I have had these mixed berries in the freezer for a time when I would not be able to purchase fresh fruit as I travel and as my recent travels have not been in the outback, that had not happened and it was time to recycle the contents of the freezer.

So I am using up the mushroom soup that had been pushed to the back of the freezer as a gravy to be served with meat and I am making the most delicious mixed berry smoothies with the frozen fruit.

I didn't bother with a recipe i just used powdered skim milk in filtered water and added a good dollop of low fat unsweetened Greek style yoghurt, thew in a few thawed berries and whisked with my small battery operated hand whisk then added the frozen berries like ice cubes and served with a long spoon so I could stir these around occasionally and eat any remaining ones at the bottom of the glass with the spoon. 

Tell you what - it was GOOD. A great light start to the day and I will enjoy my usual breakfast of oat based muesli and yogurt with fruit for supper if I work late and I do usually want a mean around 10 pm which is 4 hours after we have eaten dinner.  Tomorrow I might try having a smoothie for my late night supper. It was YUM!

_Never Buy Soup, it is so much cheaper, time saving and tastier, home made.

Soup is so easy and inexpensive to make and making soup is a huge time saver as I make it in quantity and freeze at least 20 additional meals when I make it.

Tonight we are having Asian vegetables and red curry soup served with a dollop of plain yogurt in the center and a wholegrain bread roll .

I’ve always hated trying to shop for soup. I need to pull a magnifying glass out to read the ingredients and there are always nasty ingredients in there, I am not a vegetarian but for those who are even the most vegan-sounding soup is made with chicken stock or a little beef fat. Campbell’s makes a vegetable soup that isn’t vegetarian. That isn't right.

There is always too much salt, fat, and additives in commercially tinned soup and then in case you haven’t heard, soup comes in cans lined with BPA. Nasty.

When I buy my fresh vegetables I use up all of my previous weeks vegetable left overs by dicing them into the soup stock pot. Then I add 4 large onions, soup bones and a dash of vinegar draw out the calcium and minerals in those bones and maker the soup mineral rich. I cover the bones with cold water to increase the drawing out the minerals action while I prepare the remainder of the ingredients.

I chop up all the leafy part of the celery and add the washed outer leaves of the lettuce, the part we do not always eat in the salad. Then I pre prepare my broccoli and cauliflower and de-stem my mushrooms and all that stem part of the vegetables, if it isn't too woody, makes it into the soup pot. So far I am using up  a lot of food that is thrown out in other people's homes. 

Now a trip to the vegetable herb garden for any over produce and a huge bunch of seasoning herbs, parsley, bay leaves, etc. The funny thing is, when you make soup at home, you don’t have to add any junk and it’s always bursting with the flavor of whatever vegetables you put in it. That’s the magic of eating whole foods.

Campbell’s and their corporate buddies have somehow managed to convince us that making soup is a task better left to the experts. In reality, it’s the easiest, quickest meal you can conjure. You don’t even need any special ingredients.

I just open my fridge to look for inspiration but you could also Google whatever you see in there followed by “soup recipe.” I guarantee you’ll find lots of them. So get to it. Here are a few examples (based on what we have sitting around right now) to get you started.

Soup making can be seasonal, when pumpkin is cheap try Pumpkin soup. Great variations are curried pumpkin and cabbage soup - blend with a blender if you like creamy soup and add yogurt when serving. 

Chicken, onion, leek and wholegrain rice is a favorite soup in my home since childhood. It is more flavorsome if you can make it with an old boiler hen rather than a young roasting chicken.

• Vegan Sweet Potato and Pear Soup
• Orange and Lentil Soup
• Curried Apple and Leek Soup

Today I begin a new fitness challenge to balance fitness and my creative professions.  I have set 12 month goals.

My Novel Dreaming Billabong is back from the proof readers and is ready for submission to a literary agent or publisher and it is time to make the new twelve month goals which will see either the sequel written or a stand alone novel.

Now I am about to launch an ART SALE and I could do with toshiba coupons  because my two laptop computer are worn out and I sure could do wi

Kathy Shell Artist/Author 12 Months and beyond, action plan.

FEB:, I list art for sale free shipping in Australia and internationally at cost.
Also Pitching my novel to publishers and agents - ongoing until success.

MARCH: I continue to sell any remaining unsold items but no new listings.

APRIL:Easter: Wind up - Sales CLOSED - Planning new Novel & Travels

MAY till January 2013 Write new Novel

FEB 2013 - Possible Second chance offer art sale -IF, I do another.

I had a great morning in the painting studio with the rep from Pack and Send who will be getting costings to me fairly soon of the shipping of my large Moorcroft Vase, Art Easel Kits, Metal detector, Framed ad unframed original Oils and watercolour paintings, Wholesale quantities of scrapbooking papers and prints.

I will be focusing the next fortnight equally dividing my time between pitching my novel and getting these 'out there' where people can see them on line.

_Back from the gym, 200 meter swim yesterday and hydro exercises.

I upped it to 300 meters today and hydro plus pushups.

Aiming to get back up to being able to swim 2kilometers - what I got up to when I had to stop swimming back late July 2010.

Enjoying it so far, feeling the workout but not doing too much. :-)

I have set myself  200 meters to 2 kilometers swimming goal and will strive for an additional 100 meters each time I feel i can push a bit further. Aim is the 2 kilometers in under 6 months.

Thumbs up the comeback has begun.
I have become tired of my back injury (fall last winter slipped a disc and spinal fracture) preventing my attempts to get fit again and can see myself sliding further back so I joined the Gym today - Wet area only - and did a few laps then hydrotherapy exercises, came home and while my body was still warmed up I washed the car a job I have wanted to do since last September.

The Aquamoves Gym I joined is fantastic. There are six different types of pools, something to suit everyone and there is always a pool safety net around the children's pool when there isn't a lifeguard present and parents must supervise the children.

Although the intervertebral disc is a remarkably versatile and strong structure, essentially acting as a shock absorber during everyday activities, sometimes the disc fails when there is a sudden, unexpected force (such as a fall, lifting or other trauma), or due to ordinary wear and tear over time. And when the disc does get injured it cannot repair itself very well, which is one of the major reasons recurrent back pain is so common.  It was though a fall that I put my intervertbrayal disk out and it is osteoporosis that is giving me compression fractures f the spine.

I know that not exercising is the worst think I can do.


‎"If you wait to do everything until you're sure it's right, you'll probably never do much of anything" Win Borden

_

I have always wondered at how people look at an erosion scared mountain or an ancient wounded warrior tree and exclaim at the beauty and look at the baby sapling and express the longing to see it when it is magnificent with age. Yet they allow a multi-billion dollar cosmetic and fashion industry to sell them the crazy idea that their eyes should be huge and their mouth pouting like an infants and hips should be waif like. Beauty is there to be seen now as you are.

Beauty In Imperfection's _

I got indigestion the other night and I wished I had some ginger handy.   I am a great believer in letting food be my medicine and I believe that most health problems are due to poor choices made in the food we eat and poor choice of exercise as in under or and over exercising.
Ginger is one amazing product. 

10 Health Benfits of Ginger Ayurveda gives ginger the status of a virtual medicine chest. That's because this wonder spice has time-tested digestion-friendly properties, in addition to its numerous other health benefits.