Weekend Wrap - Southwest Chicken Soup, Paleo Chili, and COOKIES!! Plus H&C Update!

It was COLD this weekend, so we were looking for a few recipes to warm us up.  We were also craving something sweet, but didn't want to fall completely off track.  Here are a few recipes we enjoyed:

Southwest Chicken Soup
We thawed out the broth from the Crockpot Southwestern Chicken today, and made a soup to warm us up this cold weekend!  Super easy and fast!  This recipe is an easy one to customize by adding whatever veggies you have on hand; the below worked for us, but you could also add diced tomato, broccoli, carrots, spinach, etc!

Leftover broth from Crockpot Southwest Chicken and equal parts water
5 chicken breasts
3 3/4 cups chopped zucchini
1/2 yellow onion
1 cup black beans (canned, drained, or from crock pot recipe)
2 tsp Cumin
1 tsp Garlic Powder
1 tsp Onion Powder
Salt to taste
Black Pepper to taste

Add thawed broth, water, and chicken breast to large boiler.  Bring to a boil, cover, reduce to low and cook about 2 hours.  Shred chicken in boiler.  Add zucchini, onion, black beans and seasoning.  Simmer for one to two hours (until veggies are cooked to your desired tenderness).

21 Day Fix Challengers - I measured almost a red full of chicken and put into a tupperware, then added broth and veggies.  I wanted to be sure I got pretty close to a full red serving, and then counted the zucchini and beans as 1/4 a green and 1/2 a yellow.

Paleo Chili
Another great recipe for the chilly weather is the below paleo chili recipe.  Promise you'll never miss the beans!!  We found this recipe at Laurafuentes.com.

Paleo Chili

21 Day Fix Challengers - I measured the above by filling one and a half red containers.  I'll be counting as one red, 3/4 a green.  It's an estimate, but when you are eating food that's good for you, I'm okay estimating my containers!  If I'm still hungry later, I'll snack on more green.

Oatmeal Cookies

These cookies were great!  Maybe a little too great, because I definitely ate more than I should have this weekend!  I'm glad we made them though, because with the threat of snow the end of last week, I was really wanting to bake cookies with the girls.  This way, we made cookies, but weren't completely off track.  I did let the girls indulge in the Oreos they wanted, and managed to stay away from them myself, so I say SUCCESS!!

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies  (Note, we did not add the extra chocolate chips on top and DJ used a few walnuts, no peanuts.)

21 Day Fix Challengers - Again, it's an estimate, but I would count 2 cookies as 1/2 purple, 1 yellow, 1/2 blue, 1 tsp.  I think each of those are a little on the high side, but I like to estimate high to be safe!

Hammer and Chisel Update

We are into week 3 of Hammer and Chisel, and still really enjoying these workouts.  We have only repeated a couple of workouts so far, and I like how they switch trainers from day to day.  I am trying to push myself a little more and increase my weights.  I have virtually no upper body strength, so really trying to work on pushing through the upper body moves.  I like when Autumn reminds me, it's supposed to be hard!!  I can tell a difference in how my pants are fitting, but I can't really "see" the changes yet.  I know it takes a while to really "see" your body changing, but when you are working out hard, sure would be nice to "see" it sooner ;) Anxious to get to Day 30 and take measurements!!  Going to need to stay on track with nutrition this week and stay away from cookies, for sure - ha!