Rice-A-Roni Summer Soup

So… with the hot weather I’ve been really lazy about making dinners and since turning on the oven or stove is just about the worst idea I can imagine, we’ve been eating out a lot wayyyy too much.

Alas, last night, the wind showed up and the weather cooled, which meant it was the perfect time to use up all my fresh veggies that were close to going bad.

I call it “Fridge Soup,” however, admittedly, its not the most appetizing name, so for aesthetic purposes I’ll call it “Rice-A-Roni Summer Soup.” This recipe has a couple staple ingredients, but the rest is up to you, just use whatever you have in your fridge. It’s low-cal, super filling, and simply amazing with a couple slices of buttered French bread. Enjoy!

Rice-A-Roni Summer Soup

Rice-A-Roni Summer Soup (Or-What-Have-You)

**Note: This recipe made enough for 3 meals for 2 people—I froze what wasn’t eaten, more on that later.

The Staples:

1 box of Chicken or Beef Flavored Rice-A Roni (I actually used the Trader Joes kind)

2 tbls butter

1 Qt. of Low Sodium Chicken Broth

1.5 Qt. of Water

1 Chicken Bullion Cube

Roughly 6-8 cloves of garlic

1 tsp Thyme

Salt & Pepper

4 Bay Leaves

The Optionals:

The rest of the ingredients are totally up to you! I used EVERY veggie I could find, I figured, the more the merrier! Here’s what I used:

1 lb Ground Turkey (Ground Beef is great in this recipe too)

2 Carrots Chopped

½ Red Onion

1 Zucchini Chopped
1 Orange Bell Pepper Chopped
1/2 cup Chopped Green Onions

Some Cauliflower

Some Broccoli

Some Frozen Corn

Some Frozen Peas

A Big handful of Chopped Cabbage

Some more Garlic (because I’m a SUPER fan)

A few dashes of Cayenne Pepper

The Process:

1. In a GIANT pot I browned my ground turkey using a touch of olive oil on the bottom. Once that’s cooked, transfer to a bowl—but keep the pot on the heated stove.

2. Put the butter in the bottom of the pot. Once melted, put the rice contents of the Rice-A-Roni into the Pot and brown (just like it says on the package). Once the vermicelli starts to brown, add your Chicken Broth, Water, Bullion Cube, and Rice-A-Roni Flavor Packet. Stir.

3. Add Thyme, Bay Leaves, Pepper (I advise not adding salt until after it’s close to being done cooking, as there is a lot of salty flavors in the broth, bullion and flavor packet.)

4. Add back your ground meat and throw in any veggies you can find in your fridge. 

5. Bring to Boil. Let mixture boil at a low rumble for about 20-25 minutes, until you can see that the rice is fully cooked.

Soup in zip-lock, on paper towel, on cookie sheet, ready for freezing.

Yay! Frozen Soup!

Freezing:

I love eating this soup fresh, but I think I love it after it’s been frozen even more. The flavors all meld together and rice takes on the broth flavor even more. It’s jut delish! I am generally cooking for 2 people, so I like to use the quart size freezer bags.

With the help of a friend, ladle the soup into the ziplock bag until it’s a little less than half full (see how positive that was?). Then fold over the top to get as much of the air out of the bag as possible without spilling the contents and zip ‘er up.

I like to lay them flat to freeze, so that once frozen, I can stand them up like books and they take up a lot less of my freezer.

Before placing the bags in the freezer I also layer them with paper towels so that if any water/condensation gets on the outside of the bags they don’t freeze together. Note: Putting the bags on a cookie sheet, then taking them to the freezer makes your life a whole heck of a lot easier.

It's just SO Pretty!

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Probably the EASIEST Soup Recipe Ever

I just had a really rad lunch that I think you'd like to hear about. 


Recently, I’ve been on a quest for low calorie, good tasting, filling meals, that don’t contain “low-calorie” ingredients (ie. saccharin, aspartame, etc.). Well, it turns out they really do exist! This recipe was insanely simple and it’s been an hour and a half since I ate it and I’m still full. This was super easy and best part was that I didn’t have to cook anything, I threw it all in a Tupperware container, brought it to work and heated in the microwave. Dunzo.

Salsa Shrimp Soup
1/3 cup of Trader Joes Creamy Tomato Soup
1/4 cup of Trader Joes Mild Salsa
about 15 Frozen Fully Cooked Medium Shrimp
½ an avocado, diced

Add these all to a Tupperware Container, then heat in the Microwave on high for approximately 1:30-2 mins. (Note: I mixed everything the night before I heated it in the microwave which gave the shrimp plenty of time to defrost, if you are heating this straight from frozen, you’ll probably need to add some cook time)

This recipe makes one serving that comes out to roughly 200 calories (most of which come from the avocado--which provide your body with the "good" fat that it needs daily).  

Sorry I don’t have a picture, it was so thrown together that I didn’t imagine it would be good enough to blog about—I’ll try to add a pic later.  3/19/12 Update: I had this for lunch again today and was able to snap a quick pic before devouring. Enjoy!

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Saying "No" to McDonalds

I don’t know about you, but one of my biggest challenges in with this whole “eating right” thing is having to work while doing it. Of course, I should be able to brown bag lunch everyday and assume that the problem is solved. Not at my job.

I’ll paint you a picture of a typical day. 

I come in at 8am and grab my coffee with Spelnda (I’m not a fan of the fake stuff, but we don’t have any real sugar here). At about 9 or 10 my boss—size 2, blonde bombshell—asks if anyone is hungry. This roughly translates to, “I want a Sausage McMuffin and hashbrown, but I can’t be the only one eating Mcdonalds, so I’ll buy you all breakfast to alleviate my guilt.”  Then, the rest of the day no one eats again.

OR, I come in at 8am, have my coffee. No one eats anything, then, at about noon, the boss asks “How about Chinese Food?!” or “How about pizza?!” or “How about burritos?!”

Now, don’t get me wrong, these free lunches are awesome! Who doesn’t want their boss to offer to buy lunch or breakfast daily? My problem is the health factor and self control in this scenario. I WANT to say yes, but recently I have had to force myself to say no and find something else to eat. 

Brown bagging has been working so far, but this morning the inevitable “Do you want anything from McDonalds?” happened. I immediately said “no.” but then, just to make sure that was my final answer, I went to the McDonalds website and looked at all the deliciousness they have to offer. I held strong and stuck with my original “no,” but realized that this is going to be an ongoing struggle. Eating healthy isn’t just about eating the right things, its about WANTING to eat the right things. It’s all very physiological and requires a lot of self-control (which I've never been very good at--ask the 13 Del Taco chicken soft tacos I had one day in college). 

I think the best way for me to keep this whole thing up is to continue to brown bag my lunch and snacks and keep things interesting. I can’t bring the same thing everyday, because it will only get boring and I’ll be even more tempted to get a Grande Burrito with extra sour cream. (Mmm…)  

Anyway, I have to be happy with my bananas, blueberries, cheerios, whole-wheat wraps and green tea. I have to make things that actually taste good, not just are good. So that’s the plan. Come up some tasty treats that are low-cal, high-protein and, most importantly, delicious. If I come up with anything super-crazy-awesome, I’ll be sure to let you know. 

Ok, now back to my tomato soup and fruit salad. Happy Friday, ya’ll.

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