Healthy eating

I'm working on getting healthy and losing weight this year. With that in mind, I bought myself a Ninja food processor/blender for "Christmas." I'm not sure that this is the model that will work for us but I've been using it for a couple of weeks and it seems to be doing what I want it to do.

Here's a recipe that I got from my sister (she has a Blendtec) and modified it a bit for us.
“Faux” Chicken Tortilla Soup (this recipe a modified version of one from Blendtec blender). I imagine it would work in any blender that chops well.

Add the ingredients in this order:
2 Roma tomatoes, quartered
½ large carrot (I used 5-6 baby carrots)
1” slice red pepper (I didn’t have red; used green instead)
¼ avocado (again, modified to suit our tastes so I used the whole thing – plus it was kind of small and very ripe)
2 tbsp onion (I used about ½ half of a medium white onion)
1 ounce pepper jack cheese (I used a little bit more than that and had reduced fat cheese)
2 sprigs fresh cilantro
1 tsp no-salt herb seasoning (I left this out)
¾ tsp kosher salt (left this out, too)
¾ tsp garlic powder
2 c warm water

Blend these ingredients together until smooth (or the consistency you like). The original recipe said to add ½ c tortilla chips and “pulse” in 2-3 times. I did not add any chips.

Variations: The original recipe called for ½ cup black beans, corn kernels, more cheese, chicken, fresh tomato. I took rotisserie chicken from the store and shredded about 4 oz in each bowl. I also took an envelope of black beans that was designed for two servings and pulsed that in, along with a little bit more onion, some jalepeno slices, and a bit of garlic salt (just a little bit).

 After the soup was the consistency I liked, I heated it up and then poured it over the shredded chicken. Topped that with a bit of shredded cheddar and we practically FOUGHT over it! This is supposed to make four servings but Ron and I ate the whole thing in one night. Oh.My.Goodness delicious!

Nutritional information: (based on the basic recipe without any variations and four servings)

Serving size: 1 c
Calories: 60
Fat 3.5g
Saturated Fat 1.5g
Cholesterol 5mg
Sodium 350mg
Carbohydrates 5g
Fiber 2g
Sugar 3g
Protein 2g

This is so good that I’m going to make it for dinner again tonight. Since Ron came home from the nursing home (i.e., rehab), I’ve been working on feeding him only healthy stuff. He’s doing pretty good (except for the fall on Sunday which scared the daylights out of me!). I took him to the doctor for a follow-up and he drew blood to check Ron’s kidney function and blood count as he’s very groggy (in fact, he’s slept most of the day, which is really a bit of a stressor for me as I don’t always know how to handle it).

He's loving the food, though! I do a healthy smoothie every morning for breakfast for the two of us. It's usually this with a few variations on the fruit:

5-6 carrots
1 stalk of celery
1 Roma tomato
1 c skim milk or 1/2 plain yogurt
2 scoops vanilla protein powder
3-4 ice cubes or some extra water to thin it down if too thick
handful of fresh spinach
Fruit of your choice (I pick two out of the list below) and use fresh or frozen

Fruit: apple (cored but not peeled), orange, banana, blueberries, blackberries, frozen tropical blend (pineapple, mango, etc.), mixed berry blend, strawberries, blueberries.

Blend until the consistency you like (add more ice, more water, whatever) and pour into two tall glasses. This will easily make two 20 oz servings. Enjoy!

I've also made the above without the vegetables or fruit and add in 2T peanut butter, 2T sugar-free chocolate pudding mix, and 1T sugar-free butterscotch pudding mix. It tasted just like a shake from Sonic - only much better for us!