Cream of Potatoe and Bacon Soup

Who's ready for spring? I was ready last December 21st lol I wish we could have just skipped winter all together and go right to spring. Today is a stormy day and I am home from work and so is the hubby. I decided to make some comfort food for supper. Cream of Potatoe and Bacon soup! One of my favorites!!
The first time I ever had this soup was when I was working at Subway at the hospital. At first I thought it looked gross... Then I had a little bowl to try it.. it was amazing! 

Enjoy!
Paige 

Crock Pot Loaded Potato Soup

You will need:

4 lbs of potatoes peeled and cubed

½ cup chopped onion

2 cloves garlic chopped

2 stalks celery finely chopped

1 carrot chopped

2  14oz can chicken broth

2 teaspooon salt

½ teaspoon pepper

2 cups of milk

1 can of cream of chicken soup

½ pound bacon cut up and cooked

Directions:

Layer cubed potatoes in slow cookers

Top with onion, garlic, celery, and carrot

Add chicken broth, salt and pepper

Cover and cook for about 4-6 hours or until potatoes are tender

Then mash the potatoes with a masher (leave some chunks)

Stir in milk and cream of chicken soup and bacon

Cover and cook on high for 20 more mins or until everything is warm

Garnish with cheese, bacon or onions if you would like 

Girls Night... IN!

Tonight I am having a  few girl friends in tonight for a girls night. I am excited to have some friends over to girl talk and play some games and of course eat!! Us girls love to eat!!

Today I am making Cold Pizza (aka Veggie pizza), Buffalo Chicken Dip, and Cheesy Bacon Potatoe Bites


Cold Pizza (Veggie Pizza)

You will need:
Pre cooked pizza dough ( I use a multigrain one Or you can use pills bury pizza dough)
Philidephia whipped cream cheese chives
cut up mixed veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, etc)

Directions
spread the cream cheese on the pizza dough then put mixed veggies on top.
then cut in pieces and serve


Buffalo Chicken Dip

You will need:
 2 chicken breasts cooked and chopped up
1 package of cream cheese
1 small container of sour cream
1/2 cup franks red hot sauce
1 package of ranch dressing
1 cup of cheese

** I dont like hot sauce so I left it out for one of the dips**

Directions
mix cream cheese, sour cream, red hot sauce, ranch sauce, and chicken together. then add 1/4 cup of cheese. Then put in a 9x9 dish. and put the rest of the cheese on top the dip. Then place in oven for 350 for about 30 mins.

Cheesy Bacon Potatoe Bites

• 2 lbs. potatoes, I used 3 large potatoes
• 6 slices of bacon, cooked, drained & chopped (reserve 1 tablespoon of the bacon grease).
• 2 cups medium cheddar cheese, shredded
• 4 green onions, chopped
• salt & pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Brush cookie sheet very lightly with reserved bacon grease. OR you could spray it with cooking spray to save a few calories.
2. Wash & slice potatoes, somewhere between 1/4 and 1/8 inch thick. I like them best on the thick side.
3. Place potato slices in a large pot, cover with water & cook until water boils. Boil for about 5 minutes or less, depending on the thickness of your potatoes. You DON'T want them cooked through, and you definitely still want them firm or they will fall apart.
4. Carefully drain potatoes and arrange on prepared cookie sheet, shingle style, slightly overlapping. Lightly brush potatoes with reserved bacon grease. Or if you are anti-bacon grease, brush with vegetable oil or olive oil.
5. Sprinkle with shredded cheese, salt and pepper to taste and chopped bacon.
6. Bake for 15 minutes until potatoes are cooked through. I placed it under the broiler for 2 minutes after baking for a little extra crunch.
7. Top with chopped green onions.

Plexus and Keto

The Keto Diet is HUGE right now.... It's producing great results for those adhering to the program and changing lives, but did you know that Plexus is helpful even if on this diet!? Some of my friends have started it, and they love it! However, they are still taking their Plexus products, too!

Here's Why-

On a ketogenic diet, you are basically cutting out all carbohydrates and sugar. Once your body is in a state of ketosis, it is then relying on fat for energy. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, not exactly. If your body is used to high carb intake and you take those away, it's possible you might experience what is known as the keto flu 🤢. It subsides, but your body feels achy & you are fatigued and irritable.

So, here's how Plexus can help:

✅ Plexus Slim: has chromium which helps normalize blood glucose levels, reducing cravings and providing energy and less irritably as your body enters ketosis. The prebiotics, XOS, feed the butirate that we NATURALLY have in our system to help produce more fatty-chain amino acids. What does this mean for you? Your body goes into fat-burning mode more easily!! 🔥 💪🏼 AND has only 2 carbs, so it has negative net carb impact on your Keto day! 👊🏻

✅ Plexus Biocleanse: contains magnesium which will help replenish your electrolyte levels, preventing muscle cramps, headaches, and trouble sleeping. (Keto/OS actually suggests taking a magnesium supplement while using their product)

✅ Plexus ProBio5: balances your gut health. Starting a diet like this can stress your gut leading to either constipation or even upset stomach as you are introducing higher levels of fats to your body.

✅Vitalbiome: reduces bloating and gut distress, improves digestion and regularity, makes you feel calmer, and improves mood.

✅ X Factor Plus: it's sugar free which is important on a keto diet!!! It contains Aloe, which increases absorption up to 300%, allowing your body to really absorb the vitamins and minerals. It also has vitamins B and C to help beat tiredness.

Plexus is a TOOL to aid you with overall health, and to build a solid foundation, you need to use multiple tools! ☺️

I can help you get started on this amazing stuff!!
#plexus

Apple Crisp

I had a bunch of apples floating around and I was wondering what to make with them. Then I thought its been a while since I had apple crisp. And I knew both the boys and Jon love it. Today was a cold day but a nice one. I thought apple crisp for dessert for supper would be a great finish to our day!

The first time I made this recipe I thought it was a little crazy that there was apple juice in the recipe. I noticed that the apple juice helps makes it more syrupy. You can add it or take it out the choice is yours. 

You will need:

For Filling:

6 medium baking apples, such as Granny Smith (2 1/2 to 3 pounds)

1/2 cup apple juice 

1/4 cup sugar 

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 cup flour

For Topping:

3/4 cup Flour

3/4 cup quick oats

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup  butter, melted (1 stick)

Directions

Preheat oven at 350 degrees

peel and cut up apples. Then put in bowl and mix sugar, cinnamon, and flour together and place in baking dish. Then pour in apple juice. 

then in another bowl combine flour, oats, brown sugar and butter then mix together until its like a crumble. Then spread on top of apples. 

Bake for hour. until apples are tender

Take out and let it cool a bit serve with vanilla ice cream or cool whip

Baked Porkchops, Cauliflower Rice, and Roasted Carrots

I am a crazy busy person. Not saying no one else is.. we all kind of have our busy.. or in my life.. crazy!! So I have a few blogs and a few other social media things that I am combing all together. You will see the changes over the next little while as I move everything to my own little corner of the internet! Please stay around there are some good things coming :) 

I have been trying really hard to make more healthier options for us to eat. Some are a go and some are a total flop but thats ok I tried!  Today we have baked pork chops, cauliflower fried rice and roasted carrots. It was really good! Lucky you, your getting 3 recipes in once blog!

Baked Porkchops

4 pork chops

Salt and paper

2 tablespoons olive oil

Directions:

Preheat oven at 400

take porkchops and sprinkle salt and pepper

cover baking sheet with tin foil then put olive oil on tin foil

then place the pork chops with salt and paper faceing down and the sprinkle more salt and pepper

then place in oven for a bout 20-30mins until nice and crispy

Cauliflower Fried Rice

You will need:

3 cups of cauliflower grated

1 tsp garlic 

2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 cup frozen peas

2 eggs scrambled

3 tbsp soy sauce

** you can add onions and mushrooms if you want I did**

Directions 

cook in a skillet on medium heat. Put in oil then add cauliflower and cook for about 5-7 mins. Then add garlic and peas and mix together. then create a well in the middle of the cauliflower place scramble eggs and let cook for a min or 2. Then mix all together. then add soya sauce. Let cook for another 5-10 mins until cauliflower is tender. 

Roasted Carrots

2 large carrots

2 tbsp olive oil

salt and pepper

Directions

Preheat oven at 400

I took the carrots and thinly sliced them and then mixed with olive oil and salt and pepper. Place on a cookie sheet with tin foil and bake for 15-20 mins

Do you take a Probiotic?

I have always loved learning about Plexus products. But lately I have been really into researching about our products especially the Plexus Probio 5. Many people do not know what a probiotic is  and why we need to take it. I never knew either! I just knew that it was good for me and that I should take one. 

When I talk to people about a probiotic they say oh yeah I take one its in my yogurt. I don't want to bash those companies but please make sure its a healthy yogurt. Not full of sugar or splenda! If it is its not good for you. 

I should warn you I am not a doctor. I am just someone who is very interested in my gut health and I could be wrong on some of these issues but I did do a lot of research.. also I am going to talk about Plexus Probio5... Plexus does not claim to cure or treat any of these symptoms and neither do I  :) 

You are born with natural probiotics in your body. But the big problem is when you do a round of antibiotics because it completely wipes out the good and the bad probiotics in your stomach. It leaves your gut defenseless. You gut is responsible for 85% of your immune system. if you have nothing left to defend your gut. you are going to have lots of issues. 

You are also born with yeast in your gut called candida. The only purpose of candida is to help decompose your body when you die. Candida feeds off alcohol, sugar, process foods, take out, deep fried foods, pasta, breads.. the list goes on. It also leads to a overgrowth of yeast and that can turn into a leaky gut. It grows on layers of your stomach and eat little holes in  the lining of your stomach. You gut should not have little holes. It should be locked down like a vault! So while you have these little holes foods get out into your body. NOTHING should leak out of your gut.. it should leave the way mother nature intended for it leave.. you know what I am sayin?

So if you gut is leaking food particles and such in your body and it will get into your blood stream thats probably not a good thing! when foreign particles are in your body your brain kind of freaks out and sends signals that something shouldn't be there and so then it attacks it. This is why a lot of people have food allergies and food sensitivities. For example Gluten sensitivity.. their body is leaking gluten so your body attacks it and it shouldn't be leaking.

Many people have issues that begin in their gut and may just need a good probiotic to help those issues. Like digestive issues, IBS, help preventing allergies, upset stomach, yeast infections, white tongue, UTI, joint pain, not regular (if you know what I mean) 

So you want to start a probiotic? and you probably have no idea where to even start. You go to a health food store or a drug store or even your local department store. By the way you should not be buying a probiotic at the same place you are buying your toilet paper.. just sounds wrong! 

So you are at a health food store... you go ask them for Probiotic and they take you to the refrigerator section and show you a probiotic with 30CFU or 50billion CFU. You are probably wondering what in the world is a CFU? its stands for Collonial Fungal Units.  Its the amount of good bacteria in the bottle. But one question.. WHY do you need so many???

What this CFU does is that they put all these good bacteria in your stomach and it helps crowd out the bad bacteria. Which is not a bad thing cause well you want it out. BUT it does not address the issue of the yeast overgrowth in your stomach. Its just flushing out the problem. 

Well first... they are refrigerated... Our bodies are NOT a fridge.  So if its has to in the fridge whats it doing to it when it its our mouths?  the temp of our body is WAY warmer than a fridge. Most bacteria begin to activate when they hit the heat and moisture in our mouths. By the time it hits your gut you only get about 20% to 30% bacteria has survived because it takes about 30mins to 90mins to get your gut. Some people pay up to $150 for a good probiotic. you don't need to pay that kind of money for a good probitoic. 

Plexus Probio5 doesn't have to be in fridge its freeze dried.  And its full of good ingredients!

Because our ingredients are freeze dried it they stay dormant until it hits your gut! It doesn't work until it gets a taste of the PH in your gut. 

Bacillus Coagulans is one of the 5 strains of bacteria. This is a bacteria strain that helps with digestive issues. It also helps with your immune system, abdominal pain, respiratory infections, allergies, and it attacks cancer fighting agents (isn't that cool?)

Saccharomyces boulardi is yeast... why would we put yeast in your stomach if we are trying to fight it? well good yeast fights bad yeast... This stuff helps with SKIN ISSUES!!  I have heard from people that it has helps with acne, flaky skin, enzyme, hives. So many issues. I have noticed that my acne is not as bad since starting this product. 

lactobacillus acidophilus is found in yogurt. However you need eat 21 small tubs of yogurt to match whats in one capsule of probio5. This helps with vaginal health and if you are lactose intolerant. 

bifidobacterium longum most good probiotics have this. it helps prevent infections and diseases, helps reduce cholesterol. Helps prevent cancer, reduces inflammation in your bowls and I love this one... bloating!! 

lactobacillus plantarum this stuff is found in sour kraut. Well kind of like the yogurt.. you need to eat 20-30 servings a day to get whats in one capsule of our probio.  This helps with the intestinal lining which in turns helps with your leaky gut!! This is also recommended for pregnant women. and if you are on an antibiotic this helps fight the antibiotic. 

Plexus probio 5 also has vitamin C which helps build you immune system and lowers your hypertension. It has b6 which is know to help with emotional disorders and hormone control and metabolism. 

Something else we have is Chitonese that no other probitoic has. You see there is a fungal in your gut that has an outer skin that like a beetle. in order to kill a beetle you need to smash it until the shell is crushed.  Chitin breaks the shell and kills the bacteria inside. its really good and really powerful. 

I encourage you to research the ingredients in your probiotic and learn about them. Every company is different and offer different ingredients that might help you. If you have any of the issues that have listed above I really encourage you to try a probiotic even if its just for a  month or 2.  If you are interested in our probiotic please send me a message on facebook I would love to help you out :)  Plexus has an amazing probiotic and we have a 60 day money back guarantee. Give it a try you have nothing to lose. 

What if this could change everything?

In March 2015 my husband, who was a truck driver out west, was layed off and sent home. We didn't know when or if he would be going back to Alberta. We struggled. We struggled really bad. My income just could not cover our expenses. Thankfully from help from our parents and LOTS of prayers we go through. My husband was able to find an amazing job here in NB and we said good bye to Alberta life.

We struggled for a while living paycheck to paycheck. Counting our pennies and being careful where we spent our money. I then became sick. I had mono and my tonsils were swelling and not going back to normal. Over months of not being able to do anything because I couldn't breathe or I would fall asleep doing stuff I just gave up. I became accustom to napping, not doing anything, sitting on the couch, eating whatever I wanted. I got in a rut. I was at my biggest I had ever been. But I was getting comfortable.

In October 2015 my friend Cheryl talked to me about Plexus. She was telling me how awesome this product was and how it helped her. I was happy for her that she found something that helped her with her fibromyalgia. But Plexus wasn't for me.

In November of 2015 I went to see a doctor he told me something that I didn't want to hear but it was the truth... He told me "You are fat and need to lose weight". That stuck with me. As much as I hated him for telling me that I knew it was the truth and I knew that something had to be done. So I started reading Cheryl's post about "this plexus stuff" just a little bit more.

The new year was creeping up and I was thinking of a new years resolution. I knew that I had to make some MAJOR changes in my life. I mean MAJOR! Once I was fully recovered from my surgery things were going to change. I was going to the gym and nothing was happening. I was watching what I was eating and going to the gym. I needed help.

In March of 2016, my husband and I were talking about our income tax and what were were going to do with our return that year. I told him that I wanted to give plexus a try. He said he did too! So I called up Cheryl and we talked about Plexus. She told us that the triplex was the way to go  and that if we were serious about Plexus that we should sign up as ambassadors that way we get our products at wholesale pricing and if we wanted we could try and sell it and make some money to help pay for our plexus.

At first I wasn't going to. I really didn't want to. I didn't have the time. I was working full time. Plus my photography business kept me busy. Plus my step sons were keeping me busy too. I didn't have the time!! But then I started reading about our compensation plan and about the rewards you could get. As I was learning about all this I thought wow! This is crazy!!

On April 1st 2016 I wrote my first post about Plexus. I hadn't even had my products yet. I just became passionate about these products. I kept ready testimonials from people on how this little pink drink is changing peoples lives. I received my products on April 14th and started them right away on the 15th. Within a few days I noticed I was sleeping better, I had more energy (Like I was cleaning my house at midnight), I had even lost a few pounds, and this was a big one I didn't want sugar!!

My mom had made this delicious cake and it looked so good. I took a big piece and ate 2 bites and was like I don't want this. My mom was in shock. I also noticed that when I was driving home I would stop and get a chocolate bar to give me energy to go home, I wasnt stopping anywhere. I was just driving. I noticed that I use to have tons of pains in my stomach when I had to go to the bathroom they were slowly disappearing.  This was just in the first week!!

By my 3rd week of Plexus I had ranked Silver in the company. I had made enough money to pay for not only my plexus for the month by my husbands. I had also received a $100 bonus for ranking. By the end of the month I had made enough money to by plexus for my husband and I for 3 months.

Its been 21 months since I began my plexus journey. Every month my products are paid for. The only money I have had to pay out to plexus is extra products I want or things like that. Each month my products are paid for. Because of my plexus income we have been able to do so much more with our family. In 2016 we took 2 vacations to PEI (you all know thats not cheap) plexus paid for that. I remember watching the kids play on the beach and I became so overwhelmed with emotion because I wasnt there stressing about money or how we were going to pay for things. Plexus paid for both vacations. Plexus paid for our annual Canada Day party we have at our house. The first year it paid for all and this last year not paid for all but quite a bit of it.  Plexus has helped us with bills and when things break. I talked to a friend one day about Plexus she asked me if I was making money selling plexus? I said yes I told her about our trip to PEI. She was like wow! Thats financial freedom!

Over the almost 2 years of my plexus journey I have lost 20lbs and kept the weight off, I have lost 5 inches and kept that off. I don't crave sugar (sometimes but its more of a treat), I crave water, I have more energy, I sleep better, I haven't been as sick as often, my skin tags are disappearing, I don't have dandruff as bad, dry skin patches I use to have no longer have them, IBS issues are nil, I use to be lacrose intollerant, I go regularly, my skin is clearer. Then lost goes on and on and on.

I have learned that plexus isn't all about weight loss. its about gut health. I now watch what I eat and I work out. I think about what I eat. We still eat take out food from time to time. We are still human. But I will never go back to the way I was.

If you have taken the time to read this whole story and you feel like you should be on this journey with me. I have a special promo code just for you. I want you to be apart of this journey with me. I have a promo code so you don't have to pay to become a ambassador, plus you get 10% off your welcome pack plus many more perks.

The first photo was October 2015. The Second photo was December 2016 and the last photo was December 2017. I have stayed consistent on my products. I take them every day. Look was 2 years has done.