Meatless Monday: Minestrone Soup

Remember how we had to wait until just last weekend to get some Fall in our lives? Well, apparently "Fall" lasts for a whopping 1 week around here because we are past fall and into winter guys. My body must have adjusted to the 110 degree heat because it's 53 degrees today and I feel like I'm living in the Arctic!

No, really, it's not that bad, but the temperature did drop quite a bit though and it is feeling quite chilly. It even snowed Saturday! What?! For about 5 minutes it flurried and then the sunshine came back and all was right with the world ;)

So what does one do when faced with cold and chilly weather? Slap on your warmest pajamas, snuggle up with all of your animals in your bed and vow to drink hot chocolate until the spring? Close... we made a giant pot of soup.... and all of the above.

This soup is one of our favorites! If not our absolute favorite. Chad had a second bowl Sunday night at 1am. Yup, he ventured out of the warm bed all the way down the stairs to get a second bowl, that's how good this is. Then we had it as part of our dinner last night as well. Then we snuggled up in our bed with hot chocolates and hot ciders and didn't leave until our alarms went off this morning, hence this Meatless Monday on a Tuesday.

Snatched from Olive Garden, this recipe tastes very similar/exactly like theirs!

Minestrone Soup
The best part about this recipe is that it is a great way to use up anything on the verge of "going" in your fridge. It's also very forgiving. Don't like green beans? Leave them out and throw something else in! Really like carrots? Throw in 2 or 3! Go nuts and make it your own!

Ingredients:

• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 cup minced white onions (about 1 small onion)
• 1/4 cup chopped zucchini
• 1/4 cup green beans
• 1/4 cup minced celery (about 1/2 stalk)
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic (about 2 cloves)
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 1 (15 ounce)can red kidney beans , drained
• 1 (15 ounce)can small white beans or great northern beans , drained
• 1 (14 ounce) can diced tomatoes
• 1/2 cup carrots
• 1 teaspoons Italian Seasoning
• 1 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 cups hot water
• 3 cups fresh baby spinach, chopped
• 1/3 cup small shell pasta

Directions:

Heat Olive Oil  over medium heat in a large soup pot.

Saute onion, celery, garlic, green beans, and zucchini in the oil for 5 minutes or until onions begin to turn translucent.

Add vegetable broth to pot, plus tomatoes, beans, carrot, hot water, and spices.

Bring soup to a boil, then reduce heat and allow to simmer for 20 minutes.

Add spinach leaves and pasta and cook for an additional 20 minutes or until desired consistency.

Sunday Dress

Dress: Target, Leggings: Target, Shoes: Snatched from my sister :)

 
Introducing.... The Pajama Dress!!!

No, not a sweat dress....

a Pajama Dress! A dress so ridiculously comfortable that it rivals your pajamas. For me it's this guy, made out of stretchy, comfy t-shirt material. It's long enough, forgiving enough, it's perfect.

Wearing uncomfortable tights is not allowed with the pajama dress, but super awesome stretchy leggings are definitely ok ;)

Best part about this dress? I got it on sale in the maternity section at Target. Bam! That's right, the maternity section! This place is a gold mine people. Especially if you don't live in Utah where everyone is preggo. Target's maternity sale section  >  Utah's.

I'm 5'10" so finding dresses that approaches my knee is difficult. During the summer it's impossible. But... maternity dresses are usually longer not to mention more comfortable. And as long as there's no side, belly ruching, you usually can't tell. Just get it a size or two smaller and your good to go!

Linking up with MMB, WWIW

Five Things {Pinterest got right} Friday

It's waaaay hit or miss on Pinterest if you ask me. You don't have to take my word for it, check out Pintester, I laugh out loud every single time I read it. While I have had a LOT of flops, there have been a few successes, so I thought I'd share.

1. Use Vinegar as the rinse aid in your dishwasher. Our glasses aren't as filmy looking and everything looks much better in general. Super easy, super awesome.

2. Wrap up celery in tin foil to help it keep longer. By longer, I mean weeks people! We got 2 bunches of celery in one of our Bountiful Baskets a couple weeks ago. There was no way we could go through that much celery before it got all limpy and gross. Tin foil to the rescue! Wrap it up and it stays fresh and very crisp!

As a side note, who the heck needs this much celery?
preparetodaywardnewsletter.blogspot.com

 3. Zig Zag paper streamers. Easy, Fast, and they actually look cute. Score.

ohcrafts.net

4. The easiest, tastiest, PB cookies ever. Seriously. Make them right now. No lie, the internet will be here when you get back. While your at it, throw in some chocolate chips ;)

Last but not least...

Because if nothing else, I can usually find something to make me laugh, and sometimes that's what you need to make it through the day!

Happy Friday everyone, Have a rockin' weekend!

What Pinterest successes have you had?

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

My phone won't like up with the computer otherwise you would be seeing an awesome picture of a little present left for Chad by Rukia. Apparently Rukia had to go. She decided she couldn't wait for Chad to get out of class and went poo in the house. And then she covered it up with one of her stuffed animals! HA! I love that she felt so bad she covered it up. My dog's the best. Aren't you sorry you didn't get a big picture of dog poo with this post?

Moving on!

Awkward:

• Me running on a main street. I'm trying to run home from work twice a week now. Chad has late classes and instead of waiting after work for an hour for him to finish class, come pick me up, drop me off, then turn around and go back to school, I figured I could run the 4 miles home. Except the 4 miles is on a main road, and the first half is all uphill. And I hate running on a main road. I feel like I need to be running or walking. I feel like people are watching and judging and I end up looking even more crazy I'm sure. I sprint, then walk, then sprint, then walk... all up a giant 2 mile hill. Adding to the crazy... I had to run home with my phone in one hand, a giant wad of keys and my phone charger in the other. Nice.
• Making Chad late for his class last week and missing the announcement that his test was"take home", or online. He tried taking it at the testing center but they didn't have it - duh. A week and half later (his teacher was out for a week!) he was finally clued in. His teacher is super nice though and he can take it online at home this weekend. Wife fail.
• Walking around like an old, crippled lady, holding my back. Oh my back. It's the worst. Sitting hunched over a desk all day is not exactly helping the cause either. Usually after a few minutes I can manage to stand up straight, but until then it's a sad, pathetic situation.
• Our crazy cat. She gets so excited sometimes and starts purring and rubbing her face and body all over the back of the chair she likes to sit on. Well, it's all fun and games until she starts to fall headfirst and desperately tries to cling on with her back claws (no front claws for her) and just proceeds to slide face first into the ground. So graceful... so cat-like.
• Going to Panned Parenthood for the birth control. I ended up in a little room talking to some 21 year old "dude" about my birth control. Tell me that's not awkward. Then he explained how to use it, um... yeah, I know how, I've been using it for, oh, just a couple years. I'm sure they have to explain, but still, super awkward.
• My outrageously high blood pressure at Planned Parenthood. I freak out at new situations in general. So sitting there with the above mentioned dude wasn't helping the freak out. It was so high he thought something was wrong with the machine. Nope, just me trying to stoke out on you. Then he thought it would be better if we took it again. Yeah, nope. Just makes it worse. So how was it the second time? You guessed it, even higher than the previous stroke level.

Awesome:

• Getting the Wednesday off before Thanksgiving so I can spend it with my sister and her in-laws in California! Woot! Never been to California and we are super excited. We are even bringing the pup with us :)
• Homemade Broccoli Cheese soup.
• Coming home to a clean living room and most importantly a clean kitchen with the dishwasher running :) Point for the hubby!
• Red Bull with lunch today.
• Snuggling with all of our, all of a sudden, super needy animals. Usually they're just needy.

 

Let's hear it! Any awkward moments to share this week?

In search of Fall

We found it!

We called a hotel in the same area as Zion's National Park to see what the leaves were doing up there. Some crazy lady told us, "we'd missed it". "All the leaves have changed and fallen".

Just 2 weeks ago when we called we were told to come the first weekend in November, or even the second. We thought we were golden. Especially since everything is still very green around here.

We decided not to listen to the lady and drive up to Zion's anyway and hope there was still some color left for us.

Remember when I said the lady was crazy? I'm glad we didn't listen to her. I'm also thankful for the park ranger who let us in even though we accidentally left our park pass at home. We had a fun afternoon surrounded by a pretty good lookin' fall.

Get up and Go!

So how did last month's goals go? Meh, could have been better... My motivation just wasn't there.

You know for a fact that I am NO better at waking up early, in fact I think I'm waking up even later now. I went up to the church and played the piano once :( I still don't even OWN any floss or rinse. LOL, I couldn't, for the life of me, ever remember to buy any, even if it was on the grocery list! Oh well... try, try again.

We did eat way more fruit and veggies last month. And I did manage to be much better at doing the laundry. This last weekend's laundry is unfortunately still waiting to be put away, but it's clean! And, for the majority of the month, I was much better at getting it done, with Chad's help of course :)

Hopefully I'll be able to find my lost motivation and step it up this month!

So what's up this month?

1. Juice every morning with breakfast. Now that we are getting a ton of produce we have plenty to juice. And really, if we don't, we have a lot leftover that just goes bad. Side note, have you ever had fresh apple or grape juice? It's crazy good!

2. Workout! Before the Hawaii trip I was really good at working out, I had some really good motivation :) Really all I want to do now is curl up on the couch with some hot cocoa, chad, and snuggle down and watch tv. heaven. That plan doesn't leave me looking or feeling like heaven though so I've got to get up and move pre-Hawaii style.



3. Take time to be Thankful everyday.

Simply Vintage Girl

4. Play the Piano once a week!

5. Floss and Rinse. Attempt numero dos!

How do you stay motivated?

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

Poor Rukia was such a matted mess from all the camping and running around this summer that we had to cut her hair in shifts, she would get tired, we would get tired or we would have to buy new clippers because her hair kills them! So she ran around looking like a darn fool with itty bitty little front legs and giant fluffy back bear legs. Luckily we've got her all evened out now!

Awkward:

• Driving in the parking lot of the grocery store next to the store and watching a shopping cart with a baby in it roll out into the parking lot.... right in front of us. Luckily we were paying attention. The dad and sister both ran out after the poor baby. We just laughed and waved while the dad looked mortified. I'd be lying if I said I don't enjoy watching awkward things happen to other people ;)
• Picking the size sticker off of one of Chad's shirts while we were out to dinner. He had worn and washed  the shirt multiple times.
• Trying to figure out what the heck these weird fruits/vegetables were in our Bountiful Harvest baskets. I tested my mom and brother with pictures and we still were stumped. Finally my mom figured out they were black radishes after seeing them on an episode of Chopped! Thanks Chopped! Still doesn't help me figure out what to do with them though.
• Becoming addicted to Frasier on Netflix. Frasier? Yup.
• Watching a guy struggle to bike up a hill/mountain on the side of the road, smoking.
• The leaves are still green and it was 80 degrees yesterday. Eighty. I'm freaking out. While it's nice to not have to wear a snowsuit in October, I can't wrap my brain around the fact that today is November! We will be taking trip #2 to try to find Fall this weekend. Wish us luck!

Awesome:

• My husband bringing up a jar of peanut butter, the bag of chocolate chips and a spoon to bed. Mmmm.
• Chad showing up at the testing center to take a test and they told him they didn't have it! Huh?! While he'll eventually have to take it, it was a nice ending to a hectic day!
• Finding semi decent apple cider at WalMart.
• No Dr. toady or tomorrow!
• Sleeping in until noon on the weekends :)
• Hiding from Trick-or-Treaters and eating all the candy ourselves! While I may not be able to go trick-or-treating I can now go out and buy whatever candy I want and eat it all!!! Bah-ha-ha-ha!