Soup Fever

Wednesday = Mercredi

05 Janvier 2011

Things I Love About This Country:

Dancing while riding my bike with no hands and listening to my iPod. People get such a kick out of it. Hell, I would get a kick out of it if I saw someone do it back in the States.

Things I Hate About This Country:

All the carbs. Carb. After carb. After carb. Can I get some kind of variety in my diet, please? How about an ENTIRE meal make out of protein, fruit and veggies? Is that possible? No. Not likely.

To counter balance my TIHATC, I decided to have a marvelous veggie soup for dinner.

Here goes:

• 1/2 squash
• 1/2 head of cabbage
• 6-7 baby tomatoes
• 1 bundle of fresh green beans
• 1 small carrot
• 1 large onion
• 2 small green peppers
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 can of tomato paste
• chicken bouillon
• basil
• salt & pepper

Chop/slice onion, mince garlic and add to hot oil in large pot. Let simmer until translucent. Add chopped green peppers (sans seeds). Cover pot - allow to cook 3-4 minutes (stirring occasionally). Add pepper to veggies - cover again. While cooking, wash tomatoes, squash and green beens. Snap ends off green beans and chop both tomatoes and squash. Add diced tomatoes to pot and about 1 liter of water. Bring to a boil. Add 1 cube chicken bouillon, 1/2 can (small) of tomato paste and 3 pinches (large) of salt. Stir. Add in green beans (chopped to bite size) and chopped carrot. Once soup is boiling for a couple minutes lower heat and bring to a simmer. Add basil. Taste & add whatever spices you may think are needed. Simmer for 5 - 7 minutes. Add squash and sliced/chopped cabbage. Stir in. Allow to cook for 10 - 15 minutes. Once green beans and core of cabbage are still firm but soft enough to eat, your veggie soup is finished! Scoop into bowl. Caution!! HOT! And Bon Appetit!

I had two heaping bowls and there's still plenty for lunch and possibly dinner tomorrow! I'm really proud of myself for making that up. So good and healthy. If only I could eat like that all the time... that way I wouldn't have to be concerned with all the carbs I'm consuming and then, invariably, storing in my belly. I swear - the one thing I was most (may be exaggerating here) frightened of was gaining weight in this country. Men lose weight. Women gain it. That's just because of the way we metabolize the food here & probably because women are expected to not do much physical labor (at least foreigners). I'm trying to battle fate by working out - but I can't seem to cut my portions. I LOVE TO EAT. Damn fat kid syndrome.

Aside from that, I got 54 km in on the bike today! And got a nice sunburn on my back where I couldn't reach. Overall. A good day.