WeightWatchers Rosemary and Butterbean Soup

I've been trying to avoid bread and at the very least not taking sandwiches into work for lunch, which at this time of year means soups instead. I am a pretty fussy eater (for those who hadn't figured that out yet!) and often skip over recipes because they have ingredients I don't like. But, I figured, when you are blending everything together in a soup, you don't really know you are eating it, right? Especially if it isn't an ingredient with a strong overpowering taste.

So I decided to make this rosemary and bean soup from an old WeightWatchers recipe book called Simply Autumn. I used butterbeans, though you can also use cannellini or borlotti beans. I added a little plain yogurt at the end to thicken the soup but if you don't do this, it would be vegan - great for anyone doing #veganuary.

According to the WeightWatchers recipe book this has 3 points per portion.

To make two portions, here's what I did:

 

You need:
Fry Light (low-fat cooking spray)
2 cloves garlic with the skins left on
400g tin butter beans or cannellini beans
1/2 an onion, peeled and chopped into wedges
1/2 a lemon, cut in half
1 small handful rosemary
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 pint vegetable stock
2 tbsp. low fat plain yogurt (optional - no longer vegan if you use this)
salt, pepper

Preheat oven to 200C. Spray a roasting tin with Fry Light or similar. Put the garlic, butter beans, onion, lemon, rosemary and oregano into the pan, spray with more Fry Light, toss together and roast in the oven for 20 mins.

Take out of the oven and use a fork or wooden spoon to crush the softened garlic and lemon. Remove the garlic skin and lemon peel and discard.

Scrape everything into a blender and add the stock. Liquidize to make a soup; stir in the yogurt if desired and serve.

I'm sending this to Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes for her veggie soup challenge No Croutons Required.

Butternut Squash Quinoa Risotto

 

My pre-wedding diet has consisted of cutting out sugars, including the hidden sugars in everyday processed foods (like sliced bread) and even the starch in potatoes which converts to glucose when it's digested. The advisor I saw recommended 5 days of no sugar and 2 days allowing myself a small amount of sugar - in other words, not scoffing a bar of Dairy Milk in front of the TV but being allowed to eat carbs with something sweet if I do really want it.

 

So I've been experimenting with all sorts of new recipes and eating a fair bit of quinoa (pronounced keen-wa). The health benefits of quinoa are explained thoroughly on this BBC Good Food site

; it’s full of protein, wheat free, a good source of vitamins and fibre – the list goes on.

 

I decided to make a risotto using quinoa as the base instead of rice. You need to rinse quinoa (unless you buy it as part of a ready-made product), to remove something called saponin which can make the quinoa taste bitter. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do this as the seeds were so small they would go through my sieve, so I put the quinoa in bowl, filled it with water and swished it around. I carefully poured the water out of the bowl and found the density of the quinoa meant it stayed at the back of the bowl while I poured the water out so I didn’t lose any – but the water had turned very cloudy! So I did this a couple of times until I was happy the water was clear.

 

To cook quinoa the basic ratio is 1 cup of uncooked quinoa to two cups of liquid, so I used vegetable stock. Bring to a boil then simmer for 15-20 minutes until the liquid has been absorbed and fluff up with a fork.

 

I roasted some cubes of butternut squash in the oven, to use partly in this and partly in a salad the next day, so added the squash, some sliced spring onion and some fresh herbs on top. Finally I added some cubes of feta cheese. It made a filling, tasty and healthy meal which would also be good served cold as a salad.

 

 

 

I’m sharing this with Meat Free Mondays, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes

 

And with No croutons required, a challenge for vegetarian soups or salads, hosted this month by Lisa's Kitchen as well as Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.

 

 

Roast Cauliflower, Sumac and Rocket Salad

Now that the weather is nicer (and I have ten weeks and counting to the wedding) I'm starting to want to eat salads but in the evening also want a more substantial meal. This recipe is really good as it's chunky - cauliflower in a salad is a lot more filling than just cucumber - and it's also a very 'clean' recipe with simple flavours that makes you feel quite virtuous.

The recipe came from YOU magazine in the Daily Mail - I love the magazine so my parents keep it for me every week as I don't buy the newspaper. The recipe is also available online here.

To serve 4, you need:

500g small cauliflower florets
1 red onion, peeled and sliced
5 tbsp. "good olive oil"
sea salt
1 heaped tsp coriander seeds, coarsely ground
sumac for dusting
2 handfuls rocket

Preheat the oven to 210C/ 190C fan. Spread the cauliflower and onion out over a roasting tray and drizzle over 4 tbsp. olive oil. I used this one my fiancé brought home from me, which is made from olive groves owned by the man who owns the company he works for - very nice!

 

 


Season with salt and scatter over the coriander seeds. Roast for 30 minutes then leave to cool.

Dust the cauliflower with sumac - a Middle Eastern spice - and mix with the rocket. Drizzle over another spoonful of oil and serve.

I'm sharing this with No Croutons Required, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.

Oxo Butternut Squash and Coconut Milk Soup

Oxo is pretty much a store cupboard staple for me – I always have Oxo cubes and use them in all sorts of recipes. Recently I’ve come across Knorr stock pots and branched out a bit, so was pleased to be sent a selection of Oxo stock pots to try recently – and they even threw in an Oxo cookery book!

Oxo is an iconic brand in the UK and has been around pretty much forever. Did you know that Oxo was invented in the 1840s after a German chemist developed meat extract? And as official sponsor of the 1908 London Olympics, Oxo supplied marathon runners with fortifying drinks of Oxo (I can’t quite imagine drinking beef broth while running a marathon but never mind!). In the First World War, soldiers were given Oxo cubes in their ration kits.

The company has now launched three flavours of stock pots, which I would describe as a sort of concentrated gel. They are: garden vegetables with parsley and bay; beef with onion and rosemary; and chicken with garlic and thyme. They also do a range called ‘herbs and more’ of flavours like lemon and thyme, which are not stock but ‘flavour pots’, which I’d also like to try. The stock pots sell for around £1 for 4 from major supermarkets.

My only criticism is that once you open the pot, you have to use the whole thing – you could probably refrigerate the rest for a day or two, but as I only cook for one or two people, I often cut a traditional stock cube in half, wrap the other half back up and put it back in the box, and you can’t really do that with the stock pots. They do however add a real depth of flavour; you don’t have to boil a kettle and wait for the stock cube to resolve, as you can add them straight to a pan to melt. You do still need to add water or some other liquid (tinned tomatoes perhaps) as the flavour is quite concentrated.

They are really easy to use though and definitely gave a nice flavour to my recipe.

I was working from home one day just after they arrived so flicked through the Oxo cookery book and found something I could make from store cupboard ingredients: a spicy butternut squash soup with coconut milk. Be warned, it does have quite a kick from the coconut milk alone (so you could perhaps miss out the chilli).

To serve 4, you need:

1 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1 small piece fresh ginger, peeled and chopped

½ red chilli, finely chopped

900g butternut squash, peeled and diced (seeds discarded)

1 Oxo Garden Vegetables with Parsley and Bay stock pot, made up with 500ml boiling water

400ml coconut milk, reserving 2 tbsp to serve

1 tbsp chopped fresh coriander to serve

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add the onion, ginger, chilli and garlic, and fry for five minutes until softened. Add the butternut squash, stock and all but the 2 tbsp of coconut milk you are reserving.

Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until the squash is cooked.

Blend in a blender until smooth (you may need to do this in batches). Serve in bowls with half a tbsp. of coconut milk swirled on the top and sprinkle with the chopped coriander.

I'm sharing this recipe with various blog challenges: Meat Free Monday, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes (who also runs the Food Blog Diary where you can find out about these challenges); Extra Veg, hosted by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours, and No Croutons Required, hosted this month by Lisa's Kitchen.

Sweet Potato Soup with Pomegranate and Sumac

Sumac is a spice I have only started using recently, and since I bought a packet I’ve kept a look out for any recipes that used it. When I was planning to have a vegan friend over for lunch (which didn’t actually happen in the end) I was looking for an easy recipe I could make in advance and heat up for lunch and came across this Sainsbury’s recipe for sweet potato, pomegranate and sumac soup.

As I’d bought the pomegranate already before the lunch was cancelled, I decided to go ahead and make it anyway and was glad I did! The soup did me a couple of days worth of lunches and was really filling and tasty.

To serve 2, you need:
half an onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/2 red chilli, deseeded and roughly chopped, or a pinch of dried chilli flakes or Very Lazy chopped chilli to taste
1/2 tsp sumac
1/2 tbsp. coconut oil
200g sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes
150g tomatoes, chopped - the recipe said to use vine tomatoes but I used tinned as I wanted to make this using store cupboard ingredients
400ml vegetable stock
1 tbsp. pomegranate molasses (available in big supermarkets)
to garnish:
pinch of sumac
pomegranate seeds
thin slice of lime

Fry the onion, garlic, chilli and sumac in the coconut oil and 1 tbsp. water until the onion has softened.

Add the sweet potatoes, tomatoes and stock. Bring to the boil and simmer until the sweet potato is soft.

 Add the pomegranate molasses and blend until smooth in a food processor or blender.

I returned the soup to the pan and added a little more water as it was too thick

Finally, garnish with pomegranate seeds and a slice of lime.

This was a really tasty, filling soup and has the added advantage of being both vegetarian and vegan.

I'm sharing this with Extra Veg, the blog challenge hosted by Michelle at Utterly Scrummy this month and also Helen at Fuss Free Flavours.

I'm also sending it to No Croutons Required, the soup and salad challenge hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.

Bulgur wheat, apricot and chickpea salad

 

I always say that I don’t like salads, but what I really mean is that I don’t like lettuce – unless I’m in absolutely the right mood for it which usually means a sunny day! When I was a child salads were “lettuce, tomato, cucumber” – the words almost run into each other. But it’s not the 1980s any more and you can put pretty much anything in a salad – and it doesn’t even have to have lettuce as a base.

 

I was going through some recipe cuttings – actually pages I had photocopied from a diet cookery book of some kind – and trying to make space in the kitchen by throwing them out. Most of the recipes in that folder were not interesting enough to keep or even to cook – or very similar to ones I already have in recipe books. I did keep a few however, one of which was this salad – but now the recipe is on my blog, I can throw out the photocopy as well!

 

T

he recipe didn’t actually include instructions for a salad dressing but instead advised that a fat-free vinaigrette would go nicely with this. So you could make your own dressing or use a shop-bought one – or even eat this plain.

 

To make at least two decent-sized lunches (this travels well in a lunchbox to work) you need:

200g bulgur wheat

200g tinned chickpeas

50g ready-to-eat dried apricots, chopped

1 stick celery, chopped

2 spring onions, chopped

1 piece stem ginger in syrup, drained – this is optional and I actually left it out

1 tbsp fresh parsley or mint, chopped

 

 

Put the bulgur wheat in a large bowl and pour over 250ml boiling water. Leave for 20-25 minutes to soften and swell and break up any clumps with a fork.

Add the other ingredients and toss well, and add your dressing if required.

I'm sending this to No Croutons Required, the veggie salad and soups linkup, hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.

Deliciously Ella: Fennel, quinoa and broad bean summer salad

It's been a lovely bank holiday weekend and we've been to a barbecue today for my boyfriend's mum's 60th. It was hosted by her other son so I wasn't needed to provide the food (and didn't get to make the cake unfortunately!) but I did want to help out if I could. I was asked to make some sort of cous cous salad - since the other bases were already covered - and immediately thought of Deliciously Ella.

Have you come across Ella Woodward yet? Her cookbook was the fastest selling debut ever - though Ella had already become something of a celebrity through her blog, Deliciously Ella. The recipes are all extremely healthy, as Ella changed her way of eating after being diagnosed with a rare illness. I'd seen some of her recipes online and they appealed to me, so for my birthday I asked for - and got - a spiralizer and a copy of her recipe book.

The recipe I chose for my salad dish is available online here. It actually uses quinoa, though I found that the quantity wasn't really enough so added couscous as well (after all I was asked to make a cous cous dish!). It involves a whole host of other vegetables, including avocado which I have never cooked with before, and I thought that since my boyfriend's mum is a vegetarian she might enjoy it. It's certainly a very colourful, summery salad, and far more substantial and interesting than a bowl full of lettuce, tomato and cucumber!

Preparing the fennel mixing with the marinade

Cooking the quinoa

Red pepper and avocado

Adding the sweetcorn and broad beans

With the cous cous and quinoa, the fennel and the marinade some extra lemon juice and seasoning

I'm sharing this with Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter she has chosen this month is Q.

I'm also sending this to the Food Year Linkup, hosted by My Recipe Book, as it's National Vegetarian Week and also this is perfect for BBQ season.

 This recipe is ideal for No Croutons Required, the salads and soups blog challenge run by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes and Lisa at Lisa's Kitchen.

Spiced Pumpkin Soup

I bought a pumpkin at Halloween mainly to display these cake pops. But I also wanted to use the pumpkin in a recipe afterwards, and thought soup would be a nice and easy recipe. I found a recipe on the internet but unfortunately wasn't that impressed; I found it very bland. My mum added paprika and said afterwards she might have added curry powder as well to spice it up a bit. So if you use this recipe I recommend experimenting with some spices, and please let me know in the comments if you found a way of giving pumpkin soup more flavour - or if you like it just as it is.

Simply cut out the flesh of your pumpkin. I tried and failed to scoop it out, so cut the pumpkin into large sections, used a potato peeler to remove the skin and chopped the flesh.

Chop and onion and fry in a little butter in a large pan then add the pumpkin. Cook for a few minutes then add enough vegetable stock to cover the pumpkin. Bring to the boil and simmer until the pumpkin is tender. Add salt, pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg, and any other spices to taste.

Shortly before serving, add a couple of tablespoon of low fat natural yogurt, or single cream, or Carnation Cook With It cooking cream, stir in and heat through.

 

I'm sending this to Tea Time Treats, hosted by Janie at the Hedgecombers, and on alternate months Karen at Lavender and Lovage, as the theme is bonfire night. I love the idea of a bowl of warming spiced pumpkin soup waiting for you when you come back from watching the fireworks.

I'm also sending this to No Croutons Required, hosted by Lisa at Lisa's Kitchen and on alternate months Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes. The challenge is for any vegetarian soup or salad.

Vegan Picnic Food

Here are a couple of quick ideas for picnic food. I needed something suitable for vegans which meant that my usual sausage rolls and the like were out - also I wanted a healthier option. So I made a pasta salad and potato salad.

For the pasta salad:
Cook some pasta according to pack instructions - I'm not specifying quantities here. Chop some red pepper and spring onion and halve some cherry tomatoes and add into the pasta. In a jar with a lid mix a little white wine vinegar with agave nectar and some dijon mustard and toss with the pasta.

For the potato salad:
Cook some potatoes until just tender and cut into cubes or large chunks. Chop some red onion, spring onion and fresh herbs such as basil or parsley and toss with the potatoes. In a jar with a screwtop lid, mix a little olive oil, lemon juice and wholegrain mustard and drizzle over the potato salad.

These are also nice as a side dish if you are eating at home; if you are taking them on a picnic use good tupperware with tight-fitting lids!

I'm sending this to the Extra Veg challenge, hosted by Allotment 2 Kitchen, who is looking for savoury vegetarian recipes. The challenge was launched by Helen at Fuss Free Flavours.

 Lisa's Kitchen is hosting No Croutons Required this month (co-founded by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes) and is calling for vegetarian soups and salads.