Cold Day Warm Soup & Food Pyramid

Brrrrr, it's cold out! For lunch today I put together a big pot of soup for the family. This hearty soup is full of chicken, veggies, and pasta. It's really simple to make, even kids could tackle this one with a little supervision. And with less than 150 calories for a generous bowl of soup, it fits easily in a healthy diet.

To about 6 cups of boiling chicken broth I added the following:

• 1 cup of frozen lima beans
• 1 cup of frozen green beans
• 1 cup whole wheat pasta 
• 1T italian seasoning
• salt and pepper to taste
• dash onion power
• dash of garlic powder

Then I let it cook a few minutes until the pasta was cooked through and the veggies were cooked. Then I added:

• 2 chicken breasts, cooked and chopped
• can of tomato puree
• small can of sliced carrots (if you have frozen or raw carrots just put them in sooner)

It took about a half an hour to make this soup and the best part is you can use whatever veggies you have on hand. To round out this meal you could add cheese and crackers, a grilled cheese sandwich, or toast, along with a glass of milk.

Kid Rating: 5 Thumbs Up!

I'd also like to share a resource I found this morning to help in teaching my kids about healthy eating. The USDA website offers several printables that you can share with kids. Today we talked about the food pyramid (click here) and I gave them their own MyPyramid worksheet to complete throughout the day so they can see how they are fulfilling their daily dietary needs. I believe you can also have these items mailed to you, but I haven't tried that.