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!

Heavenly soup!

I had a load of cauliflower and broccoli hanging about in the fridge just before we went on holiday, so I decided to do the usual of making a soup and freezing that in portions, so it wouldn't go to waste.  And this one is a total and utter bowl of heaven:-

Broccoli and cauliflower soup

Ingredients - makes 4 servings

• 2 vegetable stock cubes (I used Knorr organic ones)
• 1 medium head of broccoli (about 250g)
• Most of a small tub of soft cheese (I used 180g Philadelphia extra light)
• 1 Romanesco cauliflower (about 400g)
• 1 large onion (about 275g)
• 10ml mild olive oil

Finely chop the onion.  Break the cauliflower and broccoli into florets, discard the leaves and cut the stalk into chunks.

Sweat the onion in a pan with the oil, until the onion is soft and translucent - do not brown the onion.  Add the stock cubes so they dissolve/melt in with the onion pieces and coat them.  Add the cauliflower florets and chopped stalks and toss with the onions for a couple of minutes.  Add enough boiling water to just cover the vegetables - don't worry if a few bits stick out - and simmer for 10-20 minutes until the cauliflower and broccoli are tender.

Remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool a little.  Once the liquid is cool enough not to burn if you are splashed by it, add the soft cheese to the pan and blend everything to a smooth, creamy soup with a hand blender.  If it is too thick, add a little more water.  If it is too thin, blend thoroughly and then return to the heat and simmer off a bit more of the water.

Divide into portions and chill/freeze to reheat later.

Nutrition Data Per Serving
Calories (kcal)	157.4
Carbohydrate (g)	11.5
Protein (g)	12.0
Fat (g)	7.1
Fibre (g)	4.2
Fruit & Veg	3.0

Carrot and Parsnip Soup

What to do with some past-their-best root veg?  Make soup!  (hoorah for the StarChef :o))  I had a huge parsnip and some carrots to use up this time...

 

Carrot and Parsnip Soup (serves 4; 126kcals, 18.5g carbs, 2.6g protein, 5g fat, 5.7g fibre, 2 portions fruit & veg):-

• 1 enormous or 2 medium parsnips
• 1 fat garlic clove
• 1 vegetable stock cube
• about 250g carrots
• 15ml extra virgin olive oil
• ½ Tsp Thyme
• 1 medium onion

Roughly chop the veg, an onion and slice up the fat garlic clove.

Sweat the onion and garlic in some olive oil and add the vegetables and thyme, mixing through thoroughly.

Add made-up stock (using 1 litre of water) and cook on a low heat for an hour, minimum.  (I use the "soup" setting on my JML StarChef jobbie which uses a low and consistent heat, having used the "vegetables - fry" setting to sweat the onion and garlic - only 1 pan to wash!)

Blend everything with a hand blender.  Heat and serve or portion up and chill for later.

It's really smooth and creamy.  I'll be using this as a hot lunch with a roasted chicken breast either on the side or as a snack later in the afternoon for a protein boost as this is quite a low protein recipe for my liking.

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.

Tasty lunchies and chin-ups

I've been having lots of fun with the Star Chef and the wide-mouthed Thermos  since I got them and it's SO NICE to have home-made, tasty, hot, nutritious lunches!  Seriously!  The latest one was a spiced soup of parsnips and apple:-

Serves 4 for lunches (approx. 200kcals per portion, 27g carb, 4g protein, 8g fat, 3 portions F&V):-

Ingredients:

• 500-600g Parsnips
• 1 Medium English Apple
• 2 Medium Onion, Chopped
• 15ml Groundnut or other flavourless oil
• 1 Tsp Cumin Seeds
• 1 Tsp Coriander Seeds
• 1 Tsp Powdered Turmeric
• 2 Cloves Garlic, Minced
• 1 Tsp Ground Ginger
• 1.25 litres vegetable stock
• 4 Tbps half fat crème fraîche

Method:

• Toast the coriander and cumin seeds then grind them with a pestle and mortar.
• Heat the oil in a saucepan, then add the onions and soften for about 5 minutes before adding the garlic.
• Cook for another 2 minutes, then add the ground spices, along with the turmeric and ginger, stir and cook gently for a few more minutes.
• Chop the parsnips into 1 inch chunks.
• Add the parsnips to the saucepan, stir well to coat with the spices and oils, then pour in the stock.
• Season and simmer for half an hour with the lid off, then half an hour with the lid on.
• When the soup has been simmering for an hour, remove it from the heat, and use a hand blender to make it smooth - leave a few chunks if you'd like to.
• When you're ready to serve it, either now or after chilling/freezing into portions, peel the apple and grate it into the soup. Simmer the soup for 3-4 minutes/reheat in the microwave/slow cooker, decant into bowls and add a small dollop (15g) creme fraiche and grind over some black pepper to serve.

I did all of the cooking steps in my Star Chef, first on "fry" mode for the onions, garlic and spices, then on "soup/stew" mode once the stock was added.  Only one pan to dirty, that way.

I'm trying to wind things back a bit this week after last week's huge exercise haul and the end of the week with a dodgy innards.  So, I've cycled into work once and gymmed once so far (gymming and cycling home tomorrow) but the gymmage has gone a bit hybrid now, mixing two routines for a bit of variety:-

• Warm up - 500m on L7 on the rower (01:55/500m pace)
• Squats on the Smith machine - 3x10, Olympic bar plus 35kg
• Chin ups using the Smith machine for a bar - 3x4, bodyweight
• Squat and overhead swing - 3x10, 20kg dumb-bell - superset A
• Reverse crunch with leg raise - 3x15 slowly - superset A
• Walking lunges with kettlebell - 3x20, 24kg kettlebell
• Squat, one-arm clean and jerk - 3x20, 14kg dumb-bell

And today my abs and pecs are saying "HI!" quite loudly :o)

But seriously!  12 chin-ups!  OK, they were in 3 sets of 4 and apart from the first one in each set they weren't completely from hanging, but I'm still really really pleased with them!  I fully intend to get a photo of me doing some in my new "Strong is the new skinny" tank vest when it arrives :o)

Good lunches are on the way

The combination is finally here; the Star Chef along with a wide-mouthed Thermos and I'm sorted for hot lunches.  Finally!

So, the idea is to set the Star Chef to cook or re-heat something overnight to put into the thermos in the morning so I can have hot food at work through the winter.  I've got lots of stuff in the freezer ready to go and loads of ideas for soups, stews and small-bite casseroles.  Salads?  Pah!  6.45 this morning saw the decanting of the soup I put on last night (2x tins of Marrowfat peas, including the water, blended with a hand blender and a pack of sliced ham chopped into it with a bit more water to top it off - makes 2x good lunches) into the Thermos.  It was a tiny bit messy and I think I'd be better off pouring than ladling next time.  Come lunch time (after 1pm), the soup was very much warm enough to be good.  Not piping hot or mouth burny, but plenty plenty warmth enough for a good lunch.  We're not allowed a microwave at work, so this is pretty much the only way I'm happy with that I can get a hot lunch where I know what's in it (places like "pod" are good at giving an ingredients list that's clean, but...), plus I object to the prices you end up paying in The City for prepared food.

Hurrah for technology and simplicity both!

Hearty, spicy food

Nom!  I made a roasted vegetable soup for first lunch today:-

 

• 1x huge, fat courgette (about 240g), topped, tailed and split length-ways
• 2x red peppers (about 130g), topped, de-seeded and split in half
• 2x huge double-handfuls of cherry tomatoes (about 200g)

Arrange all of that on a baking try, drizzle with 20ml olive oil and season with salt and black pepper.  Roast at a lowish heat, about 150-160C, for about an hour until things start to look quite chewy.

• 6x celery stalks (about 170g)
• 1x garlic clove (about 3g)
• 30g capers
• 1x stock cube dissolved in about 500ml boiling water

Let everything cool down a bit (make sure you get all the oil and chewy bits off the baking tray, use the hot stock if you need to to shift it) , put it in something big enough and tall enough so you can blend it until mostly smooth without splattering yourself and the kitchen.  Blend it up!  Serve either at room temperature or re-heated.  Makes 2 very generous portions at around 170kcals per portion.  Remember that the chilli heat is't going to accumulate, so don't panic when you first taste it!  A nice dollop of cool sour cream or creme fraiche goes nicely on top.  Also, one portion provides all five of your 5 a day!

Calories (kcal)	170.1
Carbohydrate (g)	12.3
Protein (g)	4.8
Fat (g)	11.6
Fibre (g)	4.6
Fruit & Veg	5.1