Just something I threw together (recipe)

I was a bit bored by the thought of salad for lunch today and we had a couple of tins of cherry tomatoes in the house so I decided to make a "rustic" soup.

You will need the following for two generous servings with the stats as above:-

• 1 tin mixed beans (I used Morrisons mexican bean salad)
• 1 tin cherry tomatoes in juice
• 1 largeish courgette
• 1 medium/large red pepper
• 10g Coconut oil (or 10ml any plain oil otherwise)
• 1 good quality vegetable stock cube
• 120g good chorizo - this will make or break it

De-stalk and remove the seeds from the pepper.  Chop the courgette and pepper into chunks you'd be happy eating in a mouthful of soup.  Drop the chunks into a non-stick soup pan with the coconut oil and fry a little.

Courgette and pepper bathing in warm coconut oil

 While the veggies are frying, remove any skin and chop the chorizo into chunks.

First, you gotta do the truffle shuffle!

Add the chorizo to the veggies and toss until glossy and you can clearly smell the paprika aroma from the sausage.

*glisten*

Add the tomatoes and break them up a bit, top up with a little water if need be and add the stock cube.  Cook for 5-10 minutes to reduce a little.  You want the courgette and pepper to retain their bite, so don't over-cook at this stage.

Shiny, red, globes of juicy, delicious joy.

Add the beans and heat through thoroughly.

Serve and enjoy!

By god, this is delicious!

A favourite

This is one of my favourite recipes - there's quite a bit of preparation involved and that can be a drag mid-week but it's really worth it.  Really.

Chicken in black bean sauce with noodles (Serves 2; 530kcal, 46g protein, 62g carbs, 10g fat, 9g fibre, 3.5 fruit & veg)

• 1 medium onion
• 2 tbsp good soy sauce
• 3-4 fat cloves of garlic
• 1 large red or green chilli pepper
• 25g fermented black beans
• 15ml flavourless oil (groundnut, grapeseed etc.)
• 10g cornflour
• 120g mushrooms
• 2 large chicken breasts
• 1 large piece of ginger (approx 10-15g)
• 1 large green pepper
• 1 Tbsp rice wine/Mirin
• 1 medium carrot
• 84g bundle of Clearspring Noodles, Organic Wheat, Brown Rice
• 100g white cabbage
• 1 vegetable stock cube OR 1 sachet of miso

Measure the cornflour, mirin and one tablespoon of the soy sauce into a dish and mix gently to dissolve the cornflour.  Cube the chicken breast and add to the mixture in a bowl at least 30 minutes before you intend to start cooking.   Stir and turn occasionally to make sure the chicken is well-coated.

Make up the stock/miso with about 200ml water and set aside.  Peel and finely slice the garlic and ginger.  Also finely slice the chilli pepper (leave the seeds in unless you want to keep the fire levels a bit under control in which case de-seed and make sure the white skin/flim on the inside is removed and discarded).

Finely dice the onion.

Finely slice the cabbage and cut the carrot into fine batons - the closer to matchsticks the better.

Slice the mushrooms.

De-seed and slice the peppers (I used yellow ones this time, but green is better).

Finely chop the black beans (a mezza-luna is best for this if you have one).

Prepare and cook the noodles as per the instructions and set aside.

Add oil to a large wok or other round-bottomed non-stick pan and heat.  Add the onions, chilli, garlic and ginger and soften for a few minutes before adding the chicken and marinade into the pan.

Once the chicken is sealed, add the cabbage and carrot and cook for a couple of minutes to soften a little.

Add the peppers.

Add the mushrooms and stock and cook for another minute or two.

Add the black beans and heat through before adding in the cooked noodles. Stir for a few seconds to mix thoroughly and then serve and eat immediately.

Tricky lunches

Lunches during the week have historically been difficult for me.  Having hauled myself out of the pit of "sandwich&crisps" years ago, I've been through salads, shop bought soups and home made soups.  The latter being particularly tricky due to lack of re-heating facility at work, which has now been worked around by the use of a wide-mouthed Thermos flask.  It still remains something that annoys the crap out of me that it takes up so much time and effort to make lunches.  However, I struggle on most of the time and I'm in a home made soups phase at the moment...

Winter Squash, Beans and Chorizo soup (4 portions; 305kcals, 17g protein, 40g carb, 10g fat, 12g fibre, 5.5 portions of fruit&veg):-

• 1 large Winter Squash (approx 1kg after de-seeding and peeling)
• 15ml Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1 Tsp Fennel Seeds
• 1 Drained Can/224g Borlotti Beans
• 1 Vegetable Stock Cube
• 1 Drained Can/180g Kidney Beans (in water, not sauce)
• ½ Ring/112.5g Spanish Chorizo Ring
• 1 Tin/400g Tinned Plum Tomatoes

Almost any Winter squash will do in this recipe; Butternut, Turks Turban, Sunshine, Table Ace, Pumpkin (all varieties) etc. but not Spaghetti Squash as that's a bit too stringy and the texture isn't creamy enough.  Peel and de-seed the squash.

Slice into thick slices, then cut into cubes.

Place the cubed squash in a large container that has a lid, add the fennel seeds and olive oil, put the lid on and shake/toss to coat all of the pieces well.

Spread the chunks over a baking tray and bake in the oven on a medium heat for 30 minutes or until soft and chewy-looking.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool a bit.  Make up the vegetable stock with a little hot water and have some extra water on standby.  Add the stock to the squash chunks along with the tinned tomatoes and blend to a thick, smooth consistency with a hand blender.  You should see soft ridges in the paste.

Gradually add more hot water, continuing to blend until you have a soup consistency you would like.  I'd err on the side of thicker than thinner as you can always thin it a bit more later.

Chop the chorizo into small cubes.

Add the drained beans and chopped chorizo to the squash soup/puree.

Then gently stir together to coat the beans and chorizo chunks but not break them up.

If eating immediately, re-heat gently in a pan and serve.   Otherwise you can chill it in portions and it will keep in the fridge for 2-3 days or in the freezer for a few weeks.  Reheat carefully and do not add salt until reheating is complete otherwise the beans will become hard and unpleasant.