Can you tell I’m on a bit of a food thing, right now?

Along with the pre-mixed porridge (porage to you Scotch), I intend to cut down on my canteen consumption at work and eat some homemade soup.

So, what good recipes for me to bring in and nuke at work?

OMITN (who is a biffer and needs to slim down a fair bit)

one onion
one carrot
half a squash(or all of it if its a weeun)
dice and simmer in a veg stock if you have it.
after around forty mins whiz it up with yer mixer add a good squeezzz of grated root ginger and season to tase with white miso( you can get this in the wierd freaks section in sainsburys)upto a quarter of the packet should see you right.bit of pepper.
done.

Cougar’s Thai Chickenless Noodle Soup

(Serves two hungry people)

Ingredients

75g creamed coconut
1L veggie stock
1tbsp vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
175g Quorn sweet chilli strips
1tsp turmeric
1/2tsp hot chilli powder
30ml (1rounded tbsp) crunchy peanut butter
30ml (2tbsp) lemon juice
60g fine egg noodles
1tsp coriander (or 1tbsp fresh)
1tbsp spring onions, chopped
Black pepper

Garnish
Desiccated coconut
Dried chilli flakes

Method

Dissolve the creamed coconut into the hot stock. This takes a while. Thoroughly mix in the peanut butter so that there’s no clumps.

Meanwhile, fry the chopped garlic in the oil for a couple of minutes, in a large soup pan on a medium heat. When the garlic starts to brown, add the Quorn strips, turmeric and chilli powder. Fry for five minutes, stirring constantly to prevent the Quorn from sticking.

Add the stock / coconut mix to the pan, stir and then add the lemon juice and noodles. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

Add the coriander, spring onions and a few twists of black pepper, and allow to simmer for another five minutes.

Whilst the soup is finishing cooking, make the garnish. Fry a spoonful of desiccated coconut together with a sprinkling of chilli flakes in a dry frying pan, stirring constantly until the coconut turns brown but not burned.

Decant the soup into bowls, and sprinkle with a little of the garnish. Serve with the rest of the garnish separate to allow seasoning to taste; chilli flakes are hot.

(For a carnivorous version, substitute the Quorn for chicken.)

^^ my current favourite at the moment, it’s nommy. Here’s the finished product.

More soup recipes available on request.

This is only good if you are able to find a middle eastern shop somewhere who sells Molikhia but as soup goees it’s unbelievable and seriously good for you.

http://recipes.wikia.com/wiki/Molokhia_%28Egyptian_Greens_Soup%29

Stock, vegetables, pepper. Hard to go wrong TBH.

Cougar – please tell me you didn’t just type all of that..!

(Nice recipe, tho)

Thanks all.

No, cut & pasted from my recipes here; I keep them on the PC then they’re easy to amend as I tweak things. I did type it all out originally, but that was a little while ago now.

Loads of garlic, sweet potatoes, red peppers, paprika, cumin, red chili, coconut, coriander, stock, pepper -> blender (strain the stock first, blend the rest and add the stock gradually to get the thickness right) -> bowl.

Tomato and red pepper soup

Fry 2 chopped onions and 2 carrots.
Skin 12 tomatoes, chop and add to pan. Cut up and grill 4 red peppers ’til the skins blacken. Cool a bit and remove the skins.
Chop and add to pan. Add vegetable stock. Simmer for about 40 minutes. Give it a quick whizz with a hand blender. Add some freshly chopped basil and a bit of creme fraiche.
Bloody lovely.

My wife makes this and it’s bloody gorgeous(Ainsley Harriott recipe) , supposedly serves 4 but never goes that far in our house , we also use leeks rather than onions.

chorizo chowder

heat butter in a large pot and gently fry 1 finely chopped onion, 4 crushed cloves of garlic and 500g peeled and cubed potatoes for about 15 minutes. add 1 thinly sliced leek and 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper. stir through and cook for another few minutes.

add 1 litre of vegetable stock, bring to boil and then simmer for about 30 minutes until the potatoes are soft and beginning to break up. use a potato masher and roughly mash the potatoes.

slice 250g chorizo sausage into 1cm slices and add to the soup. simmer until the soup turns to a rich orange from the sausages.