Cake balls are trendy. They’ve gained the attention of every media outlet, practically every desserts blog and they even make regular appearances on Starbucks menus and the Home Shopping Network. I’ve avoided them like the plague (although I ate one that was bought for me once and it was… okay.)

Then I wanted to make some cake, but I didn’t have a cake pan or even cupcake tins. All I had was a cookie sheet and some parchment paper. And since I’d just finished up a kitchen interview (a “stage”; sounds like staaaahj) where I made tres leches cake on a giant cookie sheet with a frame and some parchment paper, I knew I could make it at home on my lone cookie sheet! So, I baked a super thin, but still delicious cake on my cookie sheet. I was just looking for a bite of something sweet and now I had all this leftover cake. What to do!?!?! Go with the trend and turn it into cake balls, right? Right. Trendy by necessity, that’s me. And now you get to benefit from said trendiness because these cake balls are frickin’ spectacular.

Orange and Dark Chocolate Cake Balls
Servings: 36
PointsPlus per Serving: 4

Ingredients

• 1 box yellow cake mix, prepared as directed (I used Betty Crocker Super Moist) 43 PP + 34 PP in oil and eggs
• 1/3 cup sugar, 7 PP
• 2 cups water
• zest of 2 oranges
• 1 package special dark chocolate chips, 53 PP
• 2 tbsp crisco, 6 PP

Directions

1. If you haven’t done so already, prepare your cake as directed. Really, you can use any type of standard cake mix for these, but the yellow cake is Jess’ favorite, so I used it here. Once it’s prepared and cooled, crumble it up and put it in a bowl.

2. Take the sugar, water and orange zest and simmer it over low heat on the stove. Stir it every so often to keep the sugar from burning. Once it’s reduced to about 1 1/2 cups of liquid, take it off the heat, strain it and let it cool.

3. Now that both the cake and the orange simple syrup have cooled, carefully mix the syrup into the cake crumbles as you mix it by hand to make sure that it’s just moist enough to still together without getting too “doughy”. Then, roll out all your cake balls and place them on a cookie sheet with a silpat mat or wax paper underneath.

4. To melt the chocolate, you want either a double boiler or a brilliant replacement (which is necessary in our home because I do not have a double boiler). A replacement would be a pot filled with water, a round-bottomed strainer sitting in the liquid and a metal mixing bowl inside the strainer. It worked rather perfectly. So, take the chocolate and crisco and melt it over medium low heat using your double boiler. Make sure to stir it on an almost constant basis otherwise it will burn. Once it’s a silken texture, turn the heat down to low and start coating each cake ball one by one. I used a spatula to turn the ball in the chocolate and cover every inch, then I used a toothpick on top and the spatula on the bottom to grab it out and place it on the silpat mat.

5. Once you’ve covered all the cake balls in chocolate (or drizzled chocolate on top using a plastic baggie and a teeny tiny hole), place the whole pan in the fridge to set. After about an hour, they will be ready to enjoy or to keep up to two weeks in the fridge or even longer in the freezer!

The great thing about these cake balls is that they stay moist, especially when encased in a delicious chocolatey shell.  These ones are a bit high in points as I did nothing to try to cut down the calories, but that’s my next step. This was a successful first try. Next comes Angel Food Cake Balls! And they will be just as moist and delicious! What flavors would you like to see mixed in with those?

Oh, and did I mention that these are dairy-free?

Now that we’re feeling about 75% settled, I’m starting to feel like my old self again. I’ve made some tasty foods lately – indian spiced lamb and sweet pea risotto, ham egg and cheese scrambles, orange flavored dark chocolate cake balls, but the best one so far has been Banana Bread Cookies.

See, we bought a bunch of bananas when we first moved to our new place because it’s a quick and easy breakfast item when you are taking public transit into work. Jess ate half of them, but then they started getting a lot of brown spots. You know, the spots that mean you either have to make a cakey sweet treat in the next four days or your kitchen will start smelling like rotting fruit? Yeah. That smell is no fun. Plus, banana flavored treats are so fantastic when made with real banana! Since we don’t yet have all our kitchen stuff here, though, I had no bread pan to make banana bread in. No muffin tin either. So I thought… there has to be SOMEONE out there that’s made cookies with old bananas, right?

RIGHT I WAS!!! If you can make a bread or a muffin with old bananas, you can make a damn cookie. And I had a cookie sheet. This recipe is a variation on this recipe from Simply Recipes. It’s a fantastic recipe and the smells coming from your kitchen will be the same as that day you made that awesome loaf of banana bread and you didn’t burn it. Those are always good days

Banana Bread Cookies (slightly adapted from Simply Recipes)
Servings: 30
PointsPlus per Serving: 4 PP (or 40 cookies for 3 PP each)

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup of unsalted butter, room temperature (I used 1/4 cup each of crisco, 25 PP and earthly balance whipped buttery spread, 19 PP)
• 1 cup of sugar, 22 PP
• 1 egg, room temperature, 2 PP
• 1 cup of mashed bananas (about 2 ½ large bananas)
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 2 cups of flour (I used 1.5 cups white whole wheat, 17 PP, and 1/2 cup all purpose, 6 PP)
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground mace or nutmeg (I didn’t have any of this so I put in extra cinnamon and a dash of ground allspice)
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground cloves
• 1 cup of pecans (I used special dark chocolate chips, 35 PP)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the egg and continue to beat until the mixture is light and fluffy again.

2. In a bowl, mix the mashed bananas and baking soda. Let sit for 2 minutes. The baking soda will react with the acid in the bananas which in turn will give the cookies their lift and rise. (I just put the bananas and baking soda right into the wet mixture of egg, sugar and butter. Worked fine.)

3. Mix the banana mixture into the butter mixture if you haven’t already. Mix together the flour, salt, and spices and sift into the butter and banana mixture and mix until just combined.

4. Fold into the batter the pecans or chocolate chips if using. Drop in dollops onto parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Bake for 11-13 minutes or until nicely golden brown. Let cool on wire racks. (Since I did 30 bigger cookies, mine cooked for about 16-17 minutes total.)

A couple of these make a great breakfast if paired with a yogurt or some fruit. They are a beautifully soft cookie that stay nice and moist, so make sure you refrigerate them for up to 2 weeks or freeze and thaw as needed!

Click here to go to the original page for the photo above.

Random.org picked number 9, so Dacia was the lucky one. Girl, you’ve won stuff on this blog before so kudos to you! Please send me your new information (hello, Florida) and I’ll get it sent out to you right away!

As for the rest of you, don’t worry that you didn’t win this time, I have a BETTER THAN BOUILLON giveaway coming up next week, so stay tuned!

On another note, I’m getting closer and closer to going to culinary school. I toured the beautiful College of DuPage campus today and their culinary arts building is AMAZING! I want to go to there. I will. I’m shocked at how much more impressive it was than Le Cordon Bleu. Step up your game at the Chicago campus, LCB! Community colleges now have nicer facilities than yours.

Just seeing the facilities made me want to go there. That’s how amazing they were. And the cost is 2.5 times LESS than other culinary schools. Um, yes please. Now we just need to get an apartment, unpack my cookbooks and all our appliances, get Maxwell back and I’ll feel at home again! Oh life, it’s time for you to get back up. Yup yup.

Nasoya (a part of VitaSoy) contacted me about trying out a new product of theirs, so I figured I would give it a shot. They sent me some samples of their Pasta Zero Shirataki Spaghetti and Fettucine (since they weren’t currently being sold in any of the stores around me) and I realized I’d had similar products before! Nasoya created a noodle replacement from chickpea flour and a plant called konjac. It’s commonly know as “elephant yam” or “konnyaku” and bears no relation to the yams in the states that are related to the sweet potato.  But enough of that science lesson. Let’s talk food.

Nasoya on the left, House of Good on the right.

These noodles are NOT made from tofu, like the brand that Hungry Girl promotes. The nutrition stats are similar, but there are a few differences. They both have the same calories per serving (20 per serving, 2 servings per bag), but Nasoya’s product has one more gram of both fiber and carbohydrates, and no sodium, whereas Tofu Shirataki has 15 mg of sodium. The taste is quite similar and the texture is too, so your preference really lies on whether or not you want more fiber and less sodium or less carbs. Also, if you happen to be allergic to soy (Hi Kate!), you can enjoy this noodle, whereas you can’t with the other brands. Basically, if you are allergic to everything, you can probably eat Nasoya’s Shirataki noodles. Sweet deal! Even sweeter? They are ZERO PP! Well, “technically” they are to be counted as one PP, but two servings is only 40 calories, so let’s just compromise and call it .5 PP. Deal?

SPAGHETTI!!!!!

Now, let’s talk about how to use it. I’m Italian, so the first thing I did with the spaghetti shaped noodles was to…. make spaghetti with red sauce. All I did was drain the bag and rinse the noodles under warm water for a minute (they have a distinct smell right out of the package, almost like the monkey house at the zoo, but it goes away once you’ve rinsed and warmed the noodles…. freaky, I know.) Then I warmed a pan on medium heat, tossed in the noodles and cooked for a minute, and then I poured about 1/2 cup red sauce over top, mixed it up and put it in a bowl with some parmesan cheese on top. YUM. Total pointsplus? ONE.

Next thing I did was a mac n cheese… because I’m from the Midwest where cheese is an everyday thing and mac n cheese is practically a staple. Hold the ropes! I’m allergic to dairy, right?!?!!? Luckily I know of some great cheese replacements too! I did the same prep for the noodles (rinse under warm water), but then instead of cooking them in a pan, I patted them mostly dry with a paper towel and put them in a microwaveable bowl with 1 tbsp tofutti cream cheese and 2 slices Trader Joe’s dairy-free cheddar soy-cheese slices. I nuked it for about 90 seconds, stirred it up and then repeated. Once it came out nice and melted, I added in some salt, pepper and chili powder to amp up the flavor. Total PP = 4!

So cheesy!!!

**VARIATION ALERT!**

Prepare the mac n cheese as directed above (preferably with the fettucine shaped noodles) and add in the rest of the ingredients afterwards.

- Americana Style: 1 sliced cooked hot dog + ketchup and mustard on the side
- Mexican Fajita Style: 1 oz cooked spicy chorizo + 1/4 cup sauteed peppers and onions
- Farmers Market Style: 1/3 cup lightly sauteed diced tomato, leek and zucchini
- BBQ Chicken Style: 1 oz cooked chicken (grilled or shredded) + 1-2 tbsp bbq sauce + 1 tbsp diced red onion (optional)

The last recipe I tried was a teriyaki beef and veggie stir fry. I made it like all the other ones. Cook up the beef and veggies first, then throw in the noodles and the teriyaki sauce at the end for a few minutes and voila! Easy peasy.

So, how can you get your hands on some of this stuff? Nasoya has offered to send 3 free bags of Pasta Zero to one lucky reader! You can enter to win in a variety of ways.

Beef and Veggie Stir Fry!

Ways to Enter (make sure to leave a separate comment for each one, otherwise they won’t be counted as multiple entries):

1. Leave a comment on this post telling me what you’d make with Nasoya Pasta Zero – 1 entry.

2. “Like” my Facebook page and leave me a comment on THIS POST that you did or already do – 1 entry.

3. Become an email subscriber for this blog and leave me a comment saying that you did or already do (if you follow in Google Reader or another reader, that’s fine too, just make a note of it in your comment) – 1 entry.

4. Follow @ReluctantFoodie on Twitter and leave a comment on this blog telling me that you did or already do – 1 entry.

5. Tweet the following message “Win 3 bags of Nasoya Pasta Zero from @ReluctantFoodie! Enter here – http://wp.me/p34rtL-QG” and leave a comment on this blog telling me that you did – 3 entries max for this.

6. Share my blog post link on Facebook with the following in the comment box, “Win in 3 bags of Nasoya Pasta Zero from The Reluctant WW Foodie blog!” and leave a comment on this blog telling me that you did – 3 entries max for this

7. Go to the FB page of Nasoya and “like” them AND leave a comment on their blog letting them know that you were sent there because you’re trying to win a giveaway from The Reluctant Weight Watchers Foodie that includes one of their products - 1 entry.

8. Get on KLOUT and give me some Klout for Blogging, Cooking, Weight Watchers, Food or Recipes and leave me a comment letting me know that you did - (1 entry each, 5 entries max in total for this).

There’s SIXTEEN entries possible for each of you. That’s a lot! Just make sure to have all your entries submitted as separate comments on THIS BLOG POST by MIDNIGHT on Sunday, March 24th and the winner will be chosen at random (using random.org) and announced on March 25th! The winner will have two days to respond to my initial email letting them know they won, otherwise I’ll have to choose a new winner. Enter them all at once or spread them out, just enter!

If you want to find some around you without waiting to win the giveaway, you can find out which stores are carrying it near you by going to this store locator.

With everything in flux and not being in a home of our own yet, it’s been hard to get into the cooking groove. It seems like we’ve been recycling the same few dishes over and over. Things are looking up, though, and even those monotonous dishes are getting tired of themselves. Today I’ll be making a beef and pepper stir fry for dinner! Regular noodles for Jess and VitaSoy noodles for me! What the heck is VitaSoy noodles? Well, they are similar to shirataki noodles that Hungry Girl has advertised for; soy based noodles that are a great replacement for regular, starchy noodles if you are trying to cut down on your carb intake. Later this week I’ll be doing a whole post on them with a few different recipes you can use them in, as well as the recipe for the Beef and Pepper stir fry… and there will be a giveaway as well, so stay tuned!

There are some fantastic upsides to being in a big city now. Jess and I used to drive TWO HOURS to get to a Trader Joe’s and then we’d stock up on as much stuff as we could fit in our fridge at home and dream about the day we’d live close enough to one so we could by things as we needed them. THAT DAY IS HERE!! And it’s amazing. In fact, I’ll be going there later to get a bottle of wine and some vegan cheese… because that’s all I need. The first time Jess and I went shopping at TJ once we moved here, it was a shocking experience. I kept having to remind Jess that we didn’t need to buy enough food for a whole month. We could get only the items we needed for the week and come back later if we found we needed another ingredient. Getting that “stocking up” mentality out of our heads was definitely a challenge. There are also a TON of other places to get groceries! There’s one by us called Harvest Fresh which has a fantastic selection of produce for very reasonable prices. It also carries a bunch of eastern European food items, including a HUGE selection of halva, which is a tasty food that my culinary adventurer dad introduced me to just over a month ago. It’s basically sesame paste fudge. SO SWEET and SO GOOD!

Anyways, I’m getting back into my blogging groove and life is settling down for now, so keep reading! Good things are coming

This is the first recipe I ever used lamb stock in and let me tell you, it was fantastical. The flavors of lamb, chicken, carrot, broccoli and onion just married each other in a perfect soupy (civil?) union. It was quick and easy to put together and get into bowls when I had little time to do a significant amount of prep and standing work. And it really hit the spot. Warm and comforting was just what I needed that day, so if you are having a day where you need a quick bowl of warm soup and some comfort, make this.

Italian Chicken Noodle Soup
Servings: 4
PointsPlus per Serving: 5

Ingredients

• 3 cups chicken or lamb stock, 1 PP
• 2 cups water
• 8 oz raw chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces, 6 PP
• 3 medium carrots, diced
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 1/2 cups raw broccoli trees
• 2 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1 tsp fresh lemon juice
• 1 1/2 cups uncooked egg noodles, 6 PP
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 tbsp olive oil, 4 PP

Directions

1. In 4-quart saucepan, heat oil over medium heat. Add chicken. Cook 4 to 6 minutes, stirring occasionally, until no longer pink in center. Stir in onion. Cook 2 to 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, until onion is tender.

2. Stir in stock, water, lemon juice and carrots. Heat to boiling. Cook 5 minutes over medium heat. Stir in broccoli, noodles, basil and the rest of the spices. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer uncovered 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until vegetables and noodles are tender.

Photo Courtesy of Pillsbury.com

Click here for this Red Velvet Angel Food Cupcakes with Whipped Cheesecake Frosting recipe by “Real Mom Kitchen”!

I found this recipe for Angel Food Cupcakes literally just over a year ago on one of my favorite blogs (you can see my comment from last year on the page!) and absolutely loved them. I was delighted to plug the ingredients into the Weight Watchers recipe builder and find out that they only came to two pointsplus each! Angel food cake is already light and delicious as a cake, so OF COURSE it makes sense to make portion-controlled cupcakes, right? In fact, these were so good on their own that I ate most of them without any topping. And they only lasted about 5 days. I definitely ate more than two every time I went for them. Your leftover cupcakes can be turned into a trifle or parfait with fruit, curd and cool whip free, so don’t worry about the fact that this recipe makes 36. It’s going to be okay. I promise.

Click here for this blog on How to Make an Easy Trifle from “Gimme Some Oven”!

Angel Food Cupcakes (from How Sweet It Is)
Servings: 36
PointsPlus per Serving: 2

Ingredients

• 12 egg whites, 4 PP
• 1 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
• 3/4 cup sugar, 16 PP
• 2 tsp vanilla extract, 1 PP
• 1 3/4 cup powdered sugar, 23 PP
• 1 1/8 cup cake flour, 14 PP
• 1/4 tsp salt

Click here for this Gluten-Free Caramel Macchiato Angel Food Cake recipe from “Kumquat”!

Directions

1. Let egg whites sit at room temperature for about one hour before beginning. While eggs are resting, measure out powdered sugar and flour, then sift powdered sugar, flour and salt together. Set aside. Line a cupcake tin (or two) with cupcake liners.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and place rack in the bottom third of oven.

3. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites until frothy. Once frothy, add in cream of tarter, then beat at medium speed until soft peaks form. This took me about 5-6 minutes. Gradually add granulated sugar with the mixer still on medium speed, continuing to beat until egg whites thicken a bit more with opaque, soft, droopy peaks. Once there, beat in vanilla extract.

4. Remove the bowl from the mixer and sprinkle 1/4 of the dry ingredients over the egg whites. Fold gently with a spatula until combined completely. Continue with the rest of the dry ingredients I did this in three increments.

5. Once batter is smooth, use a 1/4 cup measure to pour heaping scoops of batter into each liner. Bake for 18-19 minutes, or until tops are golden brown. Let cool completely, then frost as desired. I frosted mine with a simple fresh vanilla whipped cream, using 1 pint of whipping cream, 2 tablespoons of sugar, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and beating until thickened.

Oh, and Happy Valentine’s Day to my beautiful wife!

I prefer to celebrate Valentine’s Day by showing a little extra love to my own body. I may not always be happy with the way it looks, but it is a great body that’s performed exceptionally well under stress, carried me through life, and done it’s best to keep up with the crap that I’ve been putting it through for the last 28 years. It deserves a little credit. YOURS DOES TOO! This is why I call Valentine’s Week… “Love Your Body Week”.

One of the ways that I show my body that I love and appreciate it is by going to a naturopathic chiropractor by the name of Dr. Peters. He uses a specialized therapeutic treatment called NST (more info below) to re-align my muscles and tendons every couple of weeks. I originally started going to see him because of residual back pain from a high school injury. I was just starting my weight loss journey and the exercise routine I was starting was causing my pain to come back on a constant severe basis. Since I’ve started seeing Dr. Peters, I’ve done three 5ks, lost 45 additional lbs from what I started at when I first went to him, and my back issues are now in maintenance mode! Before I started going to him, I had been going to a regular “snap-crackle-pop” chiropractor and was not experiencing much healing, only minor fixes.

I am now a full believer in the miracle of this gentle naturopathic care. I asked Dr. Peters if he would write a guest blog about what he does and how it can contribute to loving your body and he was delighted! But before I let you delve into his awesome post, here are a few questions that I asked him to answer as an intro. I hope you enjoy

1. If you could give one piece of advice to a group of people in the beginning stages of a healthiness journey, what would it be?

Learn to cook.  Seriously — this sounds simplistic to the point of flippancy, but so many of our lifestyle-related health problems go back to our disconnection from food.  A whole generation of Americans has grown up living on fast food and microwave meals; we have no idea what we’re putting into our bodies.  We love complicated dietary prescriptions, but if we just make our own food, we take responsibility for our nutrition in a very direct way.  It becomes that much easier to follow a whole-foods based diet, rich in veggies, and low in sugar and refined carbs.

2. What are some food staples and favorite appliances in your kitchen?

I tend to follow a Mediterranean-type diet, so extra virgin olive oil, onions, and garlic are always at hand.  There’s nothing like the aroma of those alliums hitting the olive oil that just gets your mouth watering for dinner.  I also like to have canned black beans in the cabinet.  They’re great for a quick lunch: throw them in an omelet, on a whole-grain tortilla, or sprinkle on a salad.  An amazing source of that underrated but critical nutrient, dietary fiber.

 

My number one kitchen appliance has to be the food processor – indispensable for quick chopping or pureeing veggie-rich dishes.  A programmable slow cooker ranks up there, too:  for a busy family, it’s a wonderful way to make sure we’re getting a nutritious dinner, even if we’re coming home at different times in the evening, and rushing from one activity to the next.  I also like my pressure cooker — the “microwave” of the stovetop.  I love being able to steam broccoli in three minutes, or to get the whole-grain goodness of quinoa in ten minutes.

3. What food do you crave that qualifies as an indulgence or a treat?

Nutella.  No doubt about it.  I’m not an absolutist when it comes to food; if you eat nutritious meals and snacks, there’s room for a treat here and there.  I do think it’s funny that the manufacturers are marketing Nutella as a “wholesome” food for a nutritious breakfast, because it’s made with hazelnuts.  It’s definitely an indulgence — a nice cap to a long day.

 

Say Hello to Dr. Andrew Peters!

With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, I’m honored that Angela asked me to chime in on how to “Love Your Body.” To me, that means a therapeutic lifestyle centered around good nutrition, exercise, proper sleep, and chiropractic care.

As a naturopathic physician, I see all the same sorts of conditions your family doctor would see, just taking a more holistic viewpoint, and using more natural treatment methods. I often call exercise “my favorite supplement,” because the benefits of it to our health (both physical and mental) are astounding. If any pharmaceutical could even come close to this, it would be a runaway bestseller.

With all the benefits of exercise, it seems like a no-brainer. Sometimes, though, pain conditions can leave us on the sidelines: back, knee, and shoulder problems; acute or chronic. Loving your body with gentle chiropractic care is a great way to get back on track. I use a low-force form of chiropractic called Neurostructural Integration Technique (NST); this is quite different from the “popping and cracking” that you might think of with chiropractic. I sometimes think of NST as a neurological massage: using gentle movements by hand over the major soft tissues around the spine (muscles, tendons, ligaments) to stimulate specific nerve points. Think of this as using the body as a keyboard to program the central nervous system to re-balance the body into a more pain-free position, with fuller ranges of motion.

I have seen NST help people get back on their feet and into the activities they love: hip and knee problems disappeared for a woman who is a lifelong runner. A sixty-something man who had required cortisone shots in his shoulder every few weeks now gets periodic NST treatment instead — and hasn’t required an injection in over a year. He has gotten back to the gardening that he enjoys.

Don’t let pain keep you down. And don’t think that drugs and surgery are your only options. Manual therapies such as NST may be just the Valentine gift you were waiting for — find a practitioner near you.

Read more from Dr. Peters on his own blog by clicking here!

In the last few days, I’ve watched a myriad of videos with the hopes of forgetting my problems for mere moments. Some involved cute puppies, others had babies dancing to Gangnam Style tunes while strapped in a car seat. This one, though… this one stuck with me. I saw a man who had been told he’d never walk without canes again do incredible things all because he had the right support around him and the kind of determination that found itself renewed when one person decided to believe in him. I cannot watch this video without crying. I cannot watch this video without feeling like I can accomplish anything I put my mind to.

I will not sit here and let my situation defeat me. My problems are far less than those of this man and I too have a lot of support around me. I find hope through his strength and determination from his spirit. I shared this video on facebook and found a beautifully scattered grouping of people liking the post and thanking me for sharing. Thank you to whoever it was that shared it first. It was exactly what I needed to see today. I hope that some of you find hope or determination or even a little of both by watching this video too!

With all that paddling, we try to delight in the things that make each day a little brighter – a snorty wet kiss from Maxwell, hugs from family and friends, making someone at work smile by bringing them a cold iced tea, getting the new blog design up and running through the help of a technical fairy godmother or even eating a steaming bowl of delicious soup at lunch. Specifically, this soup.

This soup was so good, I could barely stand it! It definitely made lunch at work extra enjoyable. And with a dollop of tofutti sour cream on top… it was like tasting a little bit of heaven right there in the break room. I promised you this recipe after I put up the post about lamb stock, so here’s the perfect soup to use it for. Or you can be just as awesome and use chicken or vegetable stock instead. I won’t judge. I only hope it makes your day a little brighter.

Lamb Kale and White Bean Soup
Servings: 8
PointsPlus per Serving: 5

Ingredients

• 1 cup dry great northern beans, 14 PP (or another white bean)
• 8 oz raw lamb leg, diced, 6 PP
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 medium onion, finely diced
• 2 medium carrots, diced
• 4 cups uncooked kale
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 8 cups lamb stock (or fat-free chicken stock), 1 PP
• 1/3 cup tomato paste
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp ground cumin, 2 PP
• 2 tbsp curry powder, 1 PP
• 1 tbsp chili powder, 1 PP
• 1/2 tbsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tbsp garam masala
• 1 1/2 tbsp sea salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp turmeric
• light sour cream, optional (tofutti or regular)

Directions
1. If you haven’t already done so, prepare your beans through one of the standard methods – soaking overnight, cooking for 3 hours in a pot, or just use already-prepared beans.

2. Put your tbsp of olive oil in a large pot and warm it up on medium heat. Throw in your lamb, onion and garlic. Cook it up for a few minutes and then sprinkle some curry powder, cumin and garam masala over top (just for extra flavor). Stir every so often once the onions are softened.

3. Once the meat it almost completely cooked, pour in your stock, tomato paste, carrots, tomatoes, beans and spices. Bring to a boil for about 4 minutes and then bring back down to medium-low heat. Stir it up well. Wash all your kale and break the leafy green part into bite-sized pieces. Discard the stalk. Put all the kale pieces into the soup and let it cook for another 20 minutes or so. Give it a taste every so often to decipher whether you want more salt, cumin or curry powder (those are usually the things to bulk up on if it “needs something”).

4. Once the beans are to your preferred softness, spoon into bowls and top with a little sour cream; non-dairy or otherwise.