strawberries in paris

Auntie Helen’s Weight Loss Soup!

Two Sunday’s ago I met Auntie Helen to give her something for her birthday! Last year I made her these, but this year I wanted to do something non-edible! Remember?? We gots to drop some pounds! So she’s going to get her nails done at About Faces at some point and from that conversation we had that day I decided to make this soup! It’s comprised of chicken, chicken stock, black beans, celery, tomatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, red cabbage, cilantro, low fat sour cream, peppers and chiles in adobo. So in my quest to keep losing weight I decided to make this for a whole week’s dinner for Ned, Laurita and myself! Well I would have to say that it worked, because I lost two pounds last week! But of course, the snowstorm and being cooped up all weekend led to a bunch of pointless snacking and we’ll see how this week turns out… And I lost two pounds again somehow! My weird body sure surprises me sometimes- and 10 pounds in 5 weeks?! I’m a weight loss professional now! ahhahaha….

This soup is very tasty and very satisfying, and makes a ton! Wonder if it would work for freezing and reheating when needed?!? The chiles in adobo give it really good deep flavor, the red cabbage (added right before you eat it) gives a nice texture contrast, and the tons of vegetables and lean proteins make it uber healthy! God I love Mexican flavors! Can’t wait for this Saturday when I am hosting cookbook club and we are cooking Diana Kennedy’s food! Tamales here we come! Well cookbook club did not happen today, but a lot of other tasty things are being made in the kitchen during the snowpocalypse II! Hope everyone has something nice and warm like this soup to chow on today.

Here’s our beautiful organic roasted chicken. God there is nothing better than roasted chicken.

Here are the delicious and nutritious ingredients!

Ingredients:

See above list at the top!

Directions:

1) Rinse chicken and pat reallllly dry. Season with salt and pepper. Roast chicken at 425-450 (depending on how smokey your oven will get when very hot) for 45 minutes or until the liquid between the thigh meat and the body of the chicken goes clear when you cut into it.  Once chicken is cooked and cooled a bit, pull the meat off of it and pull the meat into little pieces.

2) Peel carrots, dice them up and cut up celery, onion and peppers (removing seeds).  Save the top/ greenery of the celery! Heat up a couple tablespoons of oil and saute all of those veggies for about 10 minutes until soft. Add minced garlic and saute that for 30 seconds until fragrant.

3)Pour in big chicken stock, big can of black beans, big can of diced tomatoes, 1/4 cup of chiles in adobo (also cut up), the chicken meat, and a lot of minced cilantro! Now I’ve been using Kitchen Basics no sodium chicken stock, so I added probably two tablespoons of salt at the end. Let the whole thing simmer for 2 hours and then I put it in the fridge (after cooling) and let the flavors meld all night.

4) To serve, cut up some red cabbage and add that to the soup. Also spoon in a dollop of light sour cream and top with some fresh cilantro! This soup made enough serving for 3 people for about 4 nights! Although you might get sick of it after eating it for 4 days, it has a really great flavor and so many really nutritious ingredients.

Thank you auntie for inspiring me to make this soup and hope you are coping with weather insanity!