Last year, at this time, we were buried under multiple feet of snow. This year we’ve had flurries that didn’t accumulate but no actual snow fall that amounted to much of anything. Until today. Right now there’s at least 5 inches of snow and the temperature is still dropping. On days like this, when everyone just wants to stay inside all bundled up, it’s a great day for soup! This cream of broccoli soup recipe can be whipped up in a flash. Serve it like it is or top it with shredded cheddar cheese. It’s filling by itself or you can eat it with a grilled chicken sandwich. Make your sandwich low carb by using a low carb bread such as Joseph’s flax, oat bran and whole wheat lavash bread.

The Best Cream of Broccoli Soup

2 tablespoons butter

1 onion, finely chopped

1 stalk celery, chopped

8 cups of broccoli florets (I used 2 – 12 oz bags of florets)

2 cups of chicken broth

2 cups milk

salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot melt the butter over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and celery. Cook until tender. Add the broccoli florets and the chicken broth. Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes or until the broccoli is tender.

If you have a immersion blender then you can puree the broccoli right in the pot. If not, pour some of the soup into a blender (only fill it about half way), cover with the lid and pulse several times to chop the broccoli florets. Once they are chopped a bit you can puree the soup to your desired consistency. I like to leave small bits of broccoli while others like their soup pureed smooth. Pour the pureed soup into a large bowl and continue to puree batches until it is all done.

Pour the soup back into the pot and add the milk. The soup should be fairly thick in consistency. If you would like it thinner you can add more chicken broth. Add salt and pepper to taste. Heat the soup back up to the desired temperature and serve.

Serves 6+

Calories 126

Fat: 5.6 grams

Total Carbs: 11.3 grams

Fiber: 3.1 grams

Protein: 4.7 grams

The nutritional amounts were calculated using whole milk (which is where many of the carbs come from due to the lactose). If you want to lower the carb count you can replace the milk with heavy cream (1 cup cream and 1 cup water). This will drop the carbs to 8 grams but increase the fat to 9.5 grams and the calories to 137 per serving.

Image:mortonfox

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At this time I’m about one third of the way through my current internship. The main focus of this first one is food service management with some clinical nutrition. Most of my time has been spent helping to assist in some type of food prep, setting up patient meal trays, processing dietary orders, making tray deliveries, etc. There’s a separate cafeteria for employees and visitors so a wide variety of hot meals and sandwiches are made every day. They offer a great discount to employees, as well as volunteers and interns, so purchasing a hot meal each day is a nice perk. The only down side is the majority of the meals are notlow carb in any way.

All their meals were created by the staff dietitians to be heart healthy. This translates to margarine instead of butter, brown rice instead of white rice, whole grains in place of “bad” meat, egg whites or Egg Beaters instead of real eggs. You get the idea. Most dishes are purposely made to be much higher in whole grains (carbs) and lower in fat and protein. 

While I’m there I make the best low carb choices from what they have to offer. This might be accomplished by taking extra non starchy veggies in place of rice, noodles and potatoes. I may buy the wrap sandwich and eat everything except for the tortilla. Sometimes a particular dish looks especially good but there really is no way to make it low carb. This was the case the day they served up toasty Cuban sandwiches. Sliced pork, ham, swiss cheese, dill pickles, a blend of several types of mustard’s on French bread that was grilled to perfection. Buying one and only eating everything except for the bread was one option but it wasn’t going to work. Too much bread and not enough filling. So I had to wait and  make a low carb version at home.

Low Carb Cuban “Sandwich”

2 lbs ground pork
6 slices Swiss cheese
6 slices Ham
romaine lettuce, shredded or your favorite salad greens
2 kosher dill pickles, sliced thinly length wise into at least 6 pieces
equal amounts of yellow mustard and Dijon mustard, blended
salt and pepper

To make pork burgers:
Easy enough. Divide each pound of ground pork into three portions (approximately 5 ounces each) and form into patties. If you want slightly smaller patties then divide each pound into four (approximately 4 ounces each) and form into patties. Apply salt and pepper to both sides of the pork patties to your liking and grill. I like to use the George Foreman Grill and they cook up in minutes. Love that thing!

If your cooking on the grill then top each burger with a slice of ham that has been folded to fit on top and a slice of Swiss cheese. Allow the cheese to gently melt.

If your using the George Foreman Grillor something similar I first topped each cooked burger with the ham, closed the grill and let it cook for about 30 to 45 seconds. Just enough to heat the ham. Then I removed the burgers to a plate and topped them with the swiss cheese. The heat from the burger/ham melted the cheese.

Making your Low Carb Cuban:

Put a handful or two of your favorite salad greens. Top with the pork burger. Smear a good amount of the mustard blend on it and top it off with several pieces of sliced kosher pickle.

Don’t want to be bothered using a fork to eat this? Then a whole leaf of Boston lettuce used as a wrapper would make this a low carb hand held meal.

Side Note: yes, I do realize that real Cuban sandwiches are made with pulled pork and not ground. We happen to have some ground pork on hand and went with what we had. This was certainly enjoyed by all family members so I’ll be watching for the next sale on pork roasts to make an official Cuban low carb sandwich with pulled pork.

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In my pre-low carb days, when I needed a quick bite to eat, a run through the nearest drive through fast food joint always did the trick. McDonald’s was popular and the Big Mac meal was a favorite.

I can’t tell you the last time I’ve been to McDonald’s but that hasn’t stopped me from having Big Mac’s. Well, at least my own low carb version of the Big Mac. I’ve discovered that many of the things that I previously ate between two pieces of bread taste pretty darn good made into a salad version of their former selves. If you really think about it all the bread did was hold the best part of the sandwich, the delicious filling, together. These days I still get the two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions but I don’t need the sesame seed bun. Give it a try.

BIG MAC SALAD

1 or 2 cooked hamburgers (or use cheeseburgers), diced into pieces

shredded lettuce or salad greens

shredded or cubed cheddar cheese

finely sliced onions

dill pickle slices, chopped

tomato slices if desired

Thousand Island salad dressing

Place shredded lettuce or a blend of salad greens into a bowl. Top with several tomato slices (not originally on the Big Mac but I usually add them in). Add the remaining ingredients (cheese, onions and pickles) amounts based on your own personal tastes. Top with diced cooked burgers. Drizzle the Thousand Island dressing over the top and enjoy!

LOW CARB TIP:be careful when choosing a dressing. Light and low fat varieties have the highest amount of carbs per 2 tablespoon servings. Full fat dressings seem to run about 5 grams (Kraft brand) to 4 grams (Ken’s brand) per 2 tablespoon serving. The lowest carb Thousand Island dressing is the kind you make yourself….recipe coming soon!

TIME SAVING TIP: when making burgers cook a few extra so you can make this. The burgers can be reheated in the microwave before being added to the salad. Or, do like I do, just add the cold diced pieces of burger straight from the refrigerator to your salad.

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A short time ago Hemi, the owner of the blog Fooducate, asked people to contact her if they were interested in testing out products in the future. I sent my name in and didn’t think about it until she contacted me. Hemi asked if I would be interested in trying out some tomatoes that came in BPA free packaging. Sure thing! I use tomatoes all the time. My original plan was to make some type of sauce for pasta. Of course, the week before the tomatoes arrived, things have been crazy because of school and I had already made spaghetti. If your not going to use tomatoes in sauce the next best thing is to use them in soup. The great thing about this soup is you can use just about any type of veggie and in just about any form….fresh, frozen or canned.

Beef Minestrone Soup

1 lb ground beef

olive oil

2 cloves chopped garlic

2 small to medium onions, chopped

3 stalks celery, chopped

3 or 4 carrots, sliced (OR 15 ounce can OR 1 lb frozen)

2 zucchinis quartered and sliced (OR 1 lb frozen)

2 to 3 handfuls of baby spinach (OR 8 oz frozen)

15 ounce can green beans

28 ounce can of diced or chopped tomatoes

28 ounce can tomato sauce

2 cups chicken or vegetable broth

1/2 cup red wine (optional)

1 tablespoon dried oregano

1 tablespoon dried basil

salt and pepper to taste

15 ounce can of kidney beans, drained and rinsed

1/2 cup orzo or other small pasta

Parmesan cheese for topping your soup

Oops….just realized that I forgot a few ingredients out of the picture. I don’t see any carrots, pasta or even the ground beef. I did however learn a new trick on how to take pictures indoors. Now the pictures aren’t as gray and washed out as they use to be. I’ll figure the picture taking thing out one day.  Those are thePomi tomatoes I got to test out. The boxes were pretty neat. Hard to believe they held slightly less (26.46 oz) then the huge 28 oz cans. They took up so much less cabinet space.

Directions:

In a large stock pot, over medium heat, add the ground beef. Brown and crumble the beef. Drain off the oil.

Add the onion to the pot and saute for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the celery and carrots and saute for another 4 to 5 minutes. If the vegetables should begin to stick add a tablespoon or two of olive oil and continue to saute. Add in the garlic and saute for 2 to 3 minutes.

If you are using a combination of fresh, canned and frozen vegetables you will want to add your frozen vegetables first so they thaw a bit. In my recipe I used frozen zucchini and spinach so I put them in first and allowed them to cook for several minutes before adding the other vegetables. It just makes it easier to stir because you won’t have a frozen mass of veggies in the middle of the soup. It doesn’t really matter though.

The picture above shows how I just sort of layered everything into the pot before stirring it.  Add in everything EXCEPT for the pasta and parmesan cheese. Simmer for 30 to 40 minutes. Stir occasionally while it cooks.

If you like soup with a lot of broth then cook the pasta in a separate pot and add it back to the soup at the very end right before you serve it. Ladle into bowls and top with Parmesan cheese.

If you prefer a thicker soup add the 1/2 cup of pasta directly to the soup and stir well. Cook until the pasta is tender. Ladle the soup into bowls and sprinkle a bit of parmesan cheese on top before serving.

TIP: this soup tastes just as good without out the beef

FREEZER TIP: even though this soup has a small amount of pasta in it you can freeze it. The pasta will soften when thawed and reheated but, due to the amount, it’s not really noticeable. Since this does make a very large pot of soup you can also remove several smaller containers of soup before adding the pasta to the main pot. This will solve the problem entirely.

This post is being linked back to the following blogs. Stop in to check out all the other great recipes, tips and ideas:

Real Food Wednesdays at Kelly The Kitchen Kop

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The kids started school this week but there was only two days scheduled. We have three schools in our small town and there is one child in each school. The entrees for the first week included hot dogs, chicken patties, pizza and chicken nuggets. Side dishes included lettuce/tomato (for the sandwiches), chips, fries, salad and my favorite corn….it’s a grain yet is always considered a vegetable. Corn is usually served as the vegetable on days when the side dish is french fries. It makes for a totally carb-tastic meal. That, along with the processed foods are probably the reason why most kids are sleepy or cranky or both by the end of the school day.

We have a few set rules for school lunches. The kids may pick one meal to buy during the week. The younger two usually go for pizza. The older one likes the steak and cheese subs. When they bring lunch they can take one snack (cookies, chips, etc). They must take at least one fruit or vegetable. Other than that I’m pretty flexable with what they want. 

On the weekends I try to make something different to pack or have as an after school snack. The previous weekend it was homemade Lara bars  and a banana bread. Bananas are not a fruit that any of us actually care for but this bread is great! This time I split the batch after it was made. In one half I mixed tiny chocolate chips. In the other blueberries. The batter is thick enough that I can spoon the two batters in one pan like this:

Here’s the baked bread:

Banana Banana Bread

3 cups all purpose flour (I used 1 cup all purpose, 1 cup wheat and 1 cup spelt)

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup butter, melted

1 1/4 cup brown sugar or your favorite type of sugar

3 eggs, at room temp

3 1/2 cups mashed bananas (I used 5 medium sized bananas)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

* Preheat the oven to 350F. Lightly grease a 13 X 9 pan with butter or coconut oil.

* In a large bowl combine flour, baking soda and salt.

*In another bowl mash bananas. Add the eggs, sugar, melted butter and vanilla extract. Mix 1 to 2 minutes with a hand mixer.

*Stir banana mixture into flour mixture. Stir until just moistened.

*Other ingredients can be added at this point. Try adding in one of the following:

- 1 cup chocolate, butterscotch or peanut butter chips

- 1 to 1 1/2 cups of frozen blueberries

- 2 teaspoons of cinnamon

- 1 cup chopped walnuts or your favorite nut

- 1 cup of dried fruit

* Bake for 60 to 65 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let bread cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan.

Once cooled this bread can be sliced, wrapped in plastic, placed in freezer bags and frozen. You can also put the batter in muffin tins to make muffins.

This moist bread holds up well in lunch bags. Eat it just as it is or slice in half and add a filling. Butter is our favorite but the kids have occasionally asked for peanut butter or some type of jelly.

This post is being linked to the following blogs. Stop by and check out all the other great recipes, tips and ideas.

Two For Tuesday which is hosted at A Moderate Life, Girlichef, Hunger and Thirst and FrugalCrunchyChristy.

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School is starting early for us this year. September 1st is the big day. The kids are busy getting their backpacks and school supplies ready. I’m glad that I purchased new lunch boxes. The menu for September is already out and, from the looks of things, they will be packing lunches for a vast majority of the time.

I know our town is small compared to many of the towns and cities around us. Our school budget seems to get smaller and smaller each year. Teachers are laid off, special ed teachers are reduced, class sizes are increased, etc. In three days the kids will go back and return after that first day with a stack of papers. There will be all kinds of forms to fill out and lots of notes. I’m sure there will be one that tell us parents that eating a good breakfast is important. They will tell us about all the wonderful, healthy snacks we should be packing for our kids. Yet this is the type of junk they will be serving for meals:

Chicken nuggets, smiley face french fries, corn and fruit

Macaroni and cheese, corn on the cob, dinner roll and fruit (usually canned in some type of syrup)

Hot dog and roll, seasoned potato wedges, fruit

pizza from locally made businesses including Domino’s, fruit

I understand why they are feeding them all this junk to eat. Our schools are small. I’m not even sure there is an actual kitchen available for use except in the junior/senior high school. The other schools must depend upon food products that are mostly heat and serve….no cooking or as little cooking as possible required. Last year they scored some extra funding and started to offer breakfast for grades 1 through 3. It was heat and serve junk too. I think it rotated between healthy (not) and delicious breakfast offerings such as honey bun, cold cereal, bagel with cream cheese, french toast and possibly pancakes. They send notes home to us parents telling us to feed our kids a nutritious breakfast yet this is what they offer.

As a family I consider us very fortunate. We have the funds to pack much healthier lunches then the school system could even offer. I have made healthy foods a priority and put aside the time to make them. Others are not so lucky. We have a good number of families who qualify for reduced or free lunches. These kids will end up eating whatever meal the school has made that day. If asked, they will tell you that the meals meet government standards for nutrition. Plus it’s food that the kids will eat. To them it makes no sense to offer something that most kids will just toss out. I wonder if they knew how many kids have asked my daughter in the past to swap parts of her lunch with them. The items they want to trade for include various fresh fruits, cheese, homemade muffins and desserts the school would deem strange and unusual. The items they want to hand off to my daughter include various snack cakes, cookies, etc. 

I’m not sure there is anything that I can possibly do to make changes within our school system. The only thing I can do is continue to pack meals for my own kids and possibly include extras for them to share. Making real food will continue to be a focus for my blog but I’ll also be adding in some posts about lunches we pack. I may not be able to start a lunch time food revolution at our local schools but perhaps I can pass along ideas and recipes to other moms who are online looking for ideas after discovering how bad school lunch really is.

It will be interesting to see the difference between the meals served at our local school and those served at the college I am attending. I’ve heard they offer a great variety of healthy foods. So far, when I’ve been there, I’ve only seen kids hanging out drinking tons of soda or specialty coffee drinks that barely contain any actual coffee. Hopefully it is because they are in the lounge/cafe area instead of the actual cafeteria. Can’t wait to check things out. I have a feeling I’ll be packing my own lunches as well as my kids. 

More to come in just a few days when school begins.

This post is part of the Lunch Time Revolution  at Fed Up With Lunch.

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School will start in less then 3 weeks. We’ve already gone through last fall and winter’s clothing to weed out everything that doesn’t fit. My youngest shot up 2 sizes over the summer. Sigh…that means someone is going to get a bunch of new clothes this year. I’m waiting for the really big back to school sales to start before picking up school supplies. Thankfully all the backpack survived last year so that is one less thing that needs to be bought.

This year the one item I had to do some serious searching for was lunchboxes. In the past, when we ate prepackaged foods, the whole lunch box thing wasn’t an issue. A sandwich, juice box and one or two snack items was all it took to get lunch ready. Last year the kids stopped bringing juice boxes because they really don’t need to drink their calories. Sandwiches were still a staple so we needed either plastic bags or a container to keep it from being crushed. Snacks became a real issue once I implemented the one healthy/one junk snack policy. Gone would be the days of bringing cookies and chips. Or a snack cake and Doritos. No more yogurt in little plastic tubes or prepackaged, individual snacks. Now packing a lunch filled with real foods required a whole host of bags and containers. The picture below shows just a small bit of the containers I collected and used to pack lunches:

There’s plastic containers for sandwiches. Small round Glad containers for fruit, yogurt, cheese, veggies, trail mix, cookies, etc. Plastic bags in several sizes to hold chips and other items. Each item individually packaged. All the packaging was brought home to be washed and used again including plastic bags. Everything, including a water bottle, was stuffed into these lunch bags:

 I would package everything the night before and stick all the food into their lunch bags before they left. Occasionally I someone would get the wrong lunch. Or the wrong snacks. Or, heaven forbid, no snacks. The kids were pretty good about bringing home the containers. Sometimes they got lost or turned up a week later when it would be filled with a growing science experiment. Yikes!

Once I had bought really cute bento style boxes for them to use. The lunch box was made up of a plastic outer case with smaller, removable plastic containers that fit inside. It seemed like a good idea at the time but the lunch box had to be turned up and slid into the insulated bag. This means that you packed everything with the container flat but then it was tipped up in the bag. Anything slightly soft or juicy (yogurt, cut fruit, etc) would drip out even when covered with plastic wrap. The box and all the containers had to be washed every night before packing the next days lunch. If my system of plastic bags and containers was a pain this was even worse.

I looked around online to see if I could find something new that didn’t cost an arm and a leg. Especially since I had to buy 3 of them. There didn’t seem to be anything that would work better then my current container and bag system. Not until I came across the website for Easy Lunchboxes. These looked pretty promising. There was an insulated bag that was big enough to fit a 3 sectioned plastic container. Even better was the fact that the plastic container sat flat at the bottom of the bag. No tipping sideways would mean no dripping or spilling.

Keeping my fingers crossed, had the kids pick out their favorite cooler color and bought 3. I also got 2 sets of the inner containers so I wouldn’t have to wash them every night. In less then a week they arrived. Here’s what we got:

The plastic containers that go inside are not made from the same type of plastic as the Glad type containers. The plastic is much thicker and stronger. Even the covers are sturdier so they shouldn’t crack and break like the Glad covers. They are also BPA free in case you wondered about that.

The plastic container has 3 compartments. The larger one is big enough for a full sized sandwich with room to spare. You could add a few carrot sticks or some other types of veggies in the same section. There are two smaller compartments with one being slightly larger than the other. The larger of the two would be the perfect size for side dishes such as pasta salad, diced fruit, crackers and cheese, etc. The smaller of the two would fit a serving of yogurt or pudding. It’s also big enough to hold the not so healthy snacks such as cookies or a piece of cake. Large enough so they get some kind of sweet treat but not so big that the younger kids won’t eat anything else.

The website says that you can put a small piece of waxed paper over a compartment to prevent any liquids from leaking out. Good to know. I’m sure the fact that the container sits flat in the bottom of the cooler will also be a big help in keeping stuff in place.

As for the cooler they are deep enough to hold the plastic container plus a few other items. Here’s a picture of one holding the container plus a thermos. There’s still space for a water bottle, utensils and napkin.

I’m pretty impressed and glad that I took a chance at buying them. Now I won’t have to deal with spills, forgotten items and lost containers. I even plan on getting them to start packing some of all of their own lunches now that we don’t have to deal with individual bags and containers. My only wish is that I bought one of these for myself. Looks like I’ll have to lug around one of the other lunch bags when I return to school

I bought these items myself and did not receive any type of discount or free items. I did however like the quality enough to sign up to be an affiliate for the company. If your interested in buying one and you click through to the  EasyLunchBoxes website here  or in the side bar on the right I could earn a small commission which I would probably use to buy my own lunch box LOL. Thanks!

What kind of containers or lunch boxes/bags do you use for your kids lunches? How about your own? I’d love to hear what other people use. Feel free to share info on your favorite bag, containers or bento styled lunch boxes in the comment section below.

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