More soup!

I really love soup in the winter, it's so comforting and delicious. I decided to make like a minestrone soup. The recipe I got was from Joyous Health in one of her cookbooks, but the closest recipe I found online is this one. So the only difference is instead of butternut squash, it was sweet potato, and added in a can of beans, which I chose black beans for ours, and a few leaves of kale with stems removed, and I chopped it up so it wasn't huge leaves in the soup. The recipe also called for chickpea pasta, which I did add in. I didn't put in the zucchini cause he's not a fan, so I omitted that. I did use vegetable stock to keep it vegetarian for me. I unfortunately did not take a photo of the soup, but I have 2 mason jars in my freezer to enjoy another time, and kept some in the fridge which we enjoyed some for lunch today, and I had a bowl over the weekend as well. 

I did also make the banana caramel sticky buns, which I have made before on a previous post, so you can find the recipe here. I don't remember the last time I made them so it's been far too long and so glad I made them again. They are so yummy!

We celebrated our anniversary on Saturday, 28 years that we have been together. Normally I make a more fancy supper at home, but it's been a long time since we have had a date night. We have been to restaurants, but it's been forever since it's just been us two, so I suggested we try a new place close by called Browns socialhouse. I went once with work for lunch and the tiki tuna bowl that I had was so good!!! So I really wanted to go again and since he has never been, we decided to go there. We took our time, started with a drink, which I had a sangria, and then we got an appetizer, their cauliflower bites, which were very tasty with this spicy ranch sauce

After we had those we waited a while, then finally ordered our supper, which we both enjoyed.

He had the fish and chip, which I tried a bite of his fish and it was delicious!! Mine was called the dragon bowl, and I had it with tofu. Very yummy! And as you can see our drinks as well, I went with red wine, and he had a beer. Once we were done our drink and eating, we left not long after and we went to check out a place next door called Chocolats Favoris. We both never been in there, and we did get a few things to try out, some dark chocolate covered almonds, dark chocolate covered blueberries, milk chocolate cashews (cause they didn't have dark chocolate), and this small bar with rice crispy and like a caramel sort of coating on it. We tried a bit of each and all very tasty, and we do still have some left to enjoy. It was a really great date night for our anniversary.

I am a huge fan of bowls, we do tend to sometimes get bowls from Mad Radish, but they also do make very good burritos, so we switch it up. I have made some at home, but not much, and I would like to make more of them, cause I love the variety in there, so yummy! 

Tonight's supper I took out a chicken breast for him, and salmon for me, just not quite sure what I will make yet. I'm tempted to create a bowl, or just a salad, but I'll see what he's in the mood for. This morning I did workout, and got an added workout at lunch by going out to help shovel. He did use our snowblower, but still had to use a shovel a bit. Looking forward to winter coming to an end, I miss seeing the sun a lot more, and having warmer weather.

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Butternut squash soup!

So it's been over 7 months since my last post. I have been feeling a lot more tired and low in energy so I have been keeping things more simple. I'm starting to feel less tired, so I'm working on getting into the kitchen a lot more. 

So a bit of an update. Almost 2 years ago I think, I started to take a small dose of progesterone, cause it's been a few years that I keep getting major pains from an ovarian cyst, and when it hit, I was folded in two and crying cause the pain was so intense! In talking to my gynecologist, he suggested a progesterone pill (small dose) to see if it would help. I have to say it has been helpful, the pain from an ovarian cyst, when it hits, hasn't been as frequent and not as painful, and it actually has helped my endometriosis pain as well. I haven't been eating as I should be (no meat, no dairy) but I haven't had pain. The downside, I think it's causing me to lose more of my hair. There's a possibility that I now have PCOS and the reason I think that is because there's a high possibility that my hormones are not in balance since I did get a hysterectomy and only have 1 ovary remaining, and in reading up on PCOS, every woman that has it, has a hormone imbalance, I have some of the symptoms which is ovarian cysts, tiredness and loss of hair. I just got a call from my doctor's office and I see him next week, so I will bring it up to see what he says. I think I recall reading something on a way you can find out if you do have PCOS, so I'll see if I can do that and it would explain things. Last I saw my doctor I did stop taking the progesterone, as he suggested, and I don't seem to be losing as much hair, but I am still losing a fair amount. I have always had thick hair so it being this thin is a very new for me, and I really don't like it!

So, since I stopped that progesterone pill, I am getting more endo pain again. I do enjoy vegetarian meals and I do love seafood as well so it's going to be a nice change to cut back on meat. In terms of dairy, we have been eating a bit more cheese lately, but that too will be a good thing to cut back a lot on as my stomach doesn't like cheese very well either. 

So to start eating healthier and get back into eating more like I should be with endo, I made this delicious soup

I really do love butternut squash soup, and next to it is a biscuit, which I used the package from Epicure, so all I had to do was add the wet ingredients to make them, and they are delicious as well! For the soup, here's what I did:

I bought 1 butternut squash, peeled it, took the seeds out and then cut it into chunks and roasted it in the oven at 400 for 15 minutes which I also added an entire garlic wrapped in foil. After those 15 minutes, I took it out of the oven and added in a chopped onion, and sliced carrots (2), tossed everything and put it back in the oven for a half hour. Once I got those out, I added it to a pot, with a huge handful of spinach, put in some vegetable broth (entire carton), added a little water, then added some fresh herbs, thyme, rosemary and parsley all minced. I also added a little salt and lots of pepper. I let that heat through for about 10 minutes and then I put it in my blender until nice and smooth, I had to do it in sections cause it was too much soup for my blender. My hubby and I had some for lunch, then it filled up almost 3 mason jars, so 2 are now in my freezer to enjoy another time and the other I kept in the fridge and enjoyed it for a few more lunches. 

Yesterday I tried a new recipe, but forgot to take a picture of it, it was this kimchi, cucumber, noodle with shrimp salad, and it was really good! The sauce was delicious, it's tamari, rice vinegar, honey and some siracha sauce. You cook up some noodles, I used ramen noodles, but you can use spaghetti noodles or even rice noodles, chop up some green cabbage, green onions, and cucumber, add it in a bowl with the noodles once cooked, and also pan fry up your shrimp for a few minutes with a little of the sauce, then add in your shrimp and sauce and toss, and enjoy. It was very good. Got the recipe from the Clean eating magazine. 

I also have been trying to exercise more cause over the holidays I barely worked out. I do have plans to make a fish burger as well, I will try to remember to take a picture and share that. 

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday, and Happy New Year everyone!