Monday, February 13, 2006

Healthy Hearty and Yummie!

So.... had a pound of carrots in the fridge, for ages I should add.. it is a good thing that these root vegetables only need a bit of thin slicing to look ever so nice and alive again but..I did take pity on them and devised a perfect low fat carrot soup by reading through say 20 recipes and do 'fusion' :-)

So...

1 pan with:
1 pound carrots in chunks
1 leek in bits
1 green pepper in chunks
1 tin of tomato chunks (tesco value, of course :-))
1 stock cube
enough water to cover the veggies

1 pan with:
handful of red lentils
smaller handful of pearl barley
1 teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon ground coriander
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
about 300 ml of water

Other ingredients
Flaked almonds, slightly roasted in a dry pan
Dash of lemon (if available)
Creme Fraiche

Boil the lentils and barley for at least 1 hour.

The pan with all the veggies needs to be boiled for 30 minutes or so.
When it is all cooked get your blending iron (well you know that mixing thing you can stick in the pan and make anything in bits submit into creamy soup) and mush up the contents of the veggie pan.

Then add the lentils and barley mixture to the soup, stir and add pepper and salt to taste.

When served it is lovely to add a little dollop of creme fraiche and have it with a small nan brad (Tesco have these 1 person garlic herb ones, so nice!)

The consistency of this soup is so thick it 'blobs' when finished, it can be thinned down of course but it is actually so nice in this weather to eat the blobby stuff, the almonds and barley give it a bit of a bite so you don't feel you are eating babyfood!

And it is so healthy, all these vegetables and the healthy protein in the lentils, I am chuffed!

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