch:
bowl of fruit salad
pretzels
(same as yesterday)
Dinner
Salad w/ balsamic itlian
lasanga
sweet tea

13:23...

is how long it took me to do a mile on the treadmill tonight. This is not a bad time, but I would like to get it down to 10 minutes or less. So that is my new goal to add to the list. I did 20 minutes on the treadmill tonight, I also tried the elliptical machine but I felt like I was gonna fall off so I only stayed on for about 4 minutes. I also did one 15-min mile from my Denise Alston video this morning. Soo...all in all it was a good workout day! Yay me :) Just as a side note, let me just say it was very cold out this morning we went to the park for an hour this morning and were freezing by the time we left! I am so ready for Spring. On to the eats for today:

Breakfast:
cinnamon apple oatmeal
water
Lunch:
bowl of fruit salad
pile of pretzels(about 20)
water


Dinner:
1 serving garlic butter rice
Cream corn
2 Raspberry Chipotle monterey jack cheese stuffed chicken sausages
1 glass of Sunkist


*I found these sausages at Wal-mart last week and they sounded very yummy. I thought they were good, but they did have a serious after bite to them. Robert said they were good, but they were alittle too spicy for him and he didn't really care to have them again.