Holiday Recovery Soup

Well, Thanksgiving is over, the damage is done. We all ate more than we said we would (and I already said that I'd eat a LOT), and now the inevitable blob of belly fat is starting to congeal and set up shop around your waist.  The week of glorious binge eating is officially over, and now begins the month of undoing all that damage (just in time for the Christmas feast, oof).

If you've never done meal-prep before, right now is a great time to start. Basically you plan out every meal and snack that you will eat for the week, and then you don't have to think about it! And if you are like me and hate cooking, plan out meals that you can make in big batches, all at once, then portion it out for the rest of the week.

I haven't been prepping much lately, and it shows. My best months are the ones where I just take a few extra hours of effort to plan out my food for the week, and stick to it.

For this upcoming week, I have an overly-simplified plan to combat all the pies I ate in the last four days. 

Seriously, so much pie. Soooooo much.

For lunches, I cooked 2 cups of quinoa and divvied up the yield into old 8 ounce yogurt containers. I also baked 4 chicken breasts and divided them into 5 servings - about 3 ounces each - and topped off the containers with broccoli 

Not too shabby!

Before making those, I had started a big pot of veggie soup stewing to have for dinner this week. The best thing about making soup is that you can really just throw in whatever you want and however much of it you want, and it'll probably taste great. There are many variations of this type of soup all over the Internet, but this is what I made, and it came out pretty good. I'll call it:

Holiday Recovery Soup:

Ingredients:

5 medium sized carrots

2 bunches of celery

1 cup diced shallot, onion and garlic

1 can garbanzo beans

1 can black beans

8 cups liquid (i used 4 cups veggie stock and 4 cups water)

Bag of kale

Seasonings (about a teaspoon each):

Olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Garlic powder

Paprika

Ginger powder

Brown mustard seeds

Prep the ingredients:

-Finely chop the onions, shallots and garlic together (or buy them pre-chopped like I did)

-chop carrots and celery

-combine dry seasonings in a small bowl

-rinse and drain garbanzo and black beans in a colander

Make the soup:

In a large pot, heat olive oil over medium-low heat. Sautée the  onions, shallots, and garlic for about 5 minutes, then add the dry seasoning and sautée for another minute. Stir in the carrots and celery and cook over medium heat for about 3 minutes. Add the garbanzo and black beans and 8 cups of liquid. Bring the soup to a low boil, then simmer covered over low heat for at least an hour.  After that, rinse the kale (removing any stems) and stir into the soup, simmering for an additional 20 minutes. Then enjoy!  As with all soups, the longer you let it sit, the better it will taste

By the time you're done, it should look a little something like this: