Posts in soup
LOSING THE LOCKDOWN WEIGHT GAIN...

Everybody is talking about the effect the C-19 virus and the restrictions have been having with regard to our mental health - depression, anxiety, huge concerns about our loved ones and how to keep them safe, the continuing fear when the situation appears to be never-ending.

In addition to all of the above, many of us are more than a little concerned/depressed/anxious that we have really ‘packed on the pounds’ and it can be mighty hard to commit to some dietary changes. Needless to say, the internet is heaving with diet after diet but I am not convinced that ‘a diet’ is what we need right now.

As many of my readers and followers are aware, I include soups in all my weight loss/weight maintenance plans but I think, whilst many of us are ‘home-based’ more than we normally are and are spending more time in the kitchen than we normally do, I believe that we should continue to make soups BUT not any old soup!

Low calorie, possibly weight loss-inducing light soups are all very well but ‘filling soups’ should become the order of the day currently. A couple of bowls can seriously ‘fill you up’ and hopefully banish the need to snack on bics, crisps, sarnies, pastries, cakes and the rest.

What we need to ‘fill us up’ is a deal of protein, a deal of good fats plus antioxidant-rich vegetables and some carbohydrates… so which of my many soup recipes ticks all (or many) of the boxes? Here is a selection… click on the images to access the recipes.

If you don’t eat meat, leave it out and experiment with the protein-rich plant-based products that you generally use: tofu, tempeh, quinoa, lentils, beans, nuts, seeds, nutritional yeast, amaranth or some of the ‘meat-replacement’ products that you can find in supermarkets and/or healthfood shops but try not to fall into the trap of adding more blood sugar-disrupting, carbohydrate-heavy foods.

'WARM NOT HOT' IF YOU PLEASE!
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You know how when you are in a rush and happen upon ‘certain coffee establishments’ (that are not your usual haunts) and your coffee is simply way too damned hot and you have to take the lid off and dear alone know what happens next when you don’t have some sort of ‘cover’ to contain the possibly-ensuing drama?

Same goes for take-away soups in my experience! Not all (but too many in my book!) Surely we don’t want to have to ‘blow’ on every spoonful? Lunch hour could easily be over before we’re done!

I imagine it all comes down to the setting on the microwave and the fear of ingredients not being properly heated through (and someone getting sick or worse!) I often microwave my own homemade soups and each soup is so very different - clear, noodle-y types are reheated in a jiffy, vegetable-y, bean-y, lentil-y ones take a little longer and the meat-y, vegetabl-y broths can take an age (generally, you are better to just put them in a pan on a medium heat until the soup comes (just) to the boil and then simmer gently until you are ready to dive in!

Or perhaps, those ‘soup cups’ don’t lend themselves to ‘cooling down quickly’! My advice is to look for a mobile caravan which still has ‘the soup of the day’ in big soup kettles where the staff are way more in control of the temperature of the soup - just saying!.

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One I am particularly fond of and follow is Union Genius of Edinburgh. They are quite a bunch - offering you a truly great lunch (soup is the main player) and maintaining their ethical approach to cooking and providing - have a look at their website - it’s inspiring….



DON'T YOU JUST LOVE A NOODLE?
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I suppose it goes way back to those slippery, little noodles in Knorr’s Chicken Noodle Soup? I don’t think I have ever come across a single person who was growing up in the 60’s who didn’t delight in that deliciously-lovely ‘powdered’ soup that only needed some water to make it come alive - with oodles of noodles!

Sadly, I have just had a look at the ingredients and they weren’t really proper noodles at all! Maltodextrin, EGG pasta [durum WHEAT semolina, dried EGG white, dried EGG yolk] (23%), potato starch, salt, flavourings (contain EGG, WHEAT, BARLEY), chicken (2.5%), sugar, chicken fat (2.5%), onion powder, yeast extract, citric acid, turmeric, parsley, antioxidant (extracts of rosemary). Oh well, didn’t seem to do us too much harm and perhaps gave us a taste of just why noodles are the business (especially in soups)!

It is hard to put into words just how utterly delicious my Thai Prawn Noodle Soup is … as I say in the intro, it is all about the spice paste right at the offset. I use one of those little spice-grinders and it makes light work of the process and your soup can be ready in less than half an hour!

Instead of the prawns, you can substitute cooked and shredded chicken or duck, strips of salmon, cubes of tofu or just a few diced spring onions, spinach or bok choy.

SPICING THINGS UP A BIT!
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You know those cookbooks that ask anybody and everybody in the surrounding area to donate their favourite and ‘best kept secret’ recipes to be included to make some dosh for a chosen charity? Well, I am a sucker for them all - you just know that Mrs S from Bonnyrigg or Mrs T from Borehamwood are simply not going to pitch in something they are not quite sure of, and, you often get loads of those ones entitled: ‘My Gran’s Best Ever Fruit Scones’ or ‘My Nan’s Fabulous Venison Stew’.

Oh yes, I am right there with my wallet and supporting the said charity! And one in particular I have to mention is a Canadian project called Fare for Friends which was in aid of a refuge for abused women in Ontario which one of my very dear friends, Chrissie, gave me over 30 years ago when she was living in Canada. There are at least 20 or more recipes in this little book that I cook on a regular basis (I think ‘Eleanor’s Egg Caviar’ and ‘Bacon Stuffed Avocados’ may well have appeared in one or more of my books!)

And here is one - Curried Broccoli Soup - the lady who donated the recipe (no name, sadly) thought it was a perfect start to a dinner party but I just make it whenever I have a rather large bunch of broccoli lurking in the fridge or broccoli screams at me from the veg section!

I have explained about the saturated fat content in the pdf of the recipe but please don’t judge me too harshly when I go for the full fat version - it is only occasionally and it is so good!

CHICKEN SOUP FOR COLDS AND FLU?
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No, not this time - I want to talk about Miso Soup, often forgotten when we need a bit of a pick-me-up when the weather is cold, damp and unforgiving and especially right now when it comes to attracting ‘a particular virus’!

This recipe is from the Planet Organic Cookbook which was published way back in 2000 (think it may, sadly be no longer available but seek it out and you may be lucky) and created by Renee Elliot and Eric Treuille (he of Books for Cooks in Notting Hill fame). What a shop, what an experience and I am proud to say that he once stocked my Soup Cookbook - and - displayed it in the window!

The secret for selecting miso for soups is that red miso is thicker and saltier and is traditionally used in winter soups and white miso is more delicate and sweeter and is preferred for lighter, summer soups. I think you will find that red miso is the one for the job here, but it’s up to you.

JUST BACK FROM PORTUGAL!
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I may have mentioned (on more than one occasion!) that the Portuguese LOVE their soups AND they are many and varied!

One that I am particularly partial to is Caldo Verde and I just happened to pop into Casa do Ze on the front in the beautiful town of Lagos for a bowl …. and it was quite delicious! I didn’t manage to extract the recipe from the ‘mama’ who does the cooking in the ridiculously-small kitchen at the back of the restaurant but I have made it before using Carolina Martin’s recipe on her My Portuguese Mother blog which is always a triumph!

Some use collard greens instead of kale but I am not a fan - the kale seriously adds a lovely peppery taste that you simply don’t get from the collards and kale is available in most supermarkets and farmer’s markets so it is easy to find. Just remember to go for the kale leaves (not the ready-sliced bags) and remove the tough stalks, opt for a waxy potato and ensure the chorizo is not the super-spicy variety!

ENJOY!

THERE IS ALWAYS ROOM FOR A CHICK PEA SOUP!
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The fabulous chick pea! 15g of protein, 45 g of carbohydrate, 13g of dietary fibre, 4g of good fats and a whole load of minerals per 150g so this soup is a veritable monster of goodness!

Yet again I am trawling through my cookbooks and if you like a soup that you can pretty much stand your soup spoon in and take to work in a wide-necked flask and ensure that you get the very best nutritiously superb lunch, it could well be this one!

I only have one book from the pen of the brilliant Amanda Grant called Lunchbox but it is well-thumbed and I have been making her soups (and best-ever combination of ingredients in her sandwiches on everything from rye to sour dough to foccacias to pittas and the rest) since it arrived in my cookbook collection in 1999.

I haven’t made her Italian Chick Pea Soup for a while but as the weather is a bit nippy right now in Scotland it won’t be long I can assure you! And, even the corner shop has most of the ingredients so it is a no-brainer to pick them up at the end of the day and rustle this soup together in super-quick time…