Something In Common With The Neighbours..

Me and the neighbours USE to have something in common- you could usually find us around the feeding station throughout the day…

Don’t look at me that way…I said we USE to have something in common- now I’m working on my new and improved lifestyle and I’m so proud of myself- I’m very determined to end this year 40 and fabulous.

I found a fabulous website which offers loads of healthy meals and the food looks scrumptious-Eating Well Website

Tonight I tried making a broccoli and cheese chowder recipe I found at this site and I have to tell you, the photo below will probably not entice you but let my incredibly warm recommendation of this soup be! We took a long walk in the deep snow, over the field and up into the woods..and nothing sounded better then a warm cup of soup and some homemade whole grain bread..

I didn’t follow the recipe religiously- I have people in the house who don’t like celery- so we left out the celery stalks ( I will make this with celery when the people who don’t like celery go back to Brazil soon…hehehehe..). I began by simmering one large onion (chopped) and three small carrots (or one American size carrot) sliced in one tablespoon of extra virgin oil. To this I added three medium size potatoes peeled and chopped and three small garlic cloves finely chopped. I let this cook over a low heat and added one tablespoon of flour, 1 tsp dry mustard, and 1/2 tsp old bay seasoning (it asked for cayenne pepper but I didn’t have that so I used this substitute and it was great). 2 liters of water with four chicken buljong cubes (the original recipe asked for low sodium- but I only have what they sell in Norway which is regular chicken stock cubes) Finally two broccoli heads (just the tops) finely chopped. I let this slowly cook awhile and then took out about half the soup and blended it until it was like mush..poured it back in and added 1 cup of shredded cheese (low fat cheddar was suggested but I used what I had which was a mild Norwegian white cheese) and 1/2 cup low cal sour cream.

Let this cook slowly and as with any good soup- the longer it cooks the better…I baked my whole grain rolls I’ve blogged about before and this completed my healthy meal..it was so good and the kids loved it too, which is always a great sign when the kids love healthy food!!

For dessert, I blended one package of frozen strawberries, two small strawberry yoghurt cups (low fat would have been the appropriate type to use but I had regular that we had bought in Sweden), skim milk (just poured in until the blender was half full), and two teaspoons of splenda sugar subsitute powder- mixed and put into individual cups and set in the freezer 30 minutes..YUM…

Combining this kind of eating with walking and other physical activity daily and I’ll be a new me before you know it and definitely not like my neighbours!!!

Are you making any changes this year?? For my Norwegian readers check out Villmarkstausa's Blog she is having a great contest where you can win a year’s subscription to LEV LANDLIG!!

Until next time my friends..