What I Ate Wednesday #15

I feel like I haven’t done a “What I Ate Wednesday” post in awhile.  I’d really like to get back to writing about other things besides just the food that I eat — like the benefits of chia seeds and coconut oil, why we should avoid artificial dyes in our foods, and maybe even touch on the gardening I am roughly attempting to do this summer — but seeing as how I spent over 3 hours this morning writing essays on the nervous system for my Anatomy class, it is just difficult to find the time for putting together those types of posts.  So I am just not really sure of the direction of this blog.  As long as my readers are interested in recipes and food that I’m eating day to day, I may just have to stick with that for now.

Moving on.  For breakfast, I had some of the Strawberry Lemon Ginger chia pudding that I made a couple of weeks ago.  I love this because I can make a big batch of it in the blender in just a few minutes and then its ready in the fridge whenever I want it.  It’s flavorful enough that I can eat it plain if I don’t have time to top it, but it’s definitely better with the fresh strawberries!

I needed something to hold me over for my workout before I was going to have lunch.  Quick and easy apple slices, celery, and almond butter.

For lunch, I made egg salad with mashed up avocado instead of mayo (seasoned with salt, pepper, and a little dried dill) and served it in lettuce wraps with some carrots and cherries.

For dinner, we made use of all kinds of leftovers and made this Corn Chowder.  This is a great soup to make in the summer when sweet corn is in season.  We had some left over from dinner on Sunday night that worked perfectly since leftover corn isn’t usually very good reheated anyway.

Corn Chowder

adapted from Cooking Light

Ingredients

1-2 T. extra virgin olive oil or butter

1/4 cup chopped onion

1/4 cup chopped celery

1-2 cloves garlic, minced (or 1 tsp jarred garlic)

1 jalapeno, seeded and minced

2 T. flour (gluten free, whole wheat, etc)

3 cups milk (I used 2%)

2 cups roasted or grilled chicken, chopped

1 1/2 cups fresh corn kernals removed from the cob

1/4 tsp dried thyme

1 can cream-style corn (as an alternative, you can use 1 cup canned, fresh, or frozen corn and add a drizzle of honey and a sprinkle of salt and pulse it a few times in a mini food processor)

vegetable/chicken broth or additional milk or water to thin soup if necessary

kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

optional –  we happened to have some leftover baby potatoes from grilling out the other night so I chopped those up and added them in too

Directions

Add olive oil or butter to a large stock pot over medium heat.  Cook onion, celery, jalapeno until tender.  Add in garlic near the end so that it cooks but doesn’t burn.  Add flour, cook 1 more minute, stirring constantly.  Stir in milk and add in chicken, corn, thyme, cream-style corn, cubed pre-cooked potatoes if using.  Season with salt and pepper (just a bit, you can add more at the very end).  Bring soup to a boil and cook until thick (5-10 minutes).  Thin out with broth, milk or water if necessary (I ended up adding in about 1 cup of vegetable broth) and adjust seasonings to taste.