Tag Archives: soup

Vegetable “Noodles”

A few people have been asking about the “noodle” dishes I’ve been Instagramming and which feature prominently in my food ideas for intermittent fasting. The basic idea is this: take any noodle or soup recipe for which you’d use pasta noodles and use julienned vegetables instead. You get the twirl-with-a-fork pleasure of pasta with fewer calories, more nutrients and, some might argue, better flavour, especially when you use really good vegetables. Soup in particular is very handy when fasting as liquid is very filling but low calorie.

My essential tool for the job is the julienne vegetable peeler pictured below. My mom gave this to me years ago and I have no idea of the brand, but an Amazon search for julienne peeler will turn up a few options (this Kuhn Rikon Julienne Peeler looks pretty flash).

The vegetables I julienne most frequently are carrots and zucchini, and occasional parsnips. Occasionally some swede (rutabaga) will come along for the ride.

Vegetable “Noodle” Soups

Here I tend to err on the Asian side. The two soups I make most regularly are Miso “Noodle” Soup and Vegetarian Pho; both are extremely quick and easy to make and basically work like this:

Make a delicious stock
Add some vegetables if you’d like: broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, bell peppers, mushrooms, potato, pumpkin (be sure to be sensitive to cooking times and add those long-to-cook veggies ahead of the rest)
Add your vegetable noodles
Serve with your favourite garnishes

Miso soup can be as simple as mixing miso and water, then adding soy sauce and sesame oil to taste. I usually opt for white miso and follow this recipe as a guide: Basic Miso Soup.

Vegetarian Pho requires a bit more work, so I make the broth ahead and freeze it. This recipe on the New York Times is my go-to: Simple Vegetarian Pho Broth.

In both cases, I heat up the stock to a simmer, then add my vegetables, and try to be sensitive to their cooking times. (Broccoli cooks faster than cauliflower so I’d add the cauliflower ahead of the broccoli.) I like my vegetables crisp, so the vegetable “noodles” always go in last and only get a minute or two, otherwise they go floppy and their flavours disappear into the rest of the soup. If using leafy vegetables like spinach, I’d also add this with the “noodles”.

My favourite garnishes: spring onions, firm tofu (fried or raw), fresh herbs (mint, basil and cilantro are good), sliced fresh chilli, Sriracha sauce (who doesn’t love Sriracha?).

Vegetable “Noodle” Salad Bowls

As with noodle soups, noodle salads can also be adapted to use vegetable “noodles”. I absolutely adore this Noodle Salad with Lemongrass Dressing, pictured below, made with vegetable “noodles” instead of rice noodles.

Vegetable “Noodle” Pasta

I got the idea from this zucchini pasta recipe. You can make it with a vegetable peeler rather than a julienne peeler, making for “noodles” that are almost fettuccine like. The original recipe uses the zucchini raw, but I like to cook it for just a moment, with a few added carrots because I love them. And as with many foods in life, I like this one topped with a poached egg:

Other Vegetable “Noodle” Ideas

One of my favourite comfort foods: take thinly sliced onions and cabbage and sautee slowly until absolutely sweet and soft. Add carrots and cook for a little longer. Season with salt and pepper. Serve topped with a poached egg and garnished with smoked paprika. A little avocado on the side doesn’t go amiss.

Another great candidate is pad thai, and I’m somewhat addicted to Rachel Demuth’s Vegetarian Pad Thai recipe (alas, I’ve always devoured it greedily before getting around to taking a picture that doesn’t suck – if you don’t mind a sucky picture, then look at this one).

Some of you may be looking for Calorie counts on these recipes but I’m afraid that despite my mathematics degree, I haven’t done the math (my mode of fasting avoids calorie counting if possible). From time to time I clock the numbers and can say that the soups tend to be very low calorie (200-300) depending on how you garnish them. Other dishes can tend more towards the 400-500 calorie range. It all depends on what you add to it. But a really useful tool I find for quickly adding up calories is CalorieCount’s Recipe Analyzer.

Alright, hit me with some more vegetable “noodle” ideas. Why haven’t I made “spaghetti” and “meatballs” yet? Maybe that would be just a bit TOO much food pretending to be other food that it’s not. And perhaps that’s why most of these dishes aren’t very Italiany. Regardless, I’m open to suggestions, and the julienne peeler is open for business!

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Minted Pea and Watercress Soup

The watercress returns, because let’s face it, there are only so many watercress and apple smoothies one can drink. The rest went into this soup, adapted from this recipe on Channel 4: Minted Pea and Watercress Soup.

I used stock in place of soy milk, and didn’t bother straining out any solids: all hail the Vitamix and its ability to puree even the toughest of pea membranes and watercress stems into the finest puree. The soup is vegan, until you add the boiled egg, which makes it altogether awesome (I’m sure toasted sourdough croutons would also work a treat). On a whim, I also added some mixed seeds I toasted in a dry pan then tossed with a little soy sauce. This might be my new favourite soup garnish!

I particularly enjoyed this soup for breakfast, and as we move into winter, I expect to see more savoury breakfasts arrive in soup form.

Recipe: Minted Pea and Watercress Soup

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Carrot and Fennel Soup

Few ingredients in this soup – it’s all about the fennel and carrot flavours. And its brothy goodness made it the perfect comfort food for this soldier who’s feeling a little run down by the battle of life. I make it sound so dramatic. Really just have a mild case of the stomach flu.

I made this with barley instead of the wild rice called for in the recipe. Worked a charm.

Recipe: Carrot and Fennel Soup (101 Cookbooks)

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Avocado Tortilla Soup in the Vitamix

I’ve owned my Vitamix for a couple years now and have never regretted the purchase. Still, for all my fondness of the machine, I’ve never pushed its limits, particularly the claim that the motor is so powerful it can make hot soup. This week, spurred on by Helen‘s experiments, I decided to test it out with this Avocado Tortilla Soup from the Vitamix Cookbook.

The Vitamix cookbook isn’t the kind of cookbook that really inspires confidence. Mostly due to the pictures: it’s just so old school. But I was willing to give it a shot.

Here’s how it goes:

Avocado Tortilla Soup

Ingredients

2 cups vegetable broth
2 tomatoes, quartered
⅓ bunch cilantro (coriander)
1 garlic clove, peeled
½ teaspoon pepper
½ avocado, pitted and peeled
½ lime, peeled
½ cup black beans
½ cup corn
2 oz tortilla chips

Instructions

Place broth, tomatoes, cilantro, garlic, pepper, avocado and lime in Vitamix. Select Variable 1. Turn machine quickly to Variable 10 and then to High. Blend for 6-7 minutes. Reduce speed to Variable 2 and remove lid plug. Drop in corn, beans and chips and blend for 10 seconds.
Serve with lime, cilantro and avocado garnish.

I skipped the black beans and corn (pulverised corn just seemed wrong and I didn’t have black beans). Instead of tortilla chips, I sliced up strips of corn tortilla and pan-fried them with sweetcorn, a bit of salt and my sister’s kick-ass homemade taco seasoning mix.

Result: the Vitamix DOES indeed heat water to the point of near boiling. After six minutes of high-speed blending, the soup was done, and steaming HOT. Also surprising: the soup is pretty good. I can see why they add the corn – it adds necessary sweetness to offset the acidic lime and tomato. But I preferred the corn left as whole kernels. I can’t imagine adding black beans to this – it would rob the brilliant colour. Maybe red lentils or channa dal? Maybe.

The only downside is that the Vitamix is freakin’ LOUD. This may throw a snag in Helen’s and my brainstorm to do a Vitamix supperclub. A Vitamix on full throttle is very antisocial. But let me tell you, the soup that comes out the other end: smooth as silk.

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Curried Beetroot Soup at The Chequers

Had a “business lunch” at The Chequers today, a comfy little gastro pub in Bath that does a very good lunch set meal deal (£12 for two courses, £15 for three). I ended up sharing the two courses with my business friend: she took the main, and I took the curried beetroot soup. In the words of my biz pal: “amazeballs”.

The bonus: the kind gentleman who served us explained to me how I can recreate this orgasmic soup at home. Let’s see if I can remember what he said:

The ingredients:

~6 cooked beetroot (boiled or roasted – roasted is better)
1/2 onion
4 cloves of garlic
cumin seeds
coriander seeds
caraway seeds (the “magic” ingredient)
turmeric
double cream

The method:

Blitz the cooked beetroot in a food processor to a fine paste. Cook up the onion and garlic with the seeds and turmeric, then add the beetroot puree and cook for a little while. Then pass everything through a muslin cloth. Stir in double cream to taste. Serve, garnished a bit of olive oil or double cream and fresh coriander.

Celeriac Soup with Parsley Walnut Pesto

I would probably have nothing to do with celeriac if it weren’t for the organic box. But last week, it arrived, and I kept it right at the very front of my fridge so I’d be forced to remember its existence and actually do something with it.

I made this soup because it was dead simple and cream-free (nothing against cream, but I just don’t like to eat a bowl full of cream for lunch because it makes me feel like, well, a bowl full of cream). And having made this soup, I can now safely confirm that I am a mega huge celeriac fan – this soup was freakishly good.

Leek, celeriac, celery, onion and potato get sauteed in a bit of butter (or oil for vegans), then boiled in stock, then blitzed – pretty basic, but so beyond special. I do think the Vitamix had a role to play in its amazingness – the super-power blender pureed the boiled vegetables into the silkiest soup ever – it definitely didn’t need cream.

The parsley pesto is also a win – delicious, vegan and quite useful beyond the soup. Today I mixed it with some cooked pearl barley to use in some stuffed portobello mushrooms – dinner was ready in 20 minutes. And with a stash of celeriac soup in the freezer, I’m totally all set for quick meals of amazement, particularly lunch, which doesn’t usually lend itself to full-scale cookathons.

Celeriac Soup with Parsley Walnut Pesto

Adapted from River Cottage’s recipes for celeriac soup and parsley walnut pesto. The soup is pretty darn good on its own, but the pesto certainly makes it extra special.

Ingredients

For the soup:

25g Butter (or oil for vegans!)
1 Celeriac, peeled and cubed
1 Potato, peeled and cubed
2 celery stalks, sliced
1 Leek, trimmed, washed and roughly sliced
1 Onion, peeled and roughly chopped
1 Garlic clove, sliced
1 litre vegetable stock

For the parsley pesto:

100g walnuts, toasted
1 fat garlic clove garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
50g flat-leaf parsley leaves
About 150ml good olive oil (or extra-virgin rapeseed oil)
Juice of ½ lemon
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

For the pesto:

Put the walnuts and garlic into a food processor and process until finely chopped – but still with some granular texture. Add the cheese and process again briefly. Add the parsley and blitz again to chop the leaves, then begin trickling in the oil, while the processor runs. Stop when you have a sloppy purée. Taste, season as necessary with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Store in the fridge – if you completely cover the surface of the pesto with oil so all air is excluded, it should keep for a couple of weeks.

For the soup:

Melt the butter in a large, heavy-based pot over a medium-low heat. Add the celeriac, leek, potato, garlic and onion, season generously, and gently sweat the vegetables until they’re all starting to soften (this will take about 10 minutes).

Add the stock, bring the soup up to a boil, turn down the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes or until the celeriac is completely tender. Liquidise until smooth, return to the pan and reheat over a medium flame. Just before serving, check the soup for seasoning and serve with a drizzle of pesto.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 20-30 minutes

Yield: 4 servings

Per serving of soup (not including pesto: 198 Calories | 6 grams Fat | 33.1 grams Carbohydrates | 5.5 grams Protein | 6.6 grams Fiber

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Carrot and Swede Soup with Coriander and Creme Fraiche

It’s three days before I fly to Chicago for the holidays, and I’m on a mission to use up everything in my fridge so I don’t have to throw anything away. I’m down to the tricky vegetables: swede, beetroot and a mountain of carrots.

Some of the carrots (along with a cucumber and some cauliflower) are going into a Piccalilli. The rest I turned into this soup, an obvious riff on the classic carrot and coriander soup. But you know what – I think I prefer this version with a bit of swede added to the mix. It tones down the sweetness of the carrots and works very well with the flavour of ground coriander. I stole the creme fraiche idea from Delia (good old Delia). It’s a keeper.

This recipe got me through all of my carrots and half a swede. Tonight, I tackle the beetroot.

Adapted from Delia’s recipe for carrot and coriander soup. There are no hard and fast rules on the proportion of carrots and swede to use – just go with whatever’s convenient. I used roughly 600g swede and 300g carrots for this.

Ingredients

2 lb (900 g) carrots and swede, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 oz (25 g) butter
1 small clove garlic, crushed
2 pints (1.2 litres) vegetable stock
3 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander, plus 6 small sprigs, to garnish
3 tablespoons crème fraîche
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Dry-roast the coriander seeds in a small frying pan over a medium heat, stirring and tossing them around for 1-2 minutes, or until they begin to look toasted and start to jump in the pan. Tip them into a pestle and mortar and crush them coarsely.
Heat the butter in a large saucepan, then add the chopped carrots and swede, garlic and three-quarters of the crushed coriander seeds. Stir the vegetables in the butter and crushed seeds, then cover the pan and let them cook over a gentle heat until they are beginning to soften – about 10 minutes.
Add the stock and season with salt and pepper and bring everything up to the boil.
Reduce the heat to low and simmer for a further 15-20 minutes, partially covered, or until all the vegetables are tender.
Leave the soup to cool a little, then liquidise the whole lot in batches. Return the purée to the pan and stir in the chopped fresh coriander and 2 tablespoons of the crème fraîche.
Re-heat the soup, then taste to check the seasoning and serve in warmed bowls and garnish each one with a swirl of crème fraîche, a sprinkling of the remaining toasted coriander seeds and a sprig of fresh coriander.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 40 minutes

Yield: 4 servings

Per serving: 163 Calories | 8.2 grams Fat | 21.3 grams Carbohydrates | 3.6 grams Protein | 6.0 grams Fiber