The Muppets this past Thursday and I have to say, it was fantastic. Josh and I
were laughing out loud and I even got all teary-eyed at the end. The kids, not
so much. See, here's the thing. If you're in your thirties, then chances are,
you grew up with Kermit and Piggy and Fozzy and Beaker and feel close to them,
almost like old childhood friends. If you're not in your thirties, then you don't
really know the muppets as well as you should. But this movie assumes you have a
working knowledge of the muppets, so if you are just introducing yourself,
definitely start with The Muppet Movie, move on to The Great Muppet Caper and finish
the trilogy with The Muppets Take Manhattan. Then go see this movie.
My oldest kid loved it, he laughed and laughed and pretty much memorized
the movie from seeing it once. My five year old liked the musical parts but was
bored silly the rest of the time and spend that time working his way through a
soda, a bag of twizzlers, some m&ms, a huge thing of popcorn and then a
stomachache. My three year old saw the previews for the upcoming Alvin
and the Chipmunks movie, laughed her head off and thought the movie was over and
it was time to leave. She was not happy to hear that the real movie hadn't even
started yet. She spent her time crunching the popcorn on the floor with her
shoes and hogging the m&ms, much to the consternation of her five year old
brother who kept asking where the m&ms were.
So what were we grateful for this Thanksgiving? Mostly that the
theater was pretty empty so that it didn't matter if we made a lot of noise. One
goal to add to our New Year's Resolutions - teach the kids to whisper.
Anyway, if you have been following along, you will know that the whole
Cookie Tuesday thing seems to have fallen by the wayside. I've
been thinking about what happened and I think there were two reasons. One, it
was the summer and just so hot in my air-conditionerless kitchen, so the less
the oven was on, the better for everyone. And secondly, I have been trying to
cut back on the treats sitting around on my counter. My kids are chocolate chip
cookie lovers, so I make those for lunchbox snacks. But the other cookies were
mostly just sitting and talking to me. Instead of just walking away, I was
talking back to them, engaging them in conversation and then eating them so they
wouldn't feel bad, and that was not working out well for my dieting ambitions.
So instead of Cookie Tuesday, I am introducing Soup of the Week. I'd like to say
it would be Soupy Sunday or something like that but committing to a certain day
is way too much pressure right now. So Soup of the Week it is.
Soup. I used to eat this all the time and I am pretty sure I was skinny when I
used to eat this, so I'm going with this one. The original recipe can be found
on the Weight Watchers website. Here is my version. I played around with it and
added a few more zero point vegetables to make the soup thicker, but it's still
zero points.
Jen's Zero Point Soup
1 onion, sliced thinly
10 baby carrots, cut in thirds
1 container of fresh mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 bag of cole slaw
1/2 of a 20 oz bag of frozen green beans
3 tablespoons of tomato paste
1 teaspoon of pareve soup mix 6 cups water
2 zucchinis, washed and diced, but not peeled.
Spray a large pot with cooking spray and add the onions, carrots, mushrooms
and garlic. Saute for 5 minutes or until the onion starts to get soft and the
mushroom shrink in size. Add the cole slaw mix, the green beans, the soup mix,
the tomato paste and the water. Mix well and bring to a boil. Allow the soup to
simmer for 20 minutes, then add the zucchini and simmer for another 10 minutes
or until the carrots are cooked through.
The soup is yummy, fills me up, and best of all, no one else in my house
likes it, so it's all for me!