Leftover Soup

In Norwegian this is actually called Kjøttsuppe (Meat soup) but it´s basically leftover soup. Any meat leftovers you have will work perfectly in this soup- so the only challenge in this is your fantasy! Another reason this post won´t be that long because there is no specific recipe here, this is up to you but I´ll let you know what I did. 

I used one pork chop which we had leftover from dinner the night before. I used 1 package of ground pork which I made into tiny meatballs with some garlic, onion, egg, and bread crumbs and Italian spices. Then I took low fat sausages and cut them into tiny pieces. This was my meat. Then I cut up one small package of sweet peas, a half of a yellow onion, 1 small carrot,  half of a cauliflower and half of a broccoli, 4 small potatoes, and half a head of green cabbage. Add the veggies to 2.5liter of water and 4 cubes of beef bullion. Let this cook up a bit, add a dash or two of worchestire sauce, a dash of hot chili sauce, and a dash of low salt soy sauce. Again let this cook up a bit on a medium heat...then add your meat and let the whole thing just melt together for as long as you manage to wait. I waited from morning til evening so all the flavors were so strong and good together :-) I also added a few bay leaves too! 

So easy, so good!

Until next time my friends.....

Hear Ye, Hear Ye....

Hear Ye, Hear Ye...I have news! First of all, thanks to all of you who have been commenting and sending your support for my attempt at a healthier life. Amazing how the kind and encouraging words of strangers can make such a difference!!! THANK YOU! 

I apologize for not updating more often but I´ve hit a snag. My computer won´t allow me to upload anymore photos onto my PIcasa and so I´m not able to edit my photos and I´m not computer-intelligent enough to understand how to get things taken care of so I can start editing photos again, so I´m waiting for my fix-it-man, aka The Captain, who will be arriving next week. So be patient with me and please forgive me for all the borrowed photos you´ll be seeing in the posts this next week! :-) 

So onto the news...today I was at my Easylife program. As those of you who are following me know, we meet every Tuesday for a weigh in and a lesson on nutrition, exercise, or general health. Then we have an exercise class. We try new things every week so that perhaps we find something we´ve never tried before and like it....tonight´s class was Spinning. I have to admit to you all that I´ve had a deep fear of spinning for as long as I can remember. I´ve never been on a spinning bike but honestly never understood the concept or the difference between a spinning bike and a regular exercise bike except that you control the intensity on a spinning bike while on an exercise bike you usually run a computer operated program. I also heard with spinning they sometimes stood up on a bike and pedaled and I was thinking that would be an impossible feat for me. When the Captain and I bike with regular bikes he always tells me to stand up on the hills and use my legs more to bike but I´m so uncoordinated that I am always afraid to crash...so I don´t stand on a bike....I pedal hard...so that scared me a little about spinning....

BUT.....tonight our group had a spinning class and I have to say.....I was surprised to find myself liking it :-) I have to admit it´s partly because I PERSONALLY control the intensity and so yes, I have a much better chance of "cheating" and not pushing myself as hard....which sounds horrible when you´re suppose to really push yourself in exercise! However, with that said, I DID work up quite the sweat and felt I really got a great workout. So my verdict is...I will definitely try it again...I think maybe our trainer tonight ran us kinda easy because he wanted us to like it and try it again....the next trainer might be a nightmare...but I will try!!! In my 45 minute class I burned off 450kcal. So I figured that was dinner which was homemade tomato soup and meatballs which I blogged about HERE. So after I got home and had a nice warm shower I made this little treat for my evening meal: 

This is a piece of low carb bread which I made from a mix I bought at the store, low fat cottage cheese, cherry tomatoes and red onion. I have to admit, I´ve used cottage cheese in lasagna but never just eaten it on bread like the above photos shows. Not sure I thought I´d like it without the tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese I use with lasagna but it´s actually pretty good on it´s own and I try to give it a little Italian kick with the red onion and cherry tomatoes and a little garlic pepper sprinkled over the top of it. I used fresh basil the other night with this but forgot it tonight. The drink is a peaches and cream smoothie. Low fat vanilla yoghurt, 2tbsp cream, about a cup of skim milk, about 8 ice cubes, 1 banana and 6 peeled and sliced peaches and finally 1.5 tbsp honey. 

According to my Easylife coach/trainer I´ve gone down a total of 5.7kg since I began this program the 25th of September. However, those are his numbers which he gets by weighing me in the evening, which is the heaviest time of the day to weight yourself on so I´ve been weighing myself in the morning on the same day we have our class and according to my weight numbers I´ve gone down 6.3kg which I think is perfect. I´ve also lost about 4.5cm around my waist. It´s slow going but that´s how it should be...I´m eating real food...wonderful, fantastic, REAL food...not nasty shakes and soups....I´m having a blast planning out healthy meals and trying new foods..this is how it´s suppose to be and I´m making a conscious choice every day to do the right thing. I do mess up sometimes. The weekend before last I had company and ate things I shouldn´t. This past weekend Sarah was visiting and I had some nuts and yoghurt covered raisins Saturday night...but it´s ok...I´m still losing and I´m happy....so this is the right choice for me! It´s important to live good while trying to get healthy and while my brain thinks living good involves cakes, cookies, and other yummy snacks, I´m trying to re-program my brain to find other healthy alternatives to living good and I´ll share them with you as I find them :-)

Until then my friends.....

Salmon Wraps

A quick hello, just popped in to share my dinner with you tonight. I used this recipe HERE. This is in Norwegian but just copy the recipe and google translate it, will work perfectly! I didn´t follow this completely, used some different veggies but for the most part it was very similar. This photo is from the blog where I got the recipe. I also made homemade guacamole with the following recipe you can find HERE. Again it´s in Norwegian but just google translate :-) I also used whole grain tortillas we can get in the stores here. So this is a healthy and filling meal. Happy Eating....

Until next my friends...

Tomato Soup With MEATBALLS!!

I bought a couple low carb cook books. Not because I plan to do a low carb diet but it doesn´t hurt to keep the carbs to a minimum. Your body needs some but not a lot and your body needs the right carbs...staying away from the quick carbs like white bread, white pastas and rice are best...but let´s not get fanatical about this ok? ;-) 

So I found this recipe for a tomato soup with meatballs in this book I bought which in Norwegian is called LAVKARBO-husmannskost written by Anna Hallèn.  I have been use to making my own tomato soup with roasted peppers, garlic, and onion but decided to give this one a try. I halved the soup as we´re only three and there was enough for four servings (lunch tomorrow!!!) Here is what I did:
Make your meatballs: I used ground pork, I mixed in a quarter yellow onion finely chopped, 3 garlic cloves finely chopped, and a quarter orange pepper finely chopped. I also used a tbsp of bread crumbs. The recipe called for "Husk" which it defined as psyllium seed (I tried googling this word and it kept coming up psyllium...so if anyone has an idea what I´m talking about here let me know...hahahahaha...)So I just used bread crumbs- remember we´re not getting fanatical about carbs right? I was also going to use 1 egg but discovered we were empty for eggs. So I used a few dashes of cream until the mixture was sticky enough to roll into balls. I fried these up in unsalted butter (just a tbsp) and then sett the balls aside. 

In a pot, sauté half a yellow onion finely chopped, 1 garlic clove finely chopped, 3 sides of an orange pepper finely chopped, about 1tbsp finely chopped fresh basil, 1.5 tsp of dried thyme(use fresh if you have, I didn´t) After the onions soften a little add about 0.5 dl of dry white wine, 2 boxes of crushed tomatoes, 1.5dl cream, 1 dl water, and 1.5 blocks of vegetable bullion. Mix well and let this simmer- the longer the better so all the flavors marry. I didn´t add salt to this soup but I used garlic pepper to season with. Add the meatballs after awhile and the drippings from the meatball pan and mix well. Serve with a little dash of creme fraichè and serve! I didn´t serve my soup with any bread but by all means, serve a delicious good bread with this soup and it will totally complete the meal. 

This was a super delicious soup which I was very satisfied with after I was done with, even without the bread! The meatballs help you to feel full from this soup. And let´s face it folks, nothing tastes better on a cool fall day then a piping hot bowl of hearty soup! 

Until next time my friends...

Easy Way To An Easylife...

Finally a chance to update my blog. We´ve been busy this past weekend with dog shows in the letohallen near Oslo. We went both Saturday and Sunday and showed little Harley...

Our competition was sweet little Nova, a little princess who lives at kennel Ting-ge-ling where Cookie comes from...

We´re happy to announce that Harley was Best in Breed both days and sweet Nova was the Best in Opposite sex!!! :-)) 

On Saturday after the show we went and visited Sarah and Pål and decided to have lunch with them. Yes, you heard correctly...lunch...real food, no liquid shakes or soups...NO...I have NOT given up my battle of the bulge, but I came to the decision that the liquid diet part was NOT for me. I kinda always knew it wasn´t the right way to go down in weight but I was blinded by the big numbers others around me were losing in such a short time and I wanted the same results...but that week that I was on the liquid diet, I was so depressed and so funky feeling. It was like constantly running my nails down a chalk board, it wasn´t right and I knew it but I kept doing it...until Saturday when I said enough was enough. We went out to lunch at JordbærPikene (Strawberry Girls in English) and I ordered a chicken and bacon salad with feta cheese and I ate half of what was served to me. I ate slowly, enjoying every bite of REAL food...it was wonderful. I´m not one to do something half way, either all the way or not at all and so since I was back on real food, I decided to be back on real food for every meal and not use the shakes at all. The last few days I´ve been eating a lot of veggies in salads and proteins in the form of fish, turkey, and moose! I´ve tried to stay away from carbs as much as possible but I´m not going to be fanatical about them. A little is ok and preferably the healthy carbs not the quick carbs like white pasta, white rice, and white breads...and anything with sugar. But if I someday eat white pasta I´m not going to freak. I´ve created my own diet, called the common sense diet. Common sense tells you what is healthy and what isn´t and I´m doing my best to stick to the healthy but if I should eventually try something unhealthy, I´m not going to freak...just jump right back in the saddle and keep going. Because this is going to be a lifestyle and a lifestyle by definition means something you do for life and hopefully life will be a good long time :-) So here is some of the food I´ve been making lately...

This yummy salad was made with QUINOA which I have talked about wanting to try before. I found it in a foreign market in Hamar in both white and red versions. This is the white and it was really good! The recipe for this is HERE. 

This was dinner tonight, the quinoa salad (recipe above), chicken filet stuffed with fresh basil, mozzarella, and topped with a grilled red pepper slice and then you drizzle balsamic vinegar over the whole thing and spice with a little garlic pepper. Finally a yummy parmesan roasted cauliflower side dish which you can find the recipe for HERE.

This is my breakfast these days, two eggs, salsa, yellow or red pepper, red onion, aroma mushrooms, and spinach.

Here is the lunch I´ve been taking to work the last couple days, a yummy salad with mixed greens, red onion, red pepper, cherry tomatoes, spinach, mixed nuts intended for salads, feta cheese and turkey filet. For my dressing I use Balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil and some roasted garlic pepper. 

Finally an idea of what I eat for my snacks these days...sweet plums, bananas, and skim milk. 

According to my weight scale here at home where I weigh myself in the mornings without clothing, I was down 6 kilos in two weeks. I´m totally motivated for this lifestyle change. In fact I haven´t felt this motivated since I was on the Scandinavian Biggest Loser. I´m so grateful to eat real food and not those crappy shakes that I don´t need chips and candy and such things, just good healthy food and I´m satisfied. I´m sure there will come a day when I feel the urge for chocolate and I´m going to use common sense and get some dark chocolate which is healthier then milk chocolate. That is the key in this common sense diet of mine which I´m making up as I go....using common sense to make the right decisions. We all know what we should hold us away from, what we should eat less of...but we make the decisions to ignore them all too often and choose things we shouldn´t. It´s ok, we´re human...we make mistakes. What is important is being able to not say, "the heck with it" and just continue to eat like we shouldn´t but to get back on track right away and not beat ourselves up for the slip ups that WILL happen over a lifetime. 

I want to prove that these changes I´m making on my common sense diet will be enough to help me go down, slow and easy. I want to inspire others that good healthy food is a HECK of a lot better then those stinking shakes and soups. I´m so in awe of the people I know who have been on those meal replacement shakes for months....you people are amazing!! Just had to say that...imagine when they put that determination into eating healthy food! 

I´ve been walking a lot lately also and I´m trying to do a lot of strength training to build muscles which will help burn fat. Maybe I´ll become some muscle woman and start lifting cars or something....hahahaha, no...just kidding...;-)

I´ve gotten such great support from you reading and those around me and I know I´m going to keep going down, slowly but surely!!! A reader asked me where I got wild rice here in Norway. I shop at the Grønt og Godt (Green and Good) which is a foreign market in Hamar. Often foreign shops have a lot of things that aren´t found in regular stores in Norway. So hope you have one nearby you can check out! 

Have a wonderful day where ever you are in the world and thanks for stopping by my little corner of cyberspace....

Until next time my friends...

Autumn Here In Norway

Hey everyone! :-) I have loads to talk to you about but I´m going to save it for a post where I don´t have so many photos to share ;-) I don´t want to scare you away with a thousand words and a thousand photos! You´ll be here all day! Today I was driving around doing some errands and I had my camera with me. It´s autumn in Norway and absolutely one of the most magical times of the year...the colors are stunning and I´m in the mood for a warm fire in the fireplace and a good hearty soup....oh wait...I can´t have soup....yet....never the less...sit back, enjoy the photos and for being such good people I´ve got a healthy soup recipe too share with you below. Again, I haven´t tried it yet, but it´s on my list of recipes to try and if you try it before me, let me know how it goes ok? 

Don´t I live in a beautiful place? Yeah....I´m one lucky girl that´s for sure! I´ll be back to share my thoughts with you soon I promise...got some dog shows coming up, but I´ll post again as soon as I can :-) In the meantime here is that yummy looking soup I promised you and the recipe is HERE.  Chicken and Wild Rice Soup....oh man...my aching stomach...I WANT SOUP!!!!! 

Until next time my friends......