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Soup Maker Recipe: Christmassy Leek and Potato Soup

Sometimes, it’s nice to have something warming to eat when it’s cold outside, and soup is always one of my go to things to make for anyone.  This recipe is nice and simple, and gives a slight twist on the traditional leek and potato soup…  Enjoy.

Of course, you don’t need a soupmaker to make this.  It makes just as well in a pan, but you need to watch it a lot more and add some more water if it looks like it’s boiling off.

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Soup Maker Recipe: Christmassy Leek and Potato Soup

Lesley Smith
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 21 minutes
Total Time 31 minutes
Servings 4 -6 Bowls

Ingredients
  

  • 500 g Potato chopped.
  • 100 g Carrot chopped.
  • 100 g Leek chopped.
  • 2 Teaspoons Rapeseed Oil.
  • 1 Vegetable Stock Cube.
  • Half Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon.
  • Half Teaspoon Ground Nutmeg.
  • 2 Tablespoons Light Soft Cheese - I used Philadelphia.
  • Ground White Pepper & Salt to taste.
  • Water.
  • 1 Lettuce Leaf Half Teaspoon of Ground Cinnamon and a Teaspoon of Dukkah to serve.

Instructions
 

  • Chop your vegetables into smallish cube sized shapes.

  • Saute your chopped leek in the soupmaker with your rapeseed oil. After a minute or two, add the vegetable stock cube, your cinnamon and nutmeg, carrots, salt and pepper and continue to stir as they soften.

  • In another minute or so, add potatoes and continue to stir, to ensure they don't burn, then add a little water and your soft cheese.

  • Fill your soupmaker with water, and stir until the soft cheese has melted into your mix, making your water a cloudy white colour.

  • Ensure you top up with water, to below the maximum fill line and above the minimum.

  • Ensure you have mixed well.

  • Put the lid on properly.

  • Choose the smooth setting.

  • Serve as prettily as you like.
  • Serve with a chopped lettuce leave, a sprinkling of cinnamon and a pinch of Dukkah seeds.

Test

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Chicken Dippers from Fresh Fillets

Making great chicken dippers at home is just so easy to do.  All it needs is a little flour, a couple of eggs, chicken fillets, or a few chicken breasts chopped up, and ending up with breadcrumbs or ruskoline to finish them off.

I haven’t added the actual method for this, as it’s pretty self-explanatory.  You can see it in the video, but simply crack the eggs, beat them, and dip the chicken first in the flour, then the egg and finally the crumb coating.

Cook how you prefer, either deep-fried, shallow fried, or oven baked, then sprinkle with chopped parsley.

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High Protein Sweet Stuff

This came about from sheer desperation to get lots of protein in, with only 450 ish calories left for the day.  64g Protein for 487 Calories.  Eat it at once, or split into two, for two high protein desserts.  Lush.

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High Protein Sweet Stuff

Lesley Smith
Prep Time 2 minutes
Total Time 2 minutes
Course High Protein
Servings 1 -2
Calories 487 kcal

Ingredients
  

  • 200 g Skyr plain.
  • 200 g Skyr strawberry.
  • 25 g Vanilla protein whey.
  • 5 g Chopped nuts.
  • Pinch Flaxseed.

Instructions
 

  • Add the skyr, and whey to a bowl, and mix well. You'll need to mix to almost a whip for a while, to smooth out all those whey lumps for this to work.

  • Transfer to a pretty dish, slice the banana on top, sprinkle on the chopped nuts, and a pinch of flaxseed.

 

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High Protein, High Energy Balls

Making things ourselves, especially when it comes to protein bars is a no brainer.  Otherwise, they cost a fortune in the shops and your hard earned cash can disappear pretty fast.   Make these higher protein, by reducing the coconut flour and increasing the protein powder, or adding a little peanut butter.

I prefer the stronger coconut taste, and often take one of these, or some dried mango on a run with me, for energy over the 10k mark.

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No Cook, High Protein, High Energy Balls

Lesley Smith
Prep Time 10 minutes
Total Time 10 minutes
Course High Protein, Snacks
Servings 15
Calories 160 kcal

Ingredients
  

  • 150 g Coconut Flour.
  • 150 g Myprotein Chocolate Protein Powder.
  • 100 g Chopped Nuts.
  • Approx 250ml Milk.
  • 6, or 120g Medjool Dates stoned and crown removed.
  • Extra Coconut Flour for dusting.

Instructions
 

  • Put 150g coconut flour, and 150g protein powder into a bowl. Add the chopped nuts.

  • Stir the ingredients until well combined.

  • Put 100ml milk into a bowl, and shred the Medjool dates into the milk. Mash down with a fork until well mixed. You might need to add a little more milk.

  • Add the mushed date/milk mix to your dry ingredients and mix well. Add more milk, a tablespoon at a time, and get your hands into the bowl to pull it all together, a bit like scone batter. Add enough milk to have all the mix formed into a large ball.

  • Dust your surface with coconut flour and form small balls with the large one. Roll each one in the coconut flour to give a lovely white surface.

  • Pop in the freezer for an hour, then keep in the fridge until ready to eat.

 

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Soupmaker Recipe: Cream of Pumpkin Soup

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Better Quality Video is the second one, but it is longer.

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Cream of Pumpkin Soup

Lesley Smith
Pumpkin Soup isn't just for Halloween. Enjoy it any time of the year.
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 21 minutes
Total Time 31 minutes
Servings 4 -6 Bowls

Ingredients
  

  • 400 g Pumpkin chopped.
  • 100 g Carrot chopped.
  • 200 g Onion chopped.
  • 2 Vegetable Stock Cubes.
  • 200 ml Milk.
  • 1 Garlic clove or Garlic frozen cube.
  • Salt and Pepper to taste.
  • Water.
  • 2 Tablespoons Rapeseed Oil.

Instructions
 

  • Put your chopped onion and rapeseed oil into your machine if you have a saute version, or do the sauteeing on the stove. Lightly fry your onions until soft.

  • Add the garlic and stock cubes, and finish the saute, by adding carrots and pumpkin. Stir and switch off the saute button.

  • Add in milk, water and salt/pepper to taste. Ensure the level of ingredients and liquid is below the maximum and above the minimum fill marks.

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  • Stir well, and ensure the lid is on tight.

  • Select the smooth setting.

  • I served with a little parsley.

 

 

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Soup Maker Recipe: Cream of Peppercorn Pumpkin Soup

Did you know raw pumpkin seeds are actually good for you?  I only found out when I was looking for more ways to add protein into my life.  I’ve tended to mostly roast my seeds before eating, but it’s not necessary at all. Straight from the pumpkin, these little pale seeds also have iron, potassium, phosphorous, zinc and magnesium.  Don’t throw away those seeds when you’re carving up your pumpkins this year – get them in your bellies somehow. You can use them in soups, salads, sandwiches, porridge, cereal, pasta and even curries and stews.

I like to add seeds at the end for extra crunch.  I haven’t tried adding them at the cooking stage, but I’ll be trying that over the next week before Halloween.  We’ve ended up with far too much pumpkin to use…

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Cream of Peppercorn Pumpkin Soup

Lesley Smith
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 21 minutes
Total Time 31 minutes
Course Soup Maker
Cuisine Soup
Servings 4 -6 Bowls

Ingredients
  

  • 460 g Pumpkin peeled, chopped.
  • 100 g Onion diced.
  • 130 g Leek chopped.
  • 2 Vegetable Stock Cubes.
  • 2 Teaspoons Ground Peppercorns. I used rainbow peppercorns.
  • 1 Teaspoon Ground Nutmeg.
  • Salt & Pepper to Taste.
  • Water.

Instructions
 

  • Saute your onions in a little oil if you wish. I didn't this time round, as I was in a bit of a hurry.

  • Add all your ingredients, apart from the stock cubes to the soupmaker.

  • Top up with water, to above the minimum and below the maximum levels.

  • Crumble the stock cubes over the top, and mix well with a wooden spoon.

  • Make sure your lid in on properly.

  • Choose the smooth setting.

  • At the end of the cycle, I used my blend setting for another 10 seconds to purée the soup even more. Pumpkin can need a little longer to break down than other vegetables.

 

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Pressure Cooker Soup: Broccoli, Sweetcorn & Asparagus Spears

It had to happen, didn’t it?  Soup in a Pressure Cooker from me….

This is an Instant Pot Recipe, or the 7 in 1 Pressure Cookers that do it all for us.

I imagine most pressure cookers work the same, and this is the first soup recipe in my brand spanking new machine, bought this week from Costco.  There are times when I’ve got need of a larger pot of soup than my soup maker, but I still don’t want to spend the time standing over the stove.  It helped that my pressure cooker has a soup setting, and I was keen to make the most of it.

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Pressure Cooker Soup: Broccoli, Sweetcorn & Asparagus Spears

Lesley Smith
Overall, broccoli and asparagus are the strongest flavours to come out in the soup. The taste of onion, leek and potato seem to blend into the green vegetables, giving a lovely texture that I didn't expect. I'd make this recipe x 1.5 or double it in future. This was just an orientation recipe that came out rather well. I'd also be tempted to stir in 50g of grated cheddar cheese at my next attempt with this.
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 35 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes
Course Pressure Cooker Soup Recipe
Cuisine Soup
Servings 6 - 8 Bowls

Ingredients
  

  • 100 g Asparagus Spears chopped.
  • 100 g Tenderstem Broccoli chopped. I remove leaves.
  • 200 g Onion diced.
  • 200 g Leek washed and chopped.
  • 100 g Sweetcorn. I used Niblets.
  • 50 ml Rapeseed oil.
  • 100 g Potatoes peeled and cubed.
  • 2 Vegetable Stock Cubes. I used Knorr.
  • 100 ml Milk.
  • 8 Instant Pot Cups Water.
  • Salt and Pepper.
  • 1 Clove Garlic.

Instructions
 

  • Add the rapeseed oil, onion, garlic, stock cubes and leek to the bottom of the Instant Pot pan, along with 1 cup of water. Set the machine to saute, and stir until the strong flavours are well combined. This took a few minutes for me.

  • Add the remaining ingredients, along with salt and pepper to your taste. IMPORTANT: Ensure you don't go over your pressure cooker maximum levels for high liquid content.

  • Stir the mixture and select the soup setting, which runs for 30 minutes.

  • Allow the pressure to release naturally.

  • Using an immersion blender, whizz away until you get the texture you are looking for.

  • Serve, or use the keep warm setting if you need to wait for a while.

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Soup Maker Recipe: Cream of Butternut Squash Soup

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Soup Maker Recipe: Cream of Butternut Squash Soup

Lesley Smith
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 21 minutes
Total Time 31 minutes
Course Soup Maker Recipe
Cuisine Soup
Servings 4 -6

Ingredients
  

  • 400 g Butternut Squash.
  • 150 g Leek chopped.
  • 150 g Onion chopped.
  • 200 ml Milk.
  • 2 Vegetable Stock Cubes.
  • Salt & Pepper.
  • 1 Teaspoon of Ginger spice.
  • Water.

Instructions
 

  • When you chop your butternut squash, leave the skin on. It makes the soup extra creamy in texture, but chop your pieces quite small, as butternut takes too long to cook if it's left in big chunks. The skin breaks down nicely for the smooth setting, but I'd probably remove it for a chunky soup.

  • Add all your ingredients to the soupmaker.

  • Top up with water, to above the minimum and below the maximum levels.

  • Crumble the stock cubes over the top, and mix well with a wooden spoon.

  • Add a dash of salt and pepper to taste.

  • Make sure your lid in on properly.

  • Choose the smooth setting.

 

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Budget Meals: Peas Pudding Recipe

A lot of us are watching the pennies right now, so making meals that are both healthy and filling can be challenging on a budget.  With few ingredients, and whatever is in your cupboard, adding things to split green peas is fairly simple.

This makes a fairly large batch, so unless your diners don’t eat large portions, halving the quantities might be a good idea.

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Peas Pudding Recipe

Lesley Smith
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 25 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 40 minutes
Course Mains
Servings 10

Ingredients
  

  • 250 g Green Split Peas Dried
  • 150 g Onion chopped.
  • 150 g Leek chopped.
  • 50 g Butter.
  • Water.
  • 3 Vegetable Stock Cubes.
  • Salt and Pepper.
  • Herbs of Your Choice.
  • 1 Crushed Clove of Garlic or 1 Cube of Frozen Garlic.
  • 200 g Bacon Turkey or Chicken Strips.

Instructions
 

  • Put the green split peas into a fairly large pan, with around 1.5 litres of water. Bring to the boil and let simmer for around 40 minutes. You need to keep a close eye, as the water can boil off pretty quickly. You may need to top up the water levels.

  • Drain the green split peas, then pop them back into the pan, add all the other ingredients and adding 1.5 litres of water again. Mix well, and bring to the boil, letting this simmer until the water reduces by about two thirds. Be careful you don't leave this alone as it will burn quickly if you do. I added a good measure of salt and pepper at this stage. Some people add basil and thyme, and even rosemary, but I know my boys wouldn't eat that, so I leave it out.

  • Add your slushy peas mix to a baking tray, and let it set in the oven for around 25 minutes, at 180 degrees C. Your oven might take slightly less time, or more. It won't set firmly at all, but will be easy to cut when it's ready.

  • I cook my meat separately, and add it to the top of the peas pudding in the last five minutes, before removing from the oven. Some people add it when it first goes into the oven, and cook it as part of the dish.

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Review: Abakus Dried Jujube Fruit (Red Dates)

I don’t choose to try things, unless I know my kidlets or I will actually use them, so two items came top of my list recently, one of them being the jujube fruit

I’m a date snob, in that the only ones I like are Medjool dates, and I eat loads of them in a month.  They stop me craving sweets, and as they taste so caramel like, I never feel the need to eat any sweets.  That’s why I said yes to trying the Jujube dried fruit.

Abakus Jujube

Image Courtesy of Abakus Foods

The Jujube fruit, from Abakus Foods, is known as a red date, and has been eaten in Asia for thousands of years.  Jujube tells me that it’s used in Chinese Medicine for vitality and wellbeing.  As a natural sweetener, it was worth a try, and I wondered if the dried Jujube fruit might be an alternative for my Medjool date obsession.  It’d be nice to have something slightly different.

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You know when you open a pack of sweets, and five minutes later the pack is empty, depsite resolving only to try a couple?  Yup, that was me.  Couldn’t stop popping these into my mouth.

They tasted sweet, quite dry and spongy, with a slightly nutty taste to me.  It’s very pleasant indeed.  I could quite easily eat these instead of sweets though, which is always a good thing when it comes to fruit.  At 289 calories per 100g, a whole pack from Abakus only weighs 40g, which is the perfect snack size.   At 115 calories for about 14 of these red dates, it’s a great snack for me.  They’re a source of antioxidants and have no added sugar.

I’m hoping I can find these easily in shops to be honest.  They lasted me longer than a packet of crisps.

Suggestions from Abakus are to enjoy as a snack, add to porridge, salad and soups, use in baked goods and add to smoothies.  The actual dates, I’d just eat as they are.  I did eat them as they were.  I wouldn’t need suggestions for how to use these, they’re among my new favourites.

Jujube Crisps jujube-crisps-2

Jujube Foods says these are crunchy, light and sweet.  I found them slightly chewy crunchy, but that was fine, as they’re really really good, and would be much better for me than a packet of crisps when I’ve got a craving.  They are slightly higher in calories at 350g per 100g or 72 calories per 20g pack.

They make a decent snack, and would look awesome as part of a party susan, if that’s even what they’re called nowadays, with the lovely bright red colour on the outside and the pale middle.

Jujube Powderjujube-powder

This would be fab for adding to smoothies, desserts and sweet baking.  I actually quite liked just eating the powder, as it’s more of a crumbled biscuity texture.

I’d quite like to see how it performed as the base for a cheesecake, but that could work out rather expensive, so perhaps I’d try it to reduce how much of a biscuit base I use.

What do I think?

I had a look to see where I could get some of these, but my local supermarket doesn’t stock them, so I’ll have to head to Abacus itself.  Keep an eye out for these on the shelves though, especially if you like dates, and would like to try one with a nutty flavour.   I ate both packets of dried fruit and the crisps at once sitting, since both packets were open.  I couldn’t help myself…….  I’d all good intentions of adding these to cooking, but they didn’t last long enough, although that’s fine at 187 calories for the two packs.  That’s a good sign in my world, especially when it’s a healthy food.

Disclaimer: Thanks to Abakus Foods for the review samples.

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Operation Clear Out the Cupboards Soup Recipe

One thing about taking an unplanned for holiday, is that it impacts on the budget, so this week, I’ve been carrying out operation clear out the cupboards, and the fridge and freezer.  It’s a great excuse to use up all those things lurking in the back and might never see the light of day, until they’re out of date by a year or two.  I can’t be the only one who finds things like that……

My first port of call was the freezer, for all those half or nearly empty bags of frozen stuff that I keep in reserve to add to other dishes.   Out came the frozen bags of butternut squash, sweet potato, carrots, onion and peas.  I have a fridge drawer full of cucumbers the man grew, and loads of tatties from the plot, so it was easy to make a lovely big pot of soup.

It’s not the prettiest soup in the world, but it filled a fair few bellies a couple of times over.  What can you make from the depths of your cupboard or freezer?

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Clear Out the Freezer Soup Recipe

Lesley Smith
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Total Time 1 hour
Course Soup
Servings 10 + Bowls

Ingredients
  

  • 500 g Butternut Squash cubed.
  • 500 g Potatoes peeled and cubed.
  • 180 g Onions finely chopped.
  • 200 g Cucumber peeled and cubed.
  • 250 g Leek washed and chopped.
  • 100 g Carrot sliced.
  • 200 g Petit Pois.
  • 2.4 Litres Water. 1,75 kettles full for me
  • 4 Vegetable Stock Cubes.
  • 1 Tablespoon Marmite.
  • Salt and Pepper to taste.

Instructions
 

  • Add all the ingredients to the pot. Many were frozen, and if I'd had more time, I'd have given the onions and leek a quick fry first, but on this occasion, I just lumped them all into a big pot.

  • Top up with your water, to above the level of your vegetables. You can add more water later if you need to, and some salt and pepper.

  • Stir well, and bring to the boil, then simmer gently until the vegetables are cooked.

  • Use a potato masher to mash down some of the vegetables, to thicken the soup slightly, but still leave enough to give the soup some body.

  • Add the frozen peas, and when they're completely defrosted and heated, your soup is cooked.

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Quick and Easy Millionaire Shortbread Recipe

This came about due to a child who opened a tin of caramel, just to put a couple of spoons on his ice-cream.  He then added some to a piece of cake, heated it in the microwave, and proceeded to sip it with a spoon.  In order to ensure he didn’t finish the entire tin and end up on a sugar high, I quickly grabbed what was left of the tin, around half, and scooped it into a little bowl while I smushed up some Digestives.

Would I use this kind of caramel again – you betcha – although the finished result is far more runny in the caramel stakes than caramel you actually cook up on the stove.  This was much faster and with the caramel cold, the chocolate can go almost immediately on the top.

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Quick and Easy Millionaire Shortbread Recipe

Lesley Smith
5 from 1 vote
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Total Time 20 minutes
Course Baking
Servings 8

Ingredients
  

  • Half Tin Caramel.
  • 8 Digestive Biscuits. I used Tesco.
  • 60 g Butter.
  • 200 g Chocolate. I used Tesco value milk chocolate as that's what I had. I could have got away with less chocolate.

Instructions
 

  • All I did here was smush the digestives in a small pan, with a steak tenderiser. It was fast, and much preferable to putting the biscuits into a bag and smushing them that way. Less mess and no chance of the bag bursting.

  • Add the butter to the biscuits. I did think about microwaving, but as the digestives were in a pan, I just put in the butter, and heated it up. I used soft butter, otherwise, having the biscuit in at the same time as the butter could have ended up with toasted digestives.

  • Once the butter is melted and mixed in with the biscuits, take off the hob and put it into a small cake tin. I had some paper cases, so used one of those. It was about 6 inches in diameter. Spread the biscuit base and pat it down with the back of a spoon.

  • The caramel is cold, so I didn't wait for the base to cool. I simply spread the caramel over the top, and gently made sure the whole base was covered.

  • No need to wait for your other ingredients to cool, as with the cold caramel, it was straight onto the chocolate. I melted it in the microwave, 30 seconds at a time, then stirring madly, until all the chocolate was nice and gooey. Spread over the top, pop into the fridge, and take it out before completely cool, to score the top of the chocolate. Pop it back into the fridge for a while, and the base will be easy to cut and break up.

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