Ultimate Vegetable Soup

With both Gary and I both having been struck down somewhat in the prime of life recently (90's F.R.I.E.N.D.S reference there) this weekend was all about the sofa, the duvet, and great big bowlfuls of this soup, whilst we tried to nurse ourselves back to health. This is the way my Mum used to make soup, packed full of veggies, thick enough to stand your spoon up in, and seasoned to perfection. It is my ultimate vegetable soup, easy to make, and with nothing but goodness in every spoonful. The recipe is loose, feel free to substitute some of the vegetables to suit, or use vegetable stock instead of chicken. To paraphrase Captain Barbossa in the Pirates of the Caribbean films...

Ingredients 

(makes enough for approx 6 portions)

2 litres Chicken Stock

2 small onions

3 cloves garlic

5 sprigs fresh rosemary

4 medium potatoes

1/2 butternut squash

1/2 medium swede

3 carrots

1 small broccoli head

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Peel and roughly chop all the vegetables...

Place in a large pan with the chicken stock, and simmer for around 1 hour, until all the vegetables are soft...

Using a handheld blender, whizz the vegetables until smooth (make sure there are no chunks of veg hiding at the bottom...

Season with plenty of salt and pepper to taste - don't be stingy with the seasoning. Then serve in big bowls, with plenty of bread and butter for dunking. Perfect!

As a healthy, inexpensive, and definitely tasty meal, I am linking this into this month's Feel Good Food...

Jumping on the Healthy Eating Bandwagon

Ok... I'm going to start this post by confessing that a) I haven't actually made any New Year's resolutions this year through a crippling fear of the disappointment that will follow when I inevitably break them, and b) I have a terrible tendency to yo-yo diet. These things do not make me the best person to come to for any kind of healthy eating / diet tips, however I do have a few recipes for those of you with a little more motivation than me! 

When I have successfully lost weight in the past, it hasn't been through any celebrity fad, crash diet, or intensive exercise regime. I generally follow a few golden rules, and with a little determination they give me the results that I want...

1. Try to cut out alcohol, but don't ban yourself. If you are having a drink, try white wine and soda, or vodka and slimline tonic or cranberry, and have a small glass of water between drinks. 
2. An absolute unbreakable rule is to drink between one and a half and two litres of water per day. I always keep a sports bottle of water with me when I'm on a weight loss mission.
3. Make time for three meals a day. It doesn't even matter what they are. My weight suffers when I fall out of that routine, when I convince myself I don't have time for breakfast. One day I will learn that three square meals a day is the only way!?

Any-way. I'm a foodie blogger, not a diet expert, so here are a few of my go-to recipes as promised...

Vegetable Soup

I blogged about soup a few months ago - the full recipe is here. The beauty of this is you can use absolutely anything in it, and season it however you like. I like to make a big batch at the weekend with the leftovers from a Sunday roast, and then freeze in individual containers - they make a perfect low-fat low-cal lunch either at home or the office. These ones are Sweet Potato with a few Chillies for spice...

Vegetable Soup Freezer Pots

Chicken Wraps

As a sales rep by day, I spend a lot of time in the car, with no kitchen or microwave, and the constant lure of fast food at the services. I find chicken wraps ideal to take in the car when I know I'm going to be out at lunchtime, however they get bland and boring very quickly. I use these few quick fix marinades to add some excitement to my chicken breasts;

• Chinese Style: 5tbsp Dark Soy Sauce, 3tbsp Brown Sugar and 1tsp Chinese Five Spice
• Tikka Style: 1tsp of Masala (or any other) Curry Paste in 200g Crème Fraiche 
• Mediterranean: 3tbsp Honey plus the juice of 1 lemon

Marinade overnight, and then grill and slice for tasty, high protein, low calorie wraps, salads or sandwiches.

Muffins

Because my worst food habit is skipping breakfast, these little beauties are my morning saviours! The full recipe is in my blog post here, and again it is one of those amazingly adaptable recipes that has unlimited possibilities. I made a quick batch tonight using some frozen blueberries and a teaspoon of lemon extract. You can make them even more healthy by using wholemeal self raising flour, and skimmed milk. The recipe makes a batch of 12, and they are perfect for freezing once cool, and then popping in the oven one-by-one to warm through. 

Lemon and Blueberry Muffin

Good luck to everyone out there who has made resolutions for 2013 - I'd love to hear everyone else's diet tips and healthy eating recipes - please comment below! 

V x

If In Doubt - Make Soup

When I talk about a kick at the pantry door, the absolute essence of the philosophy is that moment when, for any one of a number of reasons, you find yourself in the kitchen, with all your cupboard doors ajar, the fridge door wide open, and you are asking yourself what on earth to make for dinner. Maybe it's not quite payday. Maybe you have neither the time nor energy to get to the shops. Maybe, as often happens in our house, you have a mixture of half used packages and leftovers that don't quite know how to assemble themselves into a proper meal.

Whenever this happens in my house, I make soup. Soup is one of the most under-rated, healthiest, lowest in calories, tastiest, and absolute easiest things in the world to make. It needs no recipe, culinary expertise, little time to make, and its possibilities are endless. I use one simple rule when I make soup - the volume of liquid must slightly outweigh the weight of the solids, normally 500g mixed vegetables to 700ml stock.

Today I made a soup from a bag of sweet potatoes that needed using up. I used a chicken stock cube to make my stock, and added to it the sweet potatoes peeled and chopped, three sweet peppers that were close to their best, and a generous helping of thyme. I left the pan to simmer for an hour whilst I got on with my chores, and returned when the vegetables had softened to the point that they were starting to break up. I added half a bag of spinach that was sitting in the fridge, cooked it through and then blended until smooth.

Gary and I enjoyed big steaming bowlfuls for lunch, with piles of buttered bread, and the remainder has been divided into individual pots and frozen, so that we can defrost and cook a single portion whenever the mood takes. This also makes a cheap and easy healthy lunch option if you work in a place where you have access to a microwave.

Making soup like this, the possibilities are endless, these are some of my favourite options;

Spicy Vegetable

Start by frying a chopped garlic clove and a fresh chilli, then add the stock and vegetables. If you do not have a fresh chilli, 1 tsp of dried chilli flakes could also be used. Butternut Squash or Parsnips are ideal flavours to compliment the spice.

Smoky Bacon and Lentil

Start by frying chopped onions and bacon in a little oil until golden, then add the remaining vegetables, potatoes, and red lentils. Then add the stock.

Chicken and Vegetable

Follow the recipe above, adding 200g cooked chicken. Leftover meat from a Sunday Roast is perfect, alternatively grill 2 chicken breasts, dice and add to the soup before blending.

I would love to hear some of your variations or favourite soup recipes, please post below!

Enjoy! V x