OK now, this is so good it's stupid!!!

Start with some good heart healthy butter

Saute in the usual suspects

this one is different but dice it like a potato

add it to the sauteed goodies

go ahead and add your liquids and any shrimp or chicken, i used shrimp

then when the pot is hot, add your guar gum and thicken for this velvety texture

this is so good they won't know you didn't use potatoes!!! and 2 points per one cup serving. this meal hear was four points, 6 with half cup cottage cheese for a dressing..

ok here is the recipe this is a twist on creamy potato soup with shrimp from miss deens recipe, now it is my own and i am sharing because this is amazing and healthy and so good for you!!

Creamy "Faux-Tato" with Shrimp Soup

(drop me a line if you have trouble finding faux-tatos, they aren't in season very long)

1/4 cup or half a stick of butter

1 large onion diced

4 or 5 stalks of celery diced

3 cloves fresh garlic minced

1 cup diced carrots

1 large head of cauliflower diced

3 cans low sodium chicken broth

2 cups skim milk

1 cup fat free half and half

guar gum

this was too easy just melt the butter in your big stock pot, saute the next 4 ingredients. add diced cauliflower, uncooked shrimp, or pre cooked chicken, and your liquids. let cook for 12 minutes, to soften the cauliflower. then add guar gum, slowly so it doesn't turn into a big gooey glob on you, and viola

Faux-tato with shrimp soup!!!

the old recipe called for 4 cups whole milk and 2 cups of half and half. it also called for making a bit of a rue with flour when you saute the veggies, but this step is excluded when using guar gum. it also took about 45 minutes to cook he potatoes and you had to cook the shrimp separately but with this recipe, I  cut the fat, cut the starch and added some wonderful fiber and vitamins!! my sister thought she was eating potato soup!! this was seriously too good not to share, i know i was going to make myself rich with my own cook book, but alas i can't write so here, let me know what you think of my recipe tm.

ok so that is not a trademark but try it and let me know if you think it rocks!! it was fast and yummy and freezes wonderfully!! Eat happy!!!

Eating Habits

We had a real treat last night for dinner, BEEF!! Yes we ate beef!! I haven't bought any in over a year, with all the recalls and the issue that happened about the downed cows in California I stopped buying it all together. We buy ground turkey and we buy chicken and pork loin. We are really trying to keep a budget and with the price of steaks at a decent local butcher shop we just don't get to. Last night however a freind had told us of a local butcher who had Belgian Blue beef. This is leaner than chicken and is better for you than fish!! I know I had to google and look it up myself, it sounded to good to be true, grain fed no hormones or antibiotics and about $4.00 a pound.
So we had some brought over and we actually fired up the grill in 10 degree weather and had some burgers and steak. I felt absolutely naughty!! I even had a potato!! I may sound silly but after watching both my parents die from unhealthy eating habits, well mom did actually die from the lung cancer, but she also had diabetes, she was in end stage renal failure, high blood pressure, copd, chf, you name it she probably suffered from it and a lot of it was due to poor eating habits and I saw my future. My father was diabetic and supposed to take 86 units of insulin a day, he dropped dead right in front of me. Poof just like that and I know we gave him insulin and he would go downstairs and say "I got my insulin!" you know we were down stairs cleaning after he died and I can't tell you how many syringes still full of insulin we had found stuffed under the couch. He had stashed them thinking he didn't need them!! Well so here we are with out Mom or Dad and I am extremely careful about what we put into our bodies on a daily basis. This is something that I really have no one to share with about because people think I am crazy for reading every label and not buying the cheap stuff that's loaded down with chemicals!! My sponsor was over one day and she knows we don't buy anything with "high fructose corn syrup" in it or any partially hydrogenated none of that, and I like to get the Invisible Kool- Aid it only comes in one flavor and I have to go to Satan (aka-Walmart) to buy it and we also keep a pitcher of cold water in the fridge, any way my sponsor was getting my girls some thing to drink and I told her the small pitcher is the kool aid, and she looked at me funny and said, "Are you sure?" and I said yea it's invisible. and she goes "wink, wink, nudge, nudge Oh, I get it, sure its invisible kool aid." I was like "Cat I don't lie to my children!!" I had to make her taste it to believe me, she thought I was giving them water and telling them it was kool aid!!
Anyway we are thinking about splitting a cow with a freind and that would give us some beef in our freezer for a long while. Really if you get a chance look up Belgian Blue Beef and see if you can find a local rancher in your area, I highly recommend it if you eat meat and go to great lengths to make sure you and your family have healthy eating habits you will be pleasantly surprised, and if you are not and you usually go and buy beef from a commercial dealer like IBP (aka-Walmart, Kroger stores most of your major chairs use the same commercial ranch to get their meat from) and are used to paying out the A** for it check it out too it is still Beef and it is much better for you and cheaper.
Oh and I wanted to mention my dearest freind Darra has recently started blogging, really recent and she is also in recovery, her link is on my sight he blog is called "Life as I know it" stop by and say hi, she is a real neat lady I am sure you will enjoy her as much as I do. I still don't know how to put a link into my blog but it is on the side of my blog, I will learn eventually.