Oh the Holiday Food...

My thoughts exactly after a week and a half of tons of heavy food and sweets non stop! Baby J2 has been jumpin' jumpin' this week! Hah! I actually do attribute feeling the first kicks this week to all of the cookies at my mother in law's house!! eek!! As all of the food has been so good, I was excited to get back home and cook a fresh meal and guess what, tomato soup round 2 was it! I mentioned this soup in my last post, and since I had some gouda cheese and chicken stock left over, I decided to make it again. The first time I made it I had not bought enough onions that week and sadly resorted to mince onions, but WOW I cannot tell you the difference that using a fresh onion made! This plus my basil being super fresh made this pot so much better than the first! This soup is so wholesome and so good left over. It takes some prep work, but I think the more I make it, the easier it will get!

Here is the link one more time! http://blog.seasonwithspice.com/2012/08/homemade-tomato-basil-soup-recipe.html

I just sliced some bakery bread and toasted the gouda cheese on top in the oven... broiled for a minute too.

Hubbie approved!!

Ok, so as healthy as I like to think I am, I just cannot resist a fluffy moist muffin. I made these sour cream coffee cake muffins this morning for breakfast with the help of my little chef. He's been totally into stirring things for months now and is a pro at putting the muffin liners in the muffin pan, so it was a good partnership hehe. I really liked these muffins though because one, most importantly, they taste great with a good cup of coffee, but two, because they are helping me cope with my weird prego cinnamon roll cravings; they have a great cinnamon streusel effect. I could have eaten the whole dozen myself probably, but then I don't think I could have moved the rest of the day. And my hubbie would have probably cried because he loves cinnamon streusel things. When we went to Menchie's to get froyo a few weeks ago you would have thought it was his birthday because they had Cinnabon Cinnamon roll yogurt haha... I guess no DNA test is required for my unborn child, maybe the cinnamon roll cravings are from him. ;0) 

P.S. - Update... made these a second time and used olive oil where it calls for vegetable or canola oil... the first time I had used coconut oil. They were much more moist and dense with the coconut oil, so just thought I would make that suggestion in case you were interested!

http://www.afamilyfeast.com/sour-cream-coffee-cake-muffins/#_a5y_p=2974515

Stir, stir, stir!!!

You'll notice that the bowl is empty while he's licking the whisk hehe... boy after my own heart though, I love me some muffin batter!!

Where's my coffee??!!

I don't think I have posted about the salsa recipe that I got from one of the best college mentors I could have ask for, so I will tonight! We grilled some burgers for dinner (Happy New Year!) and sometimes we just like to keep things simple with a side of salsa and guacamole. This has been such a good go to recipe, I've made it so many times and it never ever fails. It is so fresh and so tasty, and even freezes well! With all of the ingredients you need, you do two batches in your blender. I usually keep one in the fridge for us to eat and then freeze the other half in a plastic baggie. So once we finish the fresh batch, I just take out the baggie and let it thaw. You can blend the salsa as long as you want, obviously the longer you blend it, the less chunky it would be! Again, this salsa calls me back to my garden and makes me long for those days of just going to my backyard and picking things I needed for it! I would definitely recommend using fresh garlic with this. I feel like fresh garlic really makes a difference in taste and it is so good for you! Garlic is highly nutritious, helps boost your immune system, has active compounds that can reduce blood pressure and improve cholesterol, has antioxidants that could prevent Alzheimer's, can help detoxify heavy metals from the body and improve bone health!! Need I say more??? Go get yourself a garlic press (Pampered Chef has a fabulous one!) and press that garlic!! Here's Rachel's recipe...

10-12 roma tomatoes

2+ jalapeños (The smaller the jalapeño, the spicier it is!)

1 lime or lemon

2 - 8 oz. cans of tomato sauce

1 yellow onion

salt (maybe 1-2tsp?)

2 garlic cloves

1 bunch of cilantro

So new year means fitness goals, am I right?? My super sweet hubbie got an awesome gift card at a work party (I never win anything but he seems to have better luck than me!) and decided to buy us Fitbit trackers! It has been so fun tracking our steps, calories burned etc. and since there is a friends/buddy aspect to it, we have been able to keep track of each other's progress and have a friendly little competition! ;0) The fitbit syncs up automatically to an app on your phone, so it's pretty convenient to check and log your progress during the day. It has been cool to see what kind of activity you have during the day, and one thing that was eye opening was the sleep tracker option! I tried it last night and was shocked at how restless of a sleeper I am! No wonder I am so tired in the morning! Hoping tonight will be better! But anyway, here's to a new year and hopefully a healthier one!!

I'm not a super girly girl but I am about some things, and I do like  to accessorize, so the flex band color options are definitely appreciated! ;0) Don't you love all the toys in the background? Our living room is Toys R Us right now in case anyone needs to know.

Just an example of a screen shot of the Fitbit app that your bracelet syncs up to. This was today's activity!
 

You can track runs on here as well. You can also log food and water consumption, start a food plan, track exercise and sleep and set goals for yourself.