I really enjoyed both eating and cooking the wonderful curried cauliflower soup I made yesterday. For the curry powder I used the Tandoori Masala blend that I bought from www.seasonedpioneers.co.uk to make my Delia Smith curry that I created last week. The story of that fantastic curry is in an earlier entry. I think the curry powder used makes all the difference to the finished recipe.
What I love about homemade soups is that they have far more flavour than the ones you get out of tin, and with all the veggies you pack into them, you know you are getting your five-a-day and I have to say, you do feel very virtuous tucking into a bowl of homemade soup, knowing you have taken the trouble to make it, and that it has zero points or free on the core plan.
I am just simmering today’s soup. Going off what vegetables I have and what needed using, I had a cabbage that was looking like it wouldn’t last much longer in the fridge. So here’s the recipe for the soup I will be eating today.
Cabbage and Tomato Soup
1 cabbage
1 handful of spinach
3 onions, finely chopped
2 fat cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 inch piece fresh ginger, chopped finely (I used 2 teaspoons EPC very lazy Ginger)
Vegetable stock made up with boiling water and 2 knorr vegetable stock cubes
2 tins chopped tomatoes
2 tablespoons tomato puree
Fry Light Oil Spray
Spray a large non stick pan with Fry Light and add the finely chopped onion, garlic and ginger. I used the chopper attachment of my stick hand blender and gave it a quick blitz – Delia would be proud! But if you don’t have a mini chopper or chopper attachment, finely chopping it all is fine. Sweat the onion mixture for one minute over a moderate heat.
Add the chopped cabbage and combine with the onion mixture, following with your handful of spinach. Cook for a further two minutes.
Add the tinned tomatoes, tomato puree and enough of the vegetable stock to cover the mixture.
Allow the soup to simmer for 30 minutes. It will reduce down slightly and go all thick and tomatoey/cabbagey.
After 30 minutes, blitz with your stick hand blender until it reaches a smooth, or chunkier if preferred consistency.
I must add a very STRONG WARNING. Once the soup is blended and smooth, take extra special care when re-heating. It will SPIT. When re-heating a tomato based soup a couple of weeks ago I lifted the lid off to stir it and got a huge splatter of scalding hot tomato soup on my ring finger. It blistered so badly I couldn’t wear my engagement ring for over a week. Re-heat with caution and when stirring it, take it off the heat entirely which immediately stops it spitting.
The resulting soup is thick and filling with a wonderful rich tomato flavour with the gentle heat of the ginger in the background. This recipe makes enough for four large portions – if you are eating a zero point soup I think “fill your boots!”. Although if you were having a sandwich or crisp breads with it, you prefer a little less depending on your appetite.
So I have three more boxes of soup cooling ready to go in the freezer to join the three curried cauliflower punnets I put in yesterday. My aim is to get enough homemade zero pointed soups into the freezer so I can have a different flavour each day of the week, without having to cook from scratch!
Breakfast Update
I ate some breakfast on Monday, but neglected to yesterday as I was at my weigh in and by the time I’d got home and faffed about a bit, it was basically lunch time. My breakfast today is going to be some rhubarb yoghurt with oats stirred through it, as recommended by my good friend Kate.
This breakfast has protein in the yoghurt and slow release carbohydrate in the oats, so I think it is the perfect thing to keep me going until my bowl of soup at lunch time, whilst being totally scrummy at the same time!
