Stuffed Pepper Soup

Long time, no blog!  It's been a busy summer!  But, now that I'm back to work preparing for the 2011-2012 school year, I'm back to having a little more time to do this! 

On my way back from a 4-mile walk yesterday, when I was literally 2 blocks from my apartment and directly in front of work, I tripped on a raised piece of sidewalk and fell flat on my face.  You've never seen anyone fall and stand back up so fast!  Now, normally, I laugh this off and I did a little last night.  I thought I just had some scrapes on my hands and left knee and a bruise on one of my wrists.  However, as I was walking around town for a meeting this morning, I started getting very stiff and sore and now I have a small bruise on the side of my stomach that hurts like you wouldn't believe!

I still am laughing at myself with the mere thought of me falling flat on my face while just walking (typical!), but I am also really not feeling well.  Which leads me to my Stuffed Pepper Soup recipe.  I didn't have any leftovers in my fridge tonight and all my lettuce still needs to be cleaned up before I can eat it so I was looking for a quick fix and a way to use up some peppers that I had left over from last week's farmers market and my dad's garden.  So, stuffed pepper soup was the best answer to an easy fix meal when I'm not feeling well!  I don't remember where the original idea for this recipe came from, if I remember, I'll add it to the comments section.  However, I've made quite a few changes to the original recipe and this is a recipe that I keep in my head.  Enjoy!

Stuffed Pepper Soup

Serves a lot of people :)
Ingredients:
1-2 sprays olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 lb 99% lean ground turkey breast
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 28oz can of crush tomatoes
3 c chicken stock
1/2 c rice of your choice (*see note below)
2 tsp dried Italian Seasoning
Salt and Pepper
2 large or three small bell peppers of assorted colors (I used green and purple this time around), cut into 1" bite-sized pieces
Parmesan cheese for topping (optional)

Spray a large dutch oven or soup pot with olive oil and add in the onion, ground turkey, and garlic, breaking up the turkey as it cooks.  Once the turkey is no longer pink and the onions are translucent, add in the tomatoes, stock, rice, Italian seasoning, and salt and pepper to taste.  Bring to a boil and then lower the heat to medium-low.  Simmer the soup until the rice is soft and almost fully cooked.  Add in the bell peppers and stir.  Simmer for another 5 minutes.  That's it!  Yum!  Leftovers are amazing!

*Note on the rice:  You have to use non-instant rice in this recipe!  You will regret instant and quick cook rice when you go to reheat the leftovers and all the rice is mush!  Regular rice only takes about another 15 minutes to cook vs. quick-cook brown rice.  You can really use any rice you like, I'm sure white rice is great in here.  I've used brown, brown basmati, and "forbidden black rice" (pictured above).  All have been equally tasty!

"Week End" Updates

So this week end update is coming a little late.  My goal for last week was to take Sunday off, then walk 30 miles between Monday and Saturday and lift weights 4 times.  Unfortunately, I had been battling a pretty big blister from the week before which resulted in me not able to put a shoe on on Thursday.  Fun, fun!  Nevertheless, I more than made up for it by adding in different activities and also working out yesterday (Sunday).  It might be easiest to list, so here we go:


Sunday - Rest
Monday - Walked 5 miles
Tuesday - Walked 6 miles + lifted weights for 30 minutes
Wednesday - Walked 6 miles
Thursday - Swam laps for ~hour + 30 minutes weights
Friday - Walked 5 miles
Saturday - Walked 6 miles
Sunday - Walked 2 miles + 7.75 mile bike ride

I did get my 30 miles in six days in, but only 2 days of weight lifting.  I'm ready for a day off though!  I'm going to take a rest day today because I'm tired and a little sore. 

What I'm really proud of this week is that when my foot was too sore to put a shoe on to get my miles in, I found another activity that I could do instead of just saying, "forget it."  That's a new experience for me!  And a good one.  There are always other options when you get thrown off track a little bit.  This is something I really need to internalize and remind myself of when things go a little wrong.  My journey to healthy needs to include new life-long habits and this is one thing that I need to make a habit in my life.

This next week will be a little crazy.  I'm moving (again) Thursday-Saturday so I'm not 100% sure how much working out I will get in during those three days.  However, I am just moving from one building to another, so the moving will be entirely lifting and leg work (no trucks!) so that should count for something!  Because of the oddness of this week, my challenge for this week is food-related.  I was a little off on my eating these last couple of weeks, which has resulted in a stall in my weight loss.  This week (starting yesterday), I plan to stick to around 1,500 calories every day.  I will also be focusing on eating mostly fruits, veggies, and lean chicken/fish/turkey. 

What's funny is that I always hear about everyone being on a diet.  For me, this isn't a diet, this is a lifestyle.  If I want to be healthy for life, I need to eat in a way that I can continue for the rest of my life, so my list of "mostly" foods is just that.  Mostly.  I really don't deprive myself of anything, except trigger foods (chocolate, chips, etc.).  I still have those things occasionally, but they are not part of my everyday life.

Unlimited

First things first.  On my post on Saturday, I challenged myself to 30 miles of some combo of running, walking, and hiking over six days (Mon-Sat) + 4 days of lifting weights.  Things are going well thus far!  I took Sunday as a rest day as per the plan, but I find that rest days just make me feel like crap - tired and lazy, both on the rest day and the next day.  I may try to do a little something, like a slow walk, on rest days. 

Never-the-less, I walked 5 miles on the treadmill yesterday and 6 miles (3 outside, 3 on the treadmill) + 30 minutes weights today.  So, I've got 11 miles in in 2 days!  I figure there will be a day later in the week where I will want to walk less, so I went a little longer today.  Tomorrow I have a mid-morning appointment so I will likely break up my workout a little bit, which actually makes it easier.  I haven't run this week as my knee has been acting up again.  I enjoy running but when my knee hurts, I can't help but think that I will just cause more damage if I do a high impact activity.

My second topic of the day is Jillian Michael's book, Unlimited.  I passed this book by about six or seven times and finally broke down and bought it on Monday.  I'm only about 1/3 of the way through it but I am really enjoying it.  This book isn't exactly about how to succeed in physical health, but the advise provided in this book can be applied to your career, mental health, relationships, physical health, really any part of your life that you are having a problem with.  I will provide a more complete review of this book, but for now, I'd like to share my favorite quote from the book.

"...it's my dream, so back off and start working on your own."

Why do I like this quote so much?  Because sometimes I feel like I am surrounded by so much negativity.  I hear over and over again people talk about what other people are working towards and how much they don't support it.  Here's the thing - if that person is working towards something that will make them happy and doing it in a non-destructive manner, why should anyone else care or try to make them feel bad about it?  I think we all need to support those in our lives and focus on working towards our own goals and dreams.  I end this post with another quote from Unlimited:

"Think of it like throwing a boomerang (if anyone actually knows how to do that): whatever you think and feel comes back to you.  And thus the word is karma."