My “Souper” Weekend (WIAW)

Wowee do I have a lot of pictures to share with you today!

So let’s skip the fluff and get right to it.

It’s time for another WIAW hosted by the lovely Jenn of Peas and Crayons. Go check out her blog for even more wonderful WIAW posts from some pretty awesome bloggers.

This weekend, as you know, was an extra long one with Monday off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Extended weekends are the greatest. I got to spend a lot of time with my family, cooking, and a little bit of shopping thrown in. Grocery shopping that is…

Since starting GAPS in December, both of my parents have now joined me in whole foods living. My dad is currently a few stages ahead of me on the Intro Diet, while my mom started right onto full GAPS because she doesn’t have any digestive issues to begin with. Both are feeling great and are really embracing this new lifestyle. I am seriously so proud of their effort to eat clean. Their eating habits have changed dramatically since I wrote this WIAW post entitled Me Vs. Them.

Another positive to having parents on GAPS is that now we eat some of the same food. On Friday when I came home my dad had a bowl of chicken and vegetable soup simmering on the stove to share. That is the first time in over six months where I have been able to eat the same thing as my parents for supper. It’s quite a surreal feeling.

Also, on this whole foods journey I’ve introduced my dad to some awesome food. Like squash! At first he couldn’t stand it… Ya. I know. Who is this man?

Well, eventually he came around. He’s still not much into spending a lot of time cooking though, so I knew I had to figure out a quick, painless way to cook squash that he could do during the work week. Sure, he could have microwaved it, but we all know that microwaving isn’t the safest method of cooking. And slicing takes way too much effort…

So, with a little searching on pinterest, I came up with a method that is relatively pain-free:

How to Cook Squash in the Oven Painlessly

Ingredients:

• 1 whole squash, any kind
• 1 oven
• 1 pan

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Place whole squash in the pan and bake for 1-2 hours.
3. Check after 1 hour with a knife. When it goes clean through, it’s done.
4. Cut in half and then scoop out the seeds.

Note: For squash that you can cube, bake on the lower end of the cooking times. For squash that comes off the skin easily and is soft enough to puree, bake closer to the 2 hour cooking time.

Hmm… Super easy, right? I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner? No peeling or slicing, and the seeds are so much easier to remove after the squash is cooked.

After I let the squash cool, I store it in a Pyrex container in the fridge. As I’m scooping and cutting, I tend to snack on a lot of squash (maybe too much sometimes? Hehe). My favorite way is to just slice butternut squash into wedges and eat. They kind of remind me of chomping on orange slices as a kid.

Over the weekend I also made another batch of Cauliflower Rice Risotto with some of the butternut squash that I cooked.

I let the risotto cool in the fridge again, then I topped it with some crock pot chicken and sweet peas.

Other than food I also got to go to one of my brother’s basketball games. That was probably the highlight of my weekend; my brother is over six foot, so he is pretty good at stuffing players and blocking shots.

Last week I shared a picture of my dog Lilly, but my other pets got jealous. Now it’s their turn!

It was pretty cold over the weekend, so my dad let our larger, outside dog Riley in. We enclosed our kitchen with chairs so that he wouldn’t make a mess of the rest our house, but he was perfectly content with visiting with everyone and getting petted. He is such a sweetheart! I tried to get a good picture, but he just wouldn’t sit still.

Scout also wanted to get in on the action. She’s such a little diva. As soon as we emptied one of our paper bags from Whole Foods, Scout hopped right on in and started messing around. Cats just LOVE boxes and bags. She actually let me carry her around in it for a while.

And let’s not forget Apollo, my brother’s cat who he dubbed “Introvert.” He’s not exactly a people person…

Let’s see, what other pictures do I have to share with you all?

How about this awesome shot I took while I was doing a load of jeans on Saturday:

Or this picture I took of a sunset on the way to my brother’s game:

A successful experiment on my mom’s part.

She experimented in making some homemade dressing made from lemon (or orange?) juice, olive oil, and salt. One half she used plain, and the other she mixed with some homemade yogurt. For a snack she dipped a few organic romaine lettuce leaves into the two dressings. She was very impressed, especially with it being GAPS legal.

And a not so successful experiment on my part.

I’m always looking for new ways to incorporate protein powders into dessert for my brother to try. He can use all of the bulking up he can get with basketball! Last time it went over well, but I guess this time I made one too many substitutions when making these no-bake cookies. I personally think it would have tasted awesome, but he’s very very picky.

Of course, since it’s WIAW, I should probably include some of my regular meals lately. Just because I’ve been eating a lot of soup, doesn’t mean I don’t make up some delicious combinations!

At home for a snack I cooked up two sliced carrots and shredded chicken in a little broth until tender. I drank the broth on the side (it’s so sweet and delicious from the cooked carrots) and I topped the carrots and chicken with a little coconut oil and sea salt.

At school today I peeled and cooked yellow squash “noodles” in chicken broth. I topped the squash with a large strip of chicken, sea salt and rosemary. After I took this picture I also added a nice big drizzle of olive oil.

To round out this incessantly long WIAW, a little warmth for this sub-zero weather that we’ve been experiencing up around here:

Peppermint tea.

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Questions for you:

What is your favorite health food store? I’m all about Whole Foods and Earth Fare!

Have you ever tried cooking a squash whole? Do it. Now. You’ll never go back. Promise.

How do you capture good pictures of your pets?