Sunday, December 15, 2013

Soup Party - affordable and cozy!

We had a slightly impromptu soup party yesterday. I wanted to start repaying back all my friends who have been having me over for dinner while Chris is traveling!

The snow was falling softly into fluffy piles outside, not too much to drive in. And we ended up with 15 people coming over, not counting ourselves!

First, I was amazed at how little money it took to throw a really great party!! We spent about 70 bucks on soup ingredients, bread (not paleo at all, but I wanted to please the 15 people who DON'T eat paleo!!), and appetizer-type items (carrots, snap peas, hummus, etc). It fed everyone all night and we even have some soup leftovers :D I love entertaining!

Chris made a broth-based sausage and kale soup. I made a creamy-based (coconut milk was the cream) sweet potato and veggie soup with Indian spices! My soup was 100% paleo and Chris' soup was almost paleo except there were white beans in the recipe. 

I will admit that I ate some of the garlic bread I made for everyone - it looked and smelled soooo amazing. But I didn't drink at all! One step at a time, sometimes, ha. 

I got the house all comfy:



Everyone came over around 6:30 and the last people left close to 1 AM! The soups were a big hit, there was a decent amount of warming spice in them and people were loving coming in from the cold, snowy night and getting a bowl of hot soup :D

The house was filled with amazing smells all night, candles were flickering, snow was gathering out on the windowsills, people were laughing and talking and smiling so big!!

It just... this feels like the holidays to me.

I'm all filled up inside with happiness. I don't even really mind that my weight is up a little from the weekend celebrations (I also caved in and had one beer at the holiday party on Friday - though we stayed four 6 hours and I only had that one and drank my seltzer the rest of the time, so already way ahead compared to last year!). I'm bloated and a little hive-y from the gluten I consumed.

Going super clean today and the rest of the week!!!

Big smiles, big love,

Namaste <3

5 comments:

  1. Jeanette - It's great to have friends round and I love it when you say "people were laughing and talking and smiling so big!"

    One of our favourite gatherings which were/are relatively inexpensive (we asked friends to bring a bottle with them) was what we called "a bangers and mash evening". Simply serve some great tasting sausages with a large bowl of mashed potato .... back in the pre low carb high fat days it was mashed potato but nowadays it's mashed swede (not turnip) with lashings of butter. Great food and great company .... magic.

    Enjoy the Christmas Season

    All the best Jan

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  2. Hives? Not good, sweetie. That is a pretty serious reaction. :(. Glad you had a great time, though!

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  3. A soup party sounds SO nice with the winter scene. Lovely!

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  4. A soup party! Love that idea!!!! I might do that this winter. Maybe you could share your recipes? :)

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  5. I am a soup LOVER, a friend just gave me a book called... Soup Night byMaggie Stuckey. Besides great recipes and photos of soup it tells the real story of creating community around a pot of soup. Stories from real people and ideas on starting your own soup night.

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