Living healthily ever after

It's autumn.
Raining all day here and blowing gails making me very chilly all over AND inside.
So .. what to have for lunch?
The normal 2 slices of bread? A salad? Brrr.... all too cold...
Pancakes then? Hmm.. bit fatty and stodgy and not good for all sorts of reasons.
Even more because I am REALLY trying to get this 'eat more fruit and veg rule' into my daily routine.

So... SOUP

The day that someone showed me how to make soup I didn't realise it was such a special day. My father always said that they could wake him up for 2 things, soup. and snigger

Anyway, it must be hereditary! I looooooove soup... so in our family we always used loads of cans, my mum worked so opening a can of soup was about all she fancied doing some days. Bit of bread with it, lovely.

I am not sure though if it is that 'way back when' the soups were nicer or that my taste has changed so much but I think all soups from cans are absolutely horrendous. Maybe I should try the 'fresh' variety but since that one not so famous day someone told me how to make soup I have given up on ready made.

Here is how to incorporate an example soup in your life :-)

First, the most important thing, a blender, now... loads of people (even Saint Delia Smith) always tell everybody to use a blender like what they use in American soaps to make milkshakes in. Totally silly I think, since the soup will then not only be stuck to the pan you make it in but also to the blender plus if you make soup for more people you have to blend in batches, totally rubbish I say!

So.. please, believe me, buy one of these
It doesn't have to be that brand or anything, anything with a bit of wattage will do.

So, here goes:

Say.. you work from home and you only have an hour of free time to take care of lunch and have a 20 minute walk because that is so good for you?

Get for 1 person:
Bit of butter or oil
1 small onion
2 tomatoes
small potato
1 tablespoon of tomato paste
stock cube
250-300 ml hot water
blue cheese

Chop onion, melt butter, insert onion and glaze, in meantime chop potato in small chunks, add to onions and stir, then chop tomatoes in chunks and add with stock cube, water + bit of white pepper, no salt and bring to the boil while stirring.

Then turn heat down so it is just simmering and go for your afternoon healthy walk. (20mins)

Come back, turn heat off, stick blender in and whiz until it is nice and smooth without bits.
Add crumbs of blue cheese to taste.

So.. why is this such a good recipe?

• Dishes, only 1 pan, a choppingboard and knife and the blender stick all easy to clean. (okay to be fair all the plastic involved will turn into a nice orangie colour but eh!
• Licopene! Or Lycopene? Don't know really.. but that is the red stuff, apparently that is so healthy for one because this fights all sorts of nasty cancerthingies and is apparently especially very good for men to ward off prostate cancer...
• Low calories, even though there is butter and cheese involved, the butter is needed to deal with the vegetables and actually get out of them wat you can on the vitamine front, the cheese is so strong that you will only have a little bit but a huge taste experience so you won't need any extra salt.
  
• The texture of the soup is out of this world, so smooth because the blender also adds some air to it, the potato works in a starchy way and links it all together.
• Cheap, Tesco sells value tomatoes, onions are dirt cheap as well as potato's and even the blue cheese I bought for only 89 pence in Tesco and will last me for loads of soup experiences.
• It has all the major foodgroups, protein from the cheese, fat from the butter, carbs from the potato and of course the great things from the veg. How is that for a balanced meal!

And the great thing is that you can make soup in the same way with any vegetable you like, I think I have done a few in this blog already like broccoli soup with sunflower pits, cauliflower leek soup with bacon and such.

The trick to all soups is, butter, onion, potato and any vegetable you like, then cook for 20 minutes and when you are a smooth soup fan like me, whiz it all together and enjoy!

(Any other soup recipes always welcome!)