soup is where my heart is

Thanks for all your great feedback on what to do when you’re stuck in a food rut! I have a few great meals planned for the rest of the week, so I’m really excited. In reality, my grocery money for the month of September is in the negative amount, so I’ve just got to stick to what I’ve got laying around until next week! Does anyone else live on a budget when it comes to groceries? I find it to be really hard with all of my food intolerances — the husband is very understanding though and lets me buy my $6.00 a bag oats and ridiculous amount of nuts/nut butters.

I promised you a different breakfast today, do you remember? I went to hot oats this morning topped with warm peaches (cooked in cinnamon and vanilla), raisins, coconut, and peanut butter.

It was absolutely delicious. It made me really excited that I froze a whole bunch of peaches about a month ago!

I didn’t want my pumpkin oats today for a reason. Okay, I take that back. It wasn’t that I didn’t want them, because who am I kidding? I always want pumpkin oats right now…. in fact, I could go for some RIGHT now.

More specifically, I wanted to try a pumpkin coffee. I took my regular coffee, scooped about 1 tbsp pumpkin into it, poured milk over the top, and stirred like crazy.

It looks perfect, doesn’t it? Well, minus the fact that if you peer out the window in the top right hand corner of the next picture, it is still pitch black outside.

Has anyone ever told you that looks can be deceiving?

Don’t get me wrong, the coffee was amazing — until I got down to the last sip. Much of the pumpkin went directly to the bottom. I ended drinking a good portion of JUST PUMPKIN at the end. It kind of grossed me out. I think next time I have to continuously stir the coffee so the pumpkin doesn’t drop to the bottom.

After breakfast I found out that I pretty much failed in the wife department yesterday. The husband went out to celebrate his cousin’s birthday and before he left he told me to do two things: fill out a loan application and keep the door unlocked for him.

When he woke up this morning, he let me know I failed to do both.

Whoops. I guess I was subconsciously getting him back for not hanging pictures for the past 3 weeks. Karma sucks, no?

One thing I love about my yard is how many trees are in the back. This leaf made its way into our kitchen this morning, and I just couldn’t get over the colors of it. They are absolutely gorgeous.

Perhaps this weekend I’ll get outside and photograph some more in the backyard. It kind of makes me want a DSLR though.

Do you agree there is something wrong with the next picture? Either I had really poor packing skills today or I just packed way too much food.

   I’m going to go with I packed a lot of bulky Tupperware. However, I did pack well today. I’m not going to bore you with the food though — it was pretty standard, and Tupperware pictures are next really that pretty. 

After school I had a meeting until 5, so when I finally hit the road, I was kind of mad. I hate leaving school at that time because it takes double the time to get home than it normally would. I spend almost an hour fighting traffic whereas normally it takes me 25 minutes to get home. Argh!

Thankfully I foresaw this yesterday and made dinner for tonight in advance. This is my favorite go to soup — it was actually adapted by Mommasita from a Weight Watchers Veggie Soup.

When I was younger, I used to turn up my nose to this soup because it had cabbage. Oh, how times have changed…

Loaded Cabbage Soup courtesy of Mommasita

What you’ll need

• 1 quart vegetable broth (I used TJ’s vegetable broth — it’s GF!)
• 2 cans stewed tomatoes
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 red pepper, diced
• 2 cups frozen Italian green beans
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 head green cabbage, sliced/shredded
• salt, pepper, garlic, oregano, and basil to taste

How it’s done

1. Heat a large dutch oven to medium-high heat with the 1 tbsp olive oil. Chop your onion, red pepper, garlic, and carrots. Add to Dutch oven and cook until onions are translucent (about 5 minutes). Be careful not to burn your onions or garlic as this will leave a horrible taste to the soup.
2. Add your vegetable broth. While this is heating through, add your green beans and chop your cabbage. Add your cabbage — it will look like it is very bulky. It WILL cook down!
3. Add your stewed tomatoes, breaking them apart a little with your hands.
4. Add your spices to taste and continue to simmer until the cabbage has cooked completely.

This is a fantastic soup to make ahead of time and pack for lunches, have for late work nights, etc. We love it around here! I think I made this soup once per week last winter — I had it for lunch almost every day!

On the side, I had a slice of my homemade gluten free sandwich bread topped with simple garlic hummus and cucumber slices. I cannot get over how insanely good this bread it. I must have said, “oh my gosh I love this bread” about 5 times during dinner tonight.

And now my mouth is salivating. Get this girl some more bread! Instead of bread though, I think I’m going to go make a special dessert! It will include pumpkin!

Question: What is your favorite soup recipe? I need some ideas for the upcoming months!

Tagged as: cabbage soup, gluten free bread, homemade bread, peach cobbler oatmeal, soup