The drudgery of January has already begun here at the Broccoli Hut. It’s cold and gray outside, and there’s no holiday to celebrate for over a month. All I have to look forward to over the upcoming weeks is organic chemistry. Boo.

However, rather than wallow in my misery, today I decided to celebrate a few small victories. Observe:

Earlier this week, I contacted Ellie Krieger through her website to notify her of The Ellie Project. I didn’t really expect a response; I just thought she might like to know that her recipes are inspiring health nut-foodies like myself everywhere. I was delighted to receive a response a few days later.

Obviously, I did a little happy wiggle upon reading this e-mail.

Later today, I set about putting together my wine rack that my sister so kindly gave to me for my birthday. To be honest, I’m not exactly a “handy” gal. Truth be told, pretty much every item of furniture in my apartment was assembled by Seth. Heh.

However, Seth hasn’t been around much this week, so I set about assembling the rack myself. After a few expletives had been hurled at the power drill, I finally got it together.

I also lived up to my name as “Coupon Diva” today. Due to some serious couponing and shopping for sale items, I managed to save over $20 at the Teet today. Not gonna lie, I was pretty giddy about saving this much cash at the grocery store.

Tell me, what have been your small victories lately?

Onto zee grub.

Breakfast was a mish-mash of items I’ve been neglecting in my pantry/fridge. I ran out of oat bran, so I combined it with some whole grain Cream of Wheat, a little blueberry flax, vanilla protein powder, and a drizzle of maple syrup. It sure is ugly, but it tasted like heaven.

Upon returning from errands, I whipped up the standard B-Hut lunch.

For dinner, I prepared Ellie recipe #7, Beef and Mushroom Barley Soup.

As you might expect, I made several tweaks to this recipe to make it vegetarian:

-Instead of stew meat, I used Gardein Beefless Tips. The Gardein product already  has some seasoning in it, so I skipped the salt used in the recipe.

-I also used low-sodium vegetable broth instead of beef stock to keep the dish vegetarian.

-Other substitutions: strained tomatoes instead of canned diced tomatoes; red onion instead of yellow onion; quick-cooking barley instead of pearled barley.

The flavor of this stew was amazing—perfect balance of savory and freshness—but that may be in part due to my fondness for the seasoning on the Gardein tips.

Ellie’s exact recipe is not available online, but there is a similar recipe at FoodNetwork.com: Beef Mushroom Barley Soup

Alright, I am off to watch When Harry Met Sally—I’ve never seen it, oddly enough! Enjoy your weekend, everyone.

Filed under: Meals