Portion control and home-brewed soup.

It's been another relatively lengthy amount of time since my last blog update. I'm still somewhat busy with work (which is actually where I've written all of these blog entries). I've also been known to procrastinate a little. Hmm, who knew?

We're actually doing quite well with our portion control endeavour, which was something I thought both Lindsay and I would struggle with. It's slow going though. Breaking habit and routine in terms of what (or in this case how much) you eat is a very difficult thing to do. We're coming along nicely though. We've also been able to drastically reduce the number of times we eat out in a week. I think this past week we only did once or twice. I've also gotten used to not ordering fries with a meal. It's great. I had also wanted to try to take lunch to work (which I haven't in the past couple days actually), so the other night I'd attempted to make some somewhat-healthy homemade soup. It turned out remarkably well. I'll add my (approximate) recipe to the end of this post.

In the past couple of days I think both Lindsay and I have had our challenges tested quite a bit. Lindsay started a new job a few days ago. She was telling me that the first thing her boss had done (I guess they were supposed to have meetings or something) was bring in cupcakes and cookies and candies and other confections for the staff. I know how hard it is to say no to that sort of thing, I can only imagine how hard it would have been on her first day to tell people she'd never met that she was refusing their generous offer of ambrosial baked goods. She did it though and I would have to say that that would count as a triumph. Well done indeed.

We had a baseball tournament this weekend, after which my team decided to order pizza while having a drink at one of my teammate/coworker's houses. I didn't eat it obviously. I had already eaten so that wasn't too bad. I did feel somewhat bad though because the host of the party thought I was saying no to her other food offerings to be polite. It sort of goes back to what I mentioned in my first blog entry: You don't realize how much people want you to eat with them, until you're not eating with them.

Over the past week, there have been 3 birthday cakes in my office. Actually I'm not sure that they were birthday cakes, but cakes for some form of celebration. They're not even the really cheap ones either, I'm talking $50-$60 bakery-purchased, custom-cake excellence. We've also had countless plates/platters of donuts from Tim Hortons, other forms of baked goods, muffins, chocolates, etc... The latest cake was rich chocolate; You could smell this thing across the room. It's been sitting in the lunch-room for two days. I think it might even have my name on it.

It's amazing how much of a positive effect that not eating take-out, junk-food, candies and chocolate has on your body. Both Lindsay (I'm sure she'll disagree with me on this one for eternity, probably longer) and I have lost a noticeable amount of weight. We've both started going to the gym and exercising more. We have more drive to succeed with this. It's really quite impressive.

The last thing I'll mention, I added a javascript counter to the top of the blog so I can tell how long the challenge is set to run for....... I thought it was cool.

Oh, and the soup recipe follows:

Ingredients:

•  8 cups of water (for the stock) and enough extra water to boil potatoes
•  4 chicken boullion cubes
•  2 cups medium egg noodles
•  2 medium boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed (or julienned depending on preference)
•  2 cups coined (or julienned depending on preference) carrots
•  3 medium potatoes, cubed
•  4 medium stalks of celery, coined
•  3 tbsp minced garlic
•  2 tsp oregano
•  2 tsp basil
•  1 tsp ground cinnamon
•  2 tbsp margarine

Method:

1. Prepare the carrots, celery and potatoes and place them into separate bowls.
2. In a pot, cover the potatoes with water and boil until soft
3. Bring the 8 cups of water to a boil. When it boils add the boullion cubes.
4. Add carrots and remaining 1 tbsp of margarine to a microwave safe bowl, sprinkle with cinnamon and microwave on high for 6-7 minutes or until soft. Stir them about halfway through.
5. In the meantime, sauteé your garlic in 1 tbsp of the margine over medium heat for one minute, add celery and sauteé another 5 minutes. Add the chicken and sauteé until it's about halfway cooked.
6. Keep the water boiling and add the chicken concoction and basil and oregano to the boiling water and boullion mix.
7. Drain the potatoes and add to the soup.
8. Add the carrots when they're soft.
9. Boil on high for 10 minutes, reduce to low-medium heat and let simmer for about half an hour, stirring it on occasion.
10. Increase to medium high heat, add the noodles and boil until they're cooked.

This will make quite a good amount of soup for two people. Enjoy.