Entries from May 2009 ↓

I’m sick. I have a snotty head and a sore throat. So, last night I made soup.  I don’t know how many calories are in it - I don’t really care just now. I’ll work it out another day and update this post then.

Using the The Soup Formula which I mentioned in my last post, and plagiarising little bits from several different recipes off taste.com.au, I came up with this little bowl of goodness. Give it a shot - it’s really yummy if I do say so myself :)

Ingredients

• Olive Oil
• Fresh Rosemary
• 2 leeks, chopped roughly (my friend, chef extraordinaire Sam Green-Armytage, told me to use all the white and about half the green parts)
• about a kilo of mushrooms, roughly chopped (There were only two types at my local supermarket. I chose the field mushrooms over the little button mushrooms cause I thought they might have a stronger flavour)
• 1 litre of vegetable stock (i used the gravox brand because it had less ingredients that I didn’t recognise than the other brand)
• Flour
• Sour Light Cream.
• Salt and Pepper

Methods

• Heat the rosemary and olive oil together gently to infuse the oil with the rosemary flavour.
• Add the oil to a big stock pot and saute the leeks until they are translucnt.
• Add the mushrooms and cook them down for 5 minutes or so.
• Coat the vegetables with flour.
• Cover the vegetables with the stock. Add some water if there’s not enough, or if the stock is a bit to salty or strong.
• Simmer for 30 minutes.
• Remove from heat, then get out your handheld blender and go to town on the mushrooms. Keep blending until the soup is all smooth. This will be messy. deal with it.
• return the soup to a gentle heat, don’t let it boil. stir in about two tablespoons of sour cream, or more if you like your soup really creamy.
• Add salt and Pepper to taste - you probably won’t need salt if you used store bought stock, but a bit of pepper is good.

Serve with a nice fresh crusty bread roll. Dish the rest up into containers and freeze for later, pack some for your lunch tomorrow.  Oh, and do something nice - take some over to your elderly neighbour - they’ll love it!

Now that it’s getting a little colder down here in Oz, thoughts turn to comforty hot food, like stews, casseroles and soups.  The great thing about all of these is that you can freeze them up and pull out a serving whenever you need to.

I’ve been searching for soup recipes on the net, and I came across Girly Mae’s Soup Formula.  I thought it was so inspired that it deserved it’s own post.

The formula is so simple, but you can do so many things with it.

Aromatics + Featured Vegetable + Liquid + herbs and seasonings. Simmer 30 minutes, season and Puree.

Let me break it down.

• Start with a big pot and add some olive oil.
• Saute your Aromatics - Onions, leeks, garlic. Anyone know of any others?
• Add your featured vegetable. Mushrooms, cauliflower squash, capsicum, carrott - the list is endless.
• Ad enough liquid to cover the vegetables. Use chicken or vegetable stock, water, wine, whatever you like.
• Add any herbs or other flavourings you like.
• Simmer for 30 minutes
• Puree, add salt and pepper to taste, and serve with fresh crusty bread.

How perfect is that? There are so many combinations you can use.  Last night I made the most awesome mushroom soup ever - but that deserves it’s own post too!

I’m back from a fabulous weekend in Melbourne, where I went with my Mum and sister and a friend of my sister’s. It was very productive, we did lots of shopping, and managed to come home with a wedding dress for my sister. And of course, we saw Wicked!! It was just as good as I remember, I just love that musical!

Of course, we also ate - a LOT. I missed my usual Sunday weigh in this week as we were away, but this morning I was up by a kilo over my last weigh in. I expect that a lot of that is fluid and will go away on it’s own.  But I may have to be a bit strict to stay below the 70 mark for next week’s weigh in!

This weekend I weighed back in the 60’s, finally! For those of you who aren’t keepng track, I was under 70 five weigh ins ago, but then jumped up to 71.6 and it’s taken me three weigh ins to get back to where I started! That’s a little depressing.

Anyway, after my great weigh in I took the concept of a ‘free day’ a little too far. Now I feel all bleugh and yucky. And very tired, even though I got a good nights sleep. So for the rest of this week (until I go away on friday, YAY!!) I will have to be super goo and do heaps of exercise. Sigh. Off to the gym at lunch time for me!