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soup obsessed

I think I spent the whole day in the kitchen today. I bought some great pork ribs cheap yesterday along with a 4 lb chicken for 3 bucks!

I had the ribs in the oven by 9 this morning (3 hours on 250 =  perfect ribs no matter what sauce you like on them) so we had our “big” meal of the day for lunch. I like to do that as much as possible, although it’s hard to do on weekdays. I just think we all feel better if we have our smaller meal at night.

I also roasted the chicken to make soup with. I used my new Pampered Chef dish that my friend Nicole gave me for Christmas – I seriously love it. An hour and a quarter on 400, (covered) and the chicken comes out gorgeous.

We’ve been on a soup kick around here lately. Partly because it’s been so cold and snowy (another 7 inches last night!!) that it’s nice to have a soup cooking all the time, and partly because we’re (always) trying to eat healthier. We seem to eat a lot more veggies, and much less meat when we have soup. I’ve been skipping the pastas more now and going for brown rice, barley, black beans, and quinoa in our soups. It’s a good way to get more whole grains and fiber in our diet without really noticing it.

I have a hard time digesting whole grains when they aren’t cooked well so I can’t really have most of the whole grain breads on the market. If you can see the seeds I can’t eat it. Same goes for pasta. The whole grain versions are really hard on me. The only one I can eat is Ronzoni’s Smart Taste, which is basically a white pasta with added fiber (6 grams per serving). I just wish they would make a frozen ravioli or tortellini out of it! We love cheese filled pastas but they are all seem to be made out of white flour so we don’t have them very often.

I find myself obsessively reading ingredient labels for fiber, protein and sugar content lately and I’ve noticed some interesting things. Since we cut white rice out of our diet I just bought whatever brown rice was on the shelf. Last weekend I had three different brown rice brands to choose from. A well-known brand that was the highest price, a never-heard-of-before brand that was the lowest price, and an organic brand that was mid range.

Automatically I chose that lowest price, because, of course, rice is rice is rice. Right? Wrong. The no-name was only 1 gram of fiber per serving. I just happened to glance at it and that really surprised me – I thought it would be more! So I looked at the top name brand – same serving size but it was 2 grams of fiber. Huh? Okay, so what was the organic? 3 grams! Weird isn’t it? I suppose that means the organic is less processed so more of the rice germ remains?

Apparently I need to learn more about buying organic, and I need to pay even more attention than I am. If that’s really possible.

Btw, I bought barley on the same trip and wouldn’t you know, it has 5 grams per serving! It’s slightly more expensive than rice but I guess it’s worth it.

Bored yet? I know I’m analyzing my food way too much. Hopefully I’m not the only one!

Anyway, I have my rice, barley, and veggies cooking right now, just waiting for me to throw in the chicken. That means I have to go tear apart that darn carcass. That’s the only bad thing about making soup!

So what are you having for dinner?

ps. Got a good soup recipe for me? Make sure you leave me a link in comments, I’m always looking for new soup recipes to try out. (As long as it’s not beef!)

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