Friday, June 18, 2010

Family Pictures

We drove up to College Station a few weeks ago, and had our family pictures taken by Ryan Price.   Ryan and his wife did an amazing job. Sara (Ryan's wife) was responsible for making Brooks smile. she was successful. They made us look good.

Here are some of my favorites that Ryan took before the rain came.



Yeah, I know. Its a lot of pictures.  Now I have to decide which ones I want for our house.

Brooks is 9 1/2 months.  I can not believe we have an almost one year old! What a fun year it has been! He is officially fulling up on everything in sight.  Today, he pulled up on the tv and highchair. Two things that had given him trouble before. A few days ago, he mastered the toilet. He has been trying that one for a while, but has not been able to pull up. I was cleaning around the house the other day, and was walking from room to room.  Sweet little Brooks was trying to keep up with me, but once he was in the bathroom he had stayed put for a while. When I made my way back into the bathroom, he was standing at the toilet, with his hand swirling all around. Thankfully, I had just just scrubbed the toilet. Still gross, but that fact made me feel a LOT better about Brooks' new accomplishment. Oh little boys.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Quinoa Vegetable Soup

Hi Folks,

I made Quinoa Vegetable Soup on Monday for lunch. Key ended up not coming home for lunch that day to try this yummy soup.  But that night, he came home, "doctored" it up, and loved it. Right honey? Right.

He pan seared ribeye steak, cut it into small pieces and added that.  Also, he seasoned it up.  Men. I cant help you out with what he seasoned it up with, because I was outside giving riding lessons. So, go with whatever tastes good to you.

I used the box of Ancient Harvest Quinoa.



It's the box second from the right. "Traditional" Quinoa.

The recipe I followed is on their Website.

I did some tweaking. But the recipe is as follows:

Quinoa Vegetable Soup

4 cups water                                            2 cloves garlic, chopped
¼ cup quinoa                                           1 Tbs safflower oil
½ cup carrots, diced                                 ½ cup tomatoes, chopped
¼ cup celery, diced                                   ½ cup cabbage, chopped
2 Tbs onions, chopped                               1 tsp salt
¼ cup green pepper, diced                            parsley, chopped    

Sauté quinoa, carrots, celery, onions, green pepper and garlic in oil until golden brown. Add water, tomatoes and cabbage and bring to a boil. Simmer 20 to 30 minutes or until tender. Season to taste and garnish with parsley. Serves 4-6.   This is a very basic recipe for quinoa vegetable soup. For variations try adding some of your other favorite vegetables, chopped and sautéed.   Quinoa can be a welcome addition to just about any type of soup

I had most of these veggies in (my mom's) garden, so it was super yummy using home grown tomatoes and green pepper, especially.  The quinoa expands and fluffls up in the soup almost like barley or rice would.  So the measly ole 1/4 cup that you use, goes further than you would think.

I also added peas to my soup. Key does not like peas, but I did not have cabbage, So I figured that I needed to add something in its place.

It was super duper easy to make, light on the tummy, healthy and most of all, yummy.

Enjoy!

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Checking In

We have had a busy start to this summer.  I started this post a week ago, but never finished it. sorry!

Confession: I had brownies during the 7 day challenge.

and they were really yummy.

But other than that, I did pretty darn good on the 7-Day No Sugar Challenge. No sweet tea, no cookies, and no chocolate morsels with kettle corn popcorn.  To help curb the craving, I ate a lot of fruit this week. The best? Juicy watermelon and ripe, sweet pears. (If you live anywhere NEAR Hempstead, TX., go to Dolorio's market in town. By FAR the best watermelon I have ever had. And I have had many watermelon in my day.) I also had strawberries, apples, raspberries and blackberries. The only problem I ran in to, is when I did not eat a balanced dinner, I got hungry late at night (which I normally do not do).  This is when my sugar craving is the highest.  So I ate some almonds to try and fill me up.  Nuts are a great snack. Pumpkin seeds, almonds, cashews and sunflower seeds.  

I have not been as good about completely cutting out sugar this week as last week.  But I want to get back on it.

I STILL have not made Quinoa. I have the recipe and ingredients to make it.

Today is Key's cousin's Wedding Day! Congratulations Roby and Julie!