A few staple ingredients is all it takes to rustle up Pea, Mint and Ham Soup from the Hairy Dieters in less half an hour. The ham garnish made with a hint of honey and wholegrain mustard is the star of the show here, lifting plain old soup into something more memorable. For more soup ideas, click here.
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Spending 45 minutes to make Cream of Tomato Soup might seem pointless when you can just crack open a tin of Heinz or Baxters, but can we please all agree that tinned soup is shite and loaded with salt? This home-made version from Justine Pattison is ace with a swirl of chive cream and less than 150 calories per serving.
For more super soup ideas, click here.
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With the temperatures falling below zero in many parts of the UK, it’s high time I included more soup recipes on this blog. And I can’t think of a better one to start with than Cauliflower Cheese Soup from the Hairy Dieters.
Cauliflower is such a versatile vegetable and it tastes exquisite here when blended with cheese, milk and wholegrain mustard for a smooth and creamy finish. The recipe quantities will serve 4 people generously for 233 calories and at just 68p per portion. Forget tinned soup when you can conjure up home-made varieties as good as this. Superb.
For more exotic soup ideas, check out the soup section on this blog here.
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There are few things more dangerous in life than incurring the wrath of your mother-in-law. Fortunately I get on with mine very well, however she can be known for her ‘persistence’. To keep herself occupied during lockdown, she started growing her own cucumber, rhubarb and potatoes and would proudly leave her hoards on our doorstep. Which is great, except I hate cucumber and have no interest in making puddings which also makes the rhubarb somewhat redundant. But pointing this out was always going to leave me on a sticky wicket.
“Have you done anything with that cucumber yet???” became one of our regular lockdown conversations. I was running out of excuses. In mad panic upon realising she was coming round, I furiously fanned my recipe books until I stumbled across Cooling Cucumber and Avocado Soup from Justine Pattison. A recipe more suited for a blazingly hot summer’s afternoon than a wet and wild autumn day, but fuck it, this would have to do in a crisis.
As for the end result…. we absolutely hated it and could only manage about four spoonfulls between us. But this was about ‘taking one for the team’ and making others feel appreciated, which is perhaps no bad thing right now. My supply of cucumbers has also stopped, too.
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Spicy Sweetcorn Soup is a slightly misleading title from the Hairy Dieters as it includes bacon. But don’t despair if you’re vegetarian. The bacon is cooked separately and only added to the soup at the end. For a vegetarian version, use veggie stock and add firm smoked tofu which you can crisp up, as per the Hairy Dieters’ suggestion.
Whether you include the bacon or not, this is a cracking ‘meal in a bowl’ containing onion, red pepper, sweet potato, sweetcorn and coriander, spiced up by the chipotle paste. This soup can be enjoyed anytime of year, but it really comes into its own when the cold weather sets in. If you’re a fan of home-made soups, check out some other suggestions here.
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I mentioned earlier this month that I’ve gone through lockdown without making the same meal twice. But paneer and pea curry was stretching it last week, and Thai-style Butternut Squash Soup from Tom Kerridge is also tenuous, given I made curried butternut squash and apple soup at the back-end of March. But this Tom Kerridge recipe is great, so let me off?
So, what’s the difference? Well, actually it’s pretty obvious. Thai flavours are very distinct and the lemongrass and chillies really give this a punchy flavour, whereas the curried apple and butternut squash soup flavours are more subtle. Both soups are fantastic, even though I find ‘squash’ a pain in the backside to prep.
As the nights draw in, I’ll feature some more soups on this blog. But for now, you can check out the current ones here. Oh, and if you’re wondering what to do with the remaining 200ml of coconut milk, try coconut prawn curry or turkey keema peas.
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Having dour, tinned soup when on a diet can be enough to send people over the edge. The ‘healthy’ supermarket options are as dull as dishwater, whereas the more interesting varieties are often laden with sugars. Home-made soups, like Hot and Sour Soup from Pinch of Nom, is far more enticing and really good for you at less than 100 calories per serving.
If your fancying a Chinese, why not have this as a starter followed by sweet and sour chicken, yeung chow fried rice or chicken satay? In total, you could have a fakeaway bonanza for less than 500 calories!
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Having struggled to get a supermarket delivery due to the current COVID-19 challenges, I was very grateful to receive a mixed vegetable box from a local farm shop. Within it was a whopping 2kg of carrots and I was determined not to waste a single one of them. Step forward, Carrot, Coriander and Sweet Potato Soup from Justine Pattison.
One pan of this made 6 portions for only 108 calories per serving. It tasted lovely and is so cheap to make – perfect for our budgetary constraints right now. I bet you’re desperate to know what I used the remaining carrots for? No? Well, I’m going to tell you anyway. Pan Haggerty Lite, Lean Lamb Hot Pot, a lighter Spaghetti Bolognese by the Hairy Dieters and Prawn Pasta Salad. Continue reading “Carrot, sweet potato and coriander soup”
Some people ask me (actually no one has), ‘why do you bother making soup when you can buy low-sugar tinned soups instead?’ My retort is, ‘tinned soups are (invariably) shit, home-made soups can taste lovely, you know exactly what’s gone into them and you can make a big-batch up which can last throughout the week and/or leftover portions can go in the freezer’.
Curried butternut squash and apple soup from the Hairy Dieters is one of the nicest home-made soups I’ve made. You get the sweetness from the squash and the apples with a bit of a kick from the curry powder. I wonder if you could stick some gin and/or other liquors in this and make it into a cocktail? Hmm, maybe not.
If you’re lucky enough to get your hands on these ingredients at the present moment then give this recipe a go. My only issue is with the Hairy Dieters’ claim in their book that you can prep this in 15 minutes. Erm, chopping two onions, peeling and dicing the squash and peeling, coring and chopping the apples took me considerably longer than that. But let’s face it, we’ve all got a bit more time on our hands to spend in the kitchen right now! Continue reading “Curried butternut squash and apple soup”
