After today’s post you guys have been calling me out on all of the treats I’ve been posting lately, and you are right, I’m making myself look a little bit hypocritical aren’t I? I obviously didn’t lose weight by eating treats all the time, and I wouldn’t be able to keep it off if I was always eating them either.

So I’ll tell you three secrets:

1. I don’t have willpower of iron (it’s pretty strong, but it’s not amazing) so I don’t cook/bake like that every night.

2. I enjoy both making and taking photos of the treats more than I like eating them.

3. When I do make treats I try to give them away. The chocolate cake? I only ate 2 slices and TH and a family we visited finished off the rest. The whoppie pies? I sent those on a business trip with That Husband. The oreo fudge bars and red velvet cheesecake bars? I gave those away to the women I visit in my ward.

You will learn in finer detail what my eating habits are really like in future posts, but I thought I would show you a staple recipe I’ve been using a lot lately, in an attempt to make up for all the naughty treats I’ve been tempting you with.

I admit that I developed this using a recipe I found off of allrecipes.com, but I feel I’ve made enough changes to call it my own. Plus it’s made in my signature style, different every single time I make it, depending on how I feel that day. If you cannot cook creatively, you will not like this recipe.

Just so you know, That Husband likes this soup so much that he has declared it must be available in the fridge or freezer at all times.

That Wife’s Bean Soup

Ingredients

(All ingredients are optional and interchangeable. Go ahead, mix it up a little bit!)

Lots of cans of beans (In this batch I used chickpeas, black, kidney, pinto, and ranch style)
1 Can of crushed tomatoes
1 Onion, diced
1 Packet of ranch salad dressing mix (the dry stuff)
1 Packet of onion soup and dip mix

Directions

1. Find a really big pot.
2. Pour some water in the pot. I probably use like 6 cups or something.
3. Pour all of the beans in the pot, with their liquid, except the black beans (you should drain and rinse those).
4. Add everything else to the pot.
5. Boil for hours. I’m not joking, for hours. Once I boiled it for 4 hours. Just boil it down so that it is nice and thick and a little bit salty. Stir often enough that it doesn’t burn to the bottom of the pot because then it tastes bad.

Nutrition Stats

(As weighed, measured, and calculated by me)
Serving Size: 1/2 lb, or 8 oz

Calories: 209
Fat: 2g
Sat Fat: 1g
Cholesterol: 0g
Sodium: 513 g (This number may be off because I’m not sure that it includes the salt used in the preservation of the beans)
Potassium: 501 mg
Carbohydrate: 38g
Dietary Fiber: 11g
Protein: 11g

We love it because it’s cheap (that’s why there is no meat in it) but full of fiber and protein. One bowl will fill you up for the entire night. Plus it freezes well, so I can make double batches and then pull them out a ziploc bag at a time and reheat them.

Yum. Just looking at the picture makes me want to warm up a bowl right now.