Stressed Mum

Posts Tagged ‘low fat’

What better lunch can there be on a cold day than home made soup? Of course it can take a while but not with my new Vitamix blender.

I bought the blender just before Christmas after watching a demonstration at the Good Food Show. It is big and powerful. It makes light work of making smoothies with as much ice as you like. It’s fab for houmous and makes frozen desserts in minutes but the most amazing thing is watching it make hot soup from raw ingredients in a matter of minutes. There is no heating element, the soup is heated by friction from the blades. Take a look at the soup I made today.

I started by washing the raw ingredients and throwing them into the blender, whole or halved. There was a slice of onion, a garlic clove, a couple of small carrots, a couple of baby plum tomatoes, a stick of celery, a slice of butternut squash, a slice of cabbage and a mushroom. With some water in the bottom of the blender, some powdered bouillon, chilli powder and cumin it was switched on and turned to the highest speed.

After five minutes there was steam coming out of the top of the blender and it was switched to a low speed while I threw in a couple of spoonfuls of red kidney beans and sweetcorn. Ten seconds later I switched off and lunch was ready.

The soup was delicious and healthy too! There was hardly any preparation, no stirring and the Vitamix is cleaned in two minutes by running it with some hot water and washing up liquid.

I’m still trying to eat healthily most of the time.

Needing a quick healthy lunch I decided to make a quick butter bean dip to have with pitta bread and carrot sticks. I used a 400g tin of butter beans but if you have more time you can soak and cook your own. I added the juice of half a lemon, 2 generous tablespoons of low fat creme fraiche, a crushed clove of garlic and a heaped teaspoon of curry powder. I whizzed mine in the food processor attachment of my Kenwood Chef but it can easily be mixed by hand. Make it smooth or chunky depending on your preference. A generous handful of chopped coriander finished it off and it made a delicious lunch with toasted pitta bread, carrot sticks and baby plum tomatoes. Low fat, healthy and delicious, perfect.