Saturday, January 29, 2011

32 weeks and counting!

AHH! The end of a pretty hellish week. Last Thursday and Friday Travis got the little flu bug. Friday and Saturday Don got it (although it seemed to linger all week) then Saturday night I started feeling yucky. It's a scary feeling being on the verge of a fever and having chills when you are 31 weeks pregnant. This year I actually got a flu shot for the first time. I thought I was covered, apparently not. All in all it was a minor flu. I just felt yucky and achy and had chills. So I didn't get much exercise at all in this week.

With all our sickness I decided it was a good time to make some home made chicken soup. I chose the Chicken Alphabet soup from "Deceptively Delicious". 3 quarts reduced fat low-sodium chicken broth, 1/2 pound of chicken, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 cup alphabet pasta (I used some tiny bow tie pasta with peas, carrots, and corn because it needed to be eaten and I thought it would be good), 1/4 cup cauliflower puree, 1/4 cup sweet potato puree.

Cook the chicken in the broth and then take it out and add all of the other ingredients. Cook for about 6 minutes and then add the chicken back in. It was good stuff and it lasted a couple days for us. Not only was the chicken broth good for our sickness, but in case you didn't know, sweet potatoes are the super veggie which has everything you need! So I was sure this would get us healthy quick!

For breakfast one morning (I think it was Sunday) I made the Baked Egg Puffs from "Deceptively Delicious". They looked so good in the picture in the book, I was sure they would be wonderful. I don't know if I cooked them too long or if I was just having a pregnancy aversion to eggs on that day, but they didn't sit well with me. They also didn't come out quite like the picture. Don and Travis seemed to like them, but I'm figuring out that they'll eat anything.

A couple nights later we were still feeling a bit yucky, and I really didn't feel like cooking. I thought I would make the home made Tomato Soup recipe from "Double Delicious", but we were snow bound and I didn't have all the ingredients. Don got home from work and asked what we were having. I told him I thought about making the tomato soup, and he agreed to make some grilled cheese. So I made some adjustments to the recipe with what I had around the house and just hoped it would come out okay.

The recipe calls for 2 tablespoons olive oil, 2 stalks celery (didn't have any, left it out), 1 small onion, 3 cloves garlic (just used garlic powder), 1 can whole peeled tomatoes (used diced, same thing), 1 cup sweet potato puree, 1/2 cup broccoli puree, 1 quart beef broth (used chicken), 1 bay leaf (left out), 1/4 teaspoon pepper, 4 ounces of low fat cream cheese.

Cook the onion and garlic in the oil over medium-high heat until the onion softens. Add tomatoes, sweet potato puree, broccoli puree, broth, and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook until it starts to thicken, about 10 minutes. Take off the heat and add the cream cheese. It says to blend with an immersion blender, I don't have one so I just put it in our regular blender.

The tomato soup actually came out really good. It was a bit more like a tomato bisque, and Don said it would've been great with some seafood in it. Along with the grilled cheese it was awesome.

We all seem to be pretty healthy now, although we are buried in snow with some more on the way. I did get in a little run/walk yesterday and I ran 1 mile at the track today and then walked about a mile. So I am starting to feel better and I hope that I can keep running just a bit until about 35 weeks. We'll have to see!

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