Oatmeal cups and leftover soup... Fun with a muffin tin!

I'm learning so much about food prep and freezer cooking lately and frankly it has me excited!  I'm learning how to prevent food waste by freezing leftovers and am having fun finding healthy recipes to make for the week that will keep me from eating packaged convenience snacks, thus saving my body from unnecessary chemicals and artificial ingredients. So today, I share my experience with both of these.

Last week I made a new snack called oatmeal cups. My main purpose was to have a healthy low sugar snack to grab when I'm in a hurry that will keep me full until my next meal.  I found this recipe for Personal Baked Oatmeal and tried it out. The result was pretty good and convenient! I used raisins and blueberries for my toppings (on separate ones, not together).  I made half the recipe and I got 11 muffins out of it.

The problem was when I gave one to my 2 year old as a snack since he loves granola bars. It was a problem because he now asks for oatmeal cups all the time! But its ok because I feel good about giving them to him. I prefer mine heated up in the microwave, but he prefers his cold.  I store them in the refrigerator and my first batch lasted about a week.  They didn't go bad after that, they were just gone!

Today I made a full batch and it made 24 cups.  I wrapped 18 of them in plastic wrap to put in the freezer and left 8 out to put in the fridge.  I can't imagine why they wouldn't freeze well, but I guess I will see soon enough!  I'm sure I will be digging into the freezer stash within a week the way my son eats these!  These not only make great snacks, but they are good for a quick breakfast on the go as well!  They definitely get a thumbs up from me (and my son)!

My 2nd adventure tonight was freezing some leftover Baked Potato Soup.  My hubby made some amazing soup in the crock pot yesterday (recipe here) and we had TONS of leftovers!!  The soup was delicious for lunch today as leftovers, but I know my hubby and I don't want to have to eat it every day for a week, so I decided to try a Pinterest trick I found, which was to freeze the leftovers in a muffin tin.  Once the soup is frozen, you pop the "soup muffins" out of the tin and into a large ziploc baggie (or tupperwear) and when you want leftover soup, just take 1 or 2 of them out of the freezer and heat it up!  

Now, this is the first time I've done this so we will see how it turns out.  And I don't know if we will need to thaw the soup before heating it for leftovers or not.  If you know, please share!  Otherwise I will find out and follow up :)

Here are my 'potato soup cupcakes' chilling in the freezer.  I hope they come out of the tin ok!  I'll find out tomorrow morning when I try to pop them out to put them in a large baggie! :)

That was it for my adventures tonight.  Looking forward to heading to the gym tomorrow to sport my new workout shoes! They are an anniversary present and I LOVE them!! Pics to follow.

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog!  This blog has been a long time coming, but I finally decided to bite the bullet and start it.  Let me start by telling a little about myself.  I am a former couch potato, fast food & junk food loving sugar-holic who has yoyo dieted her whole life.  I've always struggled with my weight and my desire to be healthy losing out to my love for sugar and junk food.  But 2 years ago, everything changed.  Ok, well actually really only one thing changed and that was my determination, and slowly but surely everything started changing after that.  

2 years ago after the birth of my son, I found myself tired, grumpy, lethargic, and weighing the same that I did at 9 months pregnant (my son was almost 6 months old at this time).  I had always wanted to be healthier, and tried on multiple occasions, but could never keep my resolve, but this time was different.  I wanted to be able to play with my son, keep up with him when he got older, and most importantly, be around for him for the long haul and I knew that the way I was treating my body wasn't going to guarantee me those things.  

That's why I called this blog Living Healthy with Purpose.  I don't just want to eat better and exercise to be thin (although I don't mind that part!) but I also want to be an active mom, and a great wife, friend, ministry leader, and do my best to excel in all the hats I wear at any given time.  I believe that God put me on this earth to follow Him and help others and if I don't take care of myself, I'm not going to be able to do that very well, and I will not be a very happy person. 

So slowly, but surely, I started making positive lifestyle changes over the past few years that has resulted in me (and my family) eating healthier and fresh foods, cutting out most processed foods and sugar and avoiding things like trans fats and high fructose corn syrup.  One thing I will say though, is that I am not, nor will I ever be perfect!  I still eat the occasional cookie, pizza, fast food, or Starbucks frappucino, but it's not often and I *typically get right back to eating right.  That said, I'm still on a journey (and will be for a long time) and I still struggle.  But I've made a lot of leaps and bounds and that is what I hope to encourage others with.

Since I've started my journey I've lost 50lbs and just a few months ago, I ran my first half marathon, which was HUGE for me!  And if I can do it, anyone can do it and now it is my passion to share that!  I will be posting info on here about my workouts, my struggles, my successes, and anything else relating to my journey and my hope is to help and encourage anyone who wants to read.  I also will post about what I eat and cook as I continue to learn to eat better.  I'm picky and have a picky family so when I find a recipe that is family approved, I was to share that with others who will benefit too!  Now, I'm no Martha Stewart so pretty much everything I make will be from someone else's recipe (Pinterest addict here) so I will make sure to give credit where credit is due and post links to the recipes I use!  

I hope this helps some people out there who are overwhelmed with all the healthy living advice or who don't think they can do it or have thought about giving up!  Whether I get 1 reader, or 100+, I just felt that I needed to write this so I'm doing just that.  Thanks for reading and feel free to introduce yourself and tell a little about your journey! :)