Soups

During the cold winter months, there's nothing more I love than a big bowl of homemade soup. Partly because it's so filling and nutritious. Partly because a really big bowl has less than 400 calories!

It's also really easy to make - mainly just boiling a pot of vegetables, adding some carbs like lentils or potatoes (both white and sweet), a few spices and herbs, plus broth for flavour and protein, in the form of fish, chicken or tofu. None of the soups I make have cream or added salt. I always ensure I use reduced sodium broth and no-salt-added canned tomatoes. Natural sugars from carrots, apple and sweet potato are perfect sweeteners. Some of the soups below are thickened with a cup of almond milk or some cashew cream (blended cashews in water).

When making soup at home, a hand-held stick blender is an essential tool. Once cooled, the soup can be bagged up and frozen for future meals.

Soups

Broccoli and Dill Soup

Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

Butternut Squash Soup

Carrot and Coriander Soup

Cauliflower and Chickpea Soup

Chicken and Potato Chili Soup

Indian Spiced Lentil and Vegetable Soup

Kale and Apple Soup

Miso Green Tea and Ginger Tofu Soup

Miso Soup

Moroccan Lentil Chicken Soup

Sweet Potato and Lentil Soup

White Bean Soup

Broccoli and Dill Soup

I'm on a roll with winter soup recipes...
The one below includes broccoli and white potatoes, with a couple of tablespoons of dill (no spices this time!).

If you prefer sweet potatoes and/or lentils, try these other soup ideas:
Indian Spiced Lentil and Vegetable Soup
Sweet Potato and Lentil Soup

Broccoli and Dill Soup
Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:
- 110g / 4oz onion, chopped
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- 110g / 4oz (2 stalks) celery
- 330g / 12oz potato, chopped
- 720ml / 24floz water
- 315g / 11oz broccoli, chopped (including stalks)
- 480ml / 16floz water
- 2tbsp dried dill or dill paste
- 240ml / 8floz almond milk, unsweetened

Method:
Add the chopped onion, garlic and celery to a saucepan, sprayed with cooking oil, and cook for a couple of minutes.
Add the chopped potatoes and 3 cups (720ml) water. Cook for 15 minutes.

Add the chopped broccoli, dill and another 2 cups (480ml) water. Cover with a lid and cook for 10 minutes.

Blend vegetables with a hand-held blender or in a food processor, stirring in the almond milk.

ENJOY!

Nutritional Information:

Carrot and Sweet Potato Pancakes

These sweet potato pancakes taste great and are quite versatile. Add any vegetables and spices. The sweet potato is a staple carbohydrate that's sweet, low in fat, and gives you plenty of energy for the day.

When compared with white potatoes, both are packed with fibre and are full of nutrients, especially if you leave the skins on. Sweet potatoes are full of Vitamin A and C. Perfect for cold winter weather!
You can read more about the benefits of sweet and white potatoes online.

Carrot and Sweet Potato Pancakes
Makes 4, 2 pancakes per serving

Ingredients:
- 360g / 13oz sweet potato
- 90g / 3oz onions, chopped
- 120g / 4oz carrots, grated
- 1tsp coriander, ground
- 1tsp turmeric powder
- 1tsp cumin
- 40g / 1.4oz oat flour (old fashioned oats food processed)
- 120ml / 4floz water

Method:

• Microwave or bake the sweet potato until very soft and mashable.
• In a pan, sprayed with cooking oil, cook the onions and carrots until soft. 
• Add the spices and mix for 30 seconds.
• In a small bowl, mix the oat flour and water together.
• In a separate bowl, combine the mashed sweet potato and onion mixture with the flour/water batter, adding a little extra water to make them just moist, if needed.
• Heat a pan, sprayed with cooking oil, and cook four patties/pancakes. 
• Flip the pancakes after several minutes.
• Serve with green vegetables. ENJOY!

Nutritional Information:

Tomato Ketchup vs. Tomato Paste

I can never eat chunky, thick-cut chips (US: French fries) without dipping them in tomato ketchup.
If there's no ketchup available, my desire to eat chips soon disappears. Therefore, one has to ask, do I prefer to eat chips or ketchup? Like Gin and Tonic, the two go perfectly well together but seem unappealing by themselves.

Unless you're eating the really thin-cut, heavily salted French fries - the kind they serve in fast food restaurants - that taste really good (because of the oil used for frying and the salt used for coating) but don't actually contain very much potato. With a thicker chip, there's more need for a dipping sauce to balance out the starchy bulk of potato.

In my humble opinion, ketchup wins hands down. Chips don't taste the same with brown sauce or mayo. I think ketchup has become such a popular sauce, not because of its tomato base, but because of the added sweetness from refined sugars.

In my quest to learn more about:
1). what goes into foods (read the ingredients list),
2). the nutritional make-up and value of foods (read the nutritional information), and
3). a natural, healthier alternative to processed foods (ingredient substitution),
I discovered all three 'lessons' can be applied to the following food: Tomato ketchup!

I knew tomato ketchup contained added sugar, and some additional ingredients like vinegar and salt (all to make it taste good), but I didn't realize just how much? I then discovered tomato paste and was surprised to find out just how good it tasted and even happier knowing that it was a simple natural food source I could substitute whenever I wanted to eat tomato ketchup.

Below are the ingredients and nutritional information for both tomato ketchup and paste. See the difference and give tomato paste a try when you’re next indulging on a few chips! Just mix 1tbsp water with 2tbsp tomato paste.

There are eight ingredients in tomato ketchup:

• Tomato concentrate made from vine ripened tomatoes
• High fructose corn syrup
• Distiller vinegar
• Corn syrup
• Salt
• Less than 2% of onion powder, garlic powder, natural flavors

At least the main, largest ingredient is tomato. However, the second biggest ingredient is high fructose corn syrup. Corn syrup is also the fourth largest component of ketchup - just in case the HFCS wasn't sweet enough!!! No wonder ketchup tastes so good; it is full of sugar and salt.

Tomato paste just has one ingredient:

• Tomato pulp

Tomato ketchup (L), Tomato Paste (R)

Nutritional Information:

Tomato Ketchup

Tomato Paste

If you just compare the nutritional labels, a quick glance will show little difference between the two. In fact, you may just look at the calorie count and decide ketchup is better because it has fewer calories than the paste. However, when reviewing the number of calories, you also have to read the serving/portion size. The labels above give double the serving of tomato paste for 10 extra calories. The added salt and sugars in the tomato ketchup are clearly visible in the measurements of sodium (190mg) and sugars (4g). The tomato paste has 3g sugars but this is sugar naturally found in tomatoes. There's even 1g fiber and 2g protein from the tomato pulp.

P.s. In the UK, nutritional labels have to display the 100g criteria in addition to the per serving measurement. This allows consumers to easily compare ‘apples to apples’.