I'm trying to figure out the nutrition information for homemade soup that my mom makes every time she roasts a whole chicken or turkey, which I had for dinner tonight with some veggies and a sandwich.
She takes the drippings from the roasting pan, water, and some bullion. Then she adds meat (chicken or turkey, depending), and various veggies that we have around. The batch I had for dinner had mushrooms, corn, and diced carrots, beans, and peas. She then adds some egg noodles (not a whole lot, there was probably less than 1/8 cup in the bowl I had tonight).
I had a 1 cup serving... FitDay does have a listing for homemade chicken or turkey soup, but it doesn't include noodles, or meat drippings in the ingredients, both of which I suspect would up the calorie content.
I hate estimating calories because I am so worried that I'll underestimate, and it will throw off my day. I know I shouldn't worry about it that much, but I am very careful about measuring and recording EVERYTHING I put in my mouth.
I use this site when I am making a homemade soup or casserole...There is an option that allows you to add all the ingredients and it calculates the calories for you.
It is days like this I "forget" that I am on a diet. I like to write everything down as well, but in reality that is not always possible. Yesterday I had Sizzler for lunch. Consisted of a very healthy veggie loaded salad, with a couple hard-boiled eggs (sure I could have scraped out the yolks, but I didn't). Lite ranch dressing (so it said on the ladle) Had a bowl of cream of broccoli soup. Some fake chicken nuggets (shaped as dinosaur). And a blob of chocolate mousse. Drank 1.5 glasses of Diet Coke.
Sure, the mousse thing threw off everything else, but you only live once, right?
Speaking of living once, afterwards I attended my sisters funeral. After that we gathered for the get together. I had a brother trying to encourage others to eat. I explained that I am trying to learn not to run to food for comfort. I had another salad, 2 cookies, a can of REAL Coke (oh my, tasted as good as I remembered).
Sorry for jumping off-topic. I am just saying don't beat yourself up if you don't know the calories, carbs, fiber, sodium, fat, etc. Just eat a healthy portion and jot down what you ate. In a year from now are you going to care that you may have had 1700 calories instead of 1500? Just don't use this as an excuse to totally get off the diet. Only in a perfect world will you know the nutritional info of everything. In the real world it's not always obtainable. There will be times when you go out to eat, whether at a restaurant or a friends house that you will not be privy to this info.
I think any of the maintainers will agree with me on this
I make homemade soup when ever I roast a chicken -- but I've never done it by using the pan drippings. That's almost like just diluting some chicken fat and adding vegetables, isn't it? Your best bet is to refrigerate her soup before you eat it so the fat rises to the top, skim it off, and reheat it. It may taste good the way she makes it but I'm pretty sckeptical of its nutritional value.
You can make a good chicken soup if you boil the bones/carcass of the bird after you roast it and pick the meat off. This'll make a broth instead of using the pan drippings. You still might want to refrigerate the broth and skim off any fat but I guarantee there's way less fat in it doing it that way.
suitejudyblueeyes-- thanks for your suggestions. However, I would rather eat a moderate portion of this, fat included, along with a balanced meal. I don't believe that a moderate amount of fat is evil... you may or may not agree, but that's how I feel.
Anyways, she adds maybe 1 cup of drippings to a HUGE kettle of soup, she doesn't use all of the drippings in the pan, and she also uses bullion for taste. This is one of my mom's favorite things to make and I am not going to tell her how to make it!
Nah, I don't think all fat is evil. For sure we need it in our diets! Since I didn't know the specifics of how your mother makes the soup it wasn't clear how diluted it was/how much was being used, and my only concern would be if you were effectively eating a cup of drippings yourself Sounds like that's not the case though.
Perhaps this is more helpful:
CalorieKing puts 1 tbsp of drippings at 126 cals, 14g of fat. If your mother dilutes 1 cup of drippings in approx. 16 c of water (one gallon), you are consuming about a tablespoon of the drippings. You can add up the cals in egg noodles (1/4c is 55 cals and 0.8g fat) and veggies (not very much) and arrive at around 200 cals for what would amount to 1.5 to 2 cups of soup (1c broth + volume of non-broth items).
Calories in homemade soup
