Chicken Soup with Lemon and Ginger

It is soup season now and tonight that's what we had for dinner. It actually snowed in the mountains for the first time today. Brrrrrrrr! But this soup will warm you right up. I really like the flavors in this soup because it has lemon and ginger in it giving it an Asian flare so it's not your usual chicken soup. It also has bok choy and mushrooms in it, two of my favorites. Bok Choy is often called Chinese cabbage so it's in a lot of Asian dishes and I love it.

I randomly bought this bok choy when I went to the Pike Place Market recently. It was a nice day, no cruise ships in port, tourist season is over and it's a perfect time for a local like me to enjoy our Market. I actually went to buy clams for dinner but ended up with 3 bags of food before I was done. I bought some of the "OH MY GOD" Flavor King plums that were as sweet as sugar.

The vendors give you samples of their produce so it's hard to resist. I also bought some of these Moon Drop grapes.

I've never seen these before but again, they were so sweet and they were fun to eat. All in all, this was my loot by the time I got home. A couple of our favorite cinnamon rolls for breakfast were also a necessity.

By the time I got home, I wasn't even hungry for dinner at all. I ate too much when I was there including a shrimp cocktail

and I also stopped at the French bakery, La Panier, that usually has a line out the door but not today. I walked right up and just ordered, then sat down at the numerous open tables. I love the Market when the tourists are gone.

We did eat the clams the next day for dinner. Sometimes you just feel like a dinner from the Market and I feel so fortunate to be able to accommodate these urges when we get them.

Aside from the great food there, the whole shopping experience is one of the best you can have. I will never get tired of shopping there. Now back to the soup...you can add a starch to it if you want like rice or noodles but I'm trying to do the

Plant Paradox Diet so I adapted it with compliant foods. That meant that I also substituted soy sauce with coconut aminos which taste the same.

I have enough substitutions in my kitchen now that I can adapt recipes to be compliant. This recipe originally came from Cooking Light in 2014 and only has 185 calories in one serving. Pretty good!

Serves 4 (1-1/2 cups)

1 Tbsp olive oil

1/2 cup chopped onion

1-1/2 Tbsp. finely minced fresh ginger

1 (8 ounce) package presided cremini mushrooms

4-1/2 cups unsalted chicken stock

1-1/2 cups cooked, shredded skinless chicken breast

3 cups chopped bok choy

2 Tbsp. soy sauce or coconut aminos

1/2 tsp. kosher salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

1. Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion and ginger: sauce 4 minutes.

2. Add mushrooms, sauce 2 minutes. Add stock, chicken and bok choy; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 8 minutes.

3. After soup simmers, stir in soy sauce or coconut aminos, salt and pepper. Cook 4 minutes or until bok choy is tender.

4. Remove from heat; stir in lemon juice and serve.

Meatloaf by Mark Bittman

Once again, I turned on the television yesterday and saw that Mark Bittman was on the Today show and was making his version of meatloaf . This must be meatloaf season. It was surprisingly similar to the Pioneer Woman's version who was also recently on. I was a little surprised of his version because Mark Bittman is into healthy eating and has lost a lot of weight and improved his health by changing his diet which he writes about in his book, Food Matters . His meatloaf recipe also included bacon and cheese! I must be doing something wrong. The thing to remember, which he writes about in his book, is that you can eat healthy without going extreme or changing your whole life. If you don't know who Mark Bittman is, he is a food writer and a four star chef with multiple cookbooks who loves to eat but changed his food philosophy to improve his health. He tells his story in Food Matters and provides a plan for responsible eating that covers a no-nonsense rundown on

Trader Joe's Gluten-Free Oatmeal, Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies

I don't have very many gluten-free cookies on my blog because quite frankly, I usually don't like gluten-free. But occasionally, I do find a good recipe and this is one that is from the back of the Trader Joe's oatmeal and it's a good one. My friend brought some over to our house last weekend when Nick and family were here for our birthday celebrations and we all loved them. My friend lives a few blocks away and we walk the neighborhood together on weekends. We can easily go 5 miles in no time, talking non-stop. She loves exploring our neighborhood as much as I do and we discover so many favorite little spots. We even found a property with a horse (or more like a pony, I should say.) The views are always quite lovely, too. Bruce and I had our thirty-ninth wedding anniversary on July 18th and I made a point of walking past the house where we had our wedding reception. I told my friend, "Thirty-nine years ago today, there was a big party go

Waking Up in Vegas

and just like that...we were Waking Up in Vegas. Just like the Katy Perry song. We went to her 78th performance which was her second-to-last Las Vegas residency show entitled "Play". That was perfect for us because we went to Vegas simply to play. Her concert was a great finale for us because it was high energy and full of silliness, just the way Katy Perry is. And we were feeling it after three nights in Las Vegas. "Get up, and shake the gutter off your clothes now, That's what you get for waking up in Vegas". Here's what she said about her show: "I created this show after the birth of my daughter, Daisy Dove. When I met her, it was like all the love I was ever searching for finally showed up. This show is for everyone’s inner child and for the hope that maybe if we could all see life through the eyes of a child, we would be free. Because never forget, love is and will always be the key,” she said. We went to Vegas spur of the moment because Br

Sylvia's Scenario

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