Campbell's V8 Soups

I've been using MFP since the beginning of July 09 and I started out using a prescribed drug called Phentermine...I used phentermine for exactly 7 days and it did exactly what my doctor told me it would do, it took my appetite away but more than that I think it did something else..it really opened my eyes to the portions of food I was eating. I stopped taking the drug 7 days after starting it because I simply don't think that I needed it anymore. Since I started using this site I am much more aware of what and how much of it I am putting in my body on a daily basis, I read labels (I mean I really read labels) I measure or weigh each portions of food I eat..I've decided not to call what I am doing a diet but a change in my lifestyle. I am half Puerto Rican and half Cuban born and raised in Florida and I grew up eating my mothers home cooking everyday..our menu always consisted of some kind of meat (usually fatty and a lot of the time pork) beans cooked in a fatty sauce (delicious but fatty) with Potatoes and Yuca and a large mound of white or yellow rice or she would make empanadillas or some other deep fried delicacy also accompanied by a large mound of rice and beans. My mother loves to feed people and man she loved and still loves to feed me..I think my idea of what a normal portion should be was seriously off by about 3000 calories...lol but I am not hating on my mother, she did the best she could feeding 5 kids and a husband on a very fixed budget and honestly if you gotta go eating my mothers cooking would be a sinfully good way to go...lol
Anyway now when I go grocery shopping I am always on the hunt for ways to be full with great flavors but without the calories and fat and I found these Campbell's V8 Soups and they are amazing eaten alone or combine into a recipe... recently I bought the butternut squash flavor..I chopped and onion and sauteed it in some olive oil PAM I then added garlic powder and onion powder a 1/4 cup o f vegetable stock and 1 can of Bush's great northern beans I sauteed everything for about 5 minutes and then I added the butternut squash soup.. in a separate pan I added a little bit of PAM and a 1/4 cup of the vegetable stock and brought it a steep then I added 8 oz of Tyson 100% boneless skinless chicken tenders and put the lid on until they were cook through.
This recipe made 2 12 oz serving of the bean mixture and with the chicken each meal contained 16oz and guess what the calorie count was.... 450 calories!!! I don't know about you guys but 16oz is a lot of food and I ended up breaking it into 4 meals at 225 calories each.. and it so filling and delicious and you stay full for a long time... you guys should really try it.
BTW if you just eat the soup it's between 80 and 150 calories per 1 cup serving depending on the flavor you choose..

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