Success Winners & Lighter Broccoli and Cheddar Soup

Hi All!

First things first- I missed my blog birthday!! Itzy’s Kitchen turned two on March 5. I will be celebrating with another special giveaway coming up! Also, please not that I've added some new tabs to the blog- let me know what you think.

Second, thank you to everyone who entered my Success Rice Giveaway. The 10 winners of their own success rice coupon are:

Nicci
Katie
Em
M
Sarah
Rose
Juliana
K
Shannon
Amy

(photo from the Success website)

Congrats Ladies!! Please send me your address (itzyskitchen at gmail dot com).

How has your week been? Cooking up anything fun?? I have had Petite Foodie’s Broccoli & Cheddar soup book marked since October. I finally got around to making it and loved the result! I adjusted the recipe a bit (decreased some of the quantities to make a smaller batch, used all broth instead of a broth/water combo, used skim instead of 2% milk and utilized 2% Cheddar Cheese), but followed her directions exactly:

Ingredients:

• Cooking Spray


• 1/2 onion-chopped


• 1 clove garlic-chopped


• 2 & 1/4 cups vegetable broth


• 12 ounces broccoli


• 1 & 3/4 cups skim milk


• 1/4 cup flour


• 1 cup 2% Milk Sharp Cheddar Cheese


• ½ tsp Red pepper

Directions:
Heat a large nonstick saucepan coated with cooking spray over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic; sauté 3 minutes or until tender. Add broth and broccoli. Bring broccoli mixture to a boil over medium-high heat. Add seasonings. Reduce heat to medium; cook 10 minutes.

Combine milk and flour, stirring with a whisk until well blended. Add milk mixture to broccoli mixture. Cook 5 minutes or until slightly thick, stirring constantly. Stir in pepper. Remove from heat; add cheese, stirring until cheese melts. Puree/blend half of the mixture and remix all together.

I tried to calculate out the nutritional information on ¼ of the recipe and came up with the following (not sure this is 100% accurate):

202 calories
7.25 g fat
3.9 g sat fat
734 mg sodium
7.5 g carbs
2.7 g fiber
16.75 g protein
21% A, 58.5% calcium, 128.5% C, 7.5% iron

This soup goes super well with a sandwich (shown here is Josh’s melty buffalo chicken & cheese sandwich on an Arnold’s thin):



Have you all had a good week of workouts so far? Its been a while since I posted my teaching schedule, but this was another crazy week!

Monday: Warm up run, Taught Body Pump
Tuesday: Taught Body Attack
Wednesday: Warm up run, Taught Body Pump
Thursday: Teach 45 minute Body Step, 45 minute Body Pump
Friday: Teach Body Pump
Saturday: Teach Body Step

Enjoy the rest of the week.