Curried Pumpkin Soup

This is a great winter warmer; it's so quick to make and very comforting on a cold day. Make it as spicy as you prefer by using different spice blends to roast your pumpkin.

Low Carb Curried Pumpkin Soup

Serves 3

Ingredients

• 500g pumpkin, cubed (NOT butternut squash)
• 1 Tbsp olive oil (high heat or light, not virgin)
• about 3 Tbsp spices of choice, such as a garam massala, ground ginger, curry powder etc
• ¹/₂ can coconut cream
• 1 cup good quality chicken stock (or veggie stock for a vegetarian friendly soup
• salt to taste

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180'C (or use a small roaster inside an airfryer)
2. Toss the cubed pumpkin in the oil and then the spice blend. I like a bit of ginger and a lot of a fairly spicy curry blend. You can also use Thai yellow curry paste, beaten with the oil to loosen
3. Roast the pumpkin for 20-30 minutes until well browned and very soft
4. In a liquidizer (or a bowl big enough to use an emergion blender without splashing) combine the roast pumpkin, coconut cream and stock until completely smooth
5. Taste the soup and add salt as needed
6. Serve on its own for lunch or with your favourite low carb cheese scone or bread roll for dinner.

Cauliflower Cheese Soup

This is one of those dishes where the taste to effort ratio is just ridiculously high.

I made it one night when I was as short on time as I was ideas, and I wasn't expecting much to be honest. Cauliflower is ok, but not one of my favourite veggies.

I try to incorporate Meat Free Mondays in my weekly meal planning - as one of the many small things we can do to reduce our carbon footprints, but also as a cooking challenge. I had made brocolli and cheese soup the week before, so devoid of any other meat-free ideas that aren't macaroni and cheese (my pre-banting go-to meat free dish) I just changed the brocolli to cauliflower and the blue cheese to parmesan and cream cheese.

Obviously, adding chicken stock makes this not a truly vegetarian meal; substitute with veggie stock if necessary.

I was honestly surprised with the results, in the most pleasant way. It's rich, velvety and comforting. It tastes of creaminess with a subtle hint of cheese. Hubby loved it, and even the three-year old cleaned his bowl. Pro-tip: involving a toddler in the cooking process will increase their excitement about the dish by at least 50%.

Low Carb Cauliflower Cheese Soup

Serves 6

Ingredients

• 600g cauliflower, broken into florrets
• 100g cream cheese
• 2 cups chicken stock
• ¹/₂ - 1 cup grated parmesan, to taste
• ¹/₄ tsp ground nutmeg
• ¹/₄ tsp salt
• ¹/₄ tsp white pepper

Method

1. Cook the cauliflower until soft (I usually steam mine, or I microwave it when I'm in a hurry). If boiling, boil it in the chicken stock
2. In a blender (with somewhere for steam to escape), or with a stick blender, process the cauliflower, stock, cream cheese and ¹/₂ cup parmesan until smooth
3. Taste, and add seasoning and more parmesan to taste. The nutmeg really does compliment the cauliflower so try not to skip it

"Minestrone" Soup

The sarcasm quotes in the title are because this is more of a minestrone inspired soup. It doesn't have the trademark pasta or beans, and I wasn't sure how it would turn out, but it was pretty delicious, if I do say so myself.

I made mine in my pressure cooker. You can make it on the stove or in the slow cooker as well, although I find the pressure cooker is better at preserving the delicate taste of foods and needs less salt.

I made it with whatever vegetables I had on hand (I happen to have a lot of cabbage, for example), so that's what I list in the ingredients, but go mad with whatever you have or whatever you love. The carrot isn't as low carb as the rest of the veggies (Real Meal orange list) but so little of it spread across so much soup is still well below the carb limit.

I had this with a side of cloud bread (aka oopsies) but I am still trying to decide whether or not I liked them enough to post a recipe.

Low carb minestrone style soup

Makes 8-10 servings

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp oil
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 500g bacon, chopped (I used streaky bacon)
• 1 large or 2 small baby marrows (chopped)
• 2 large carrots (chopped)
• 3 small leeks (sliced) - you could use celery
• 1 green pepper (chopped)
• 1/4 cabbage (shredded)
• 1 large handful of green beans (chopped)
• 1 tin chopped tomatoes
• 1 - 2 cups chicken stock (I used 60ml concentrated chicken stock and enough boiling water to cover the veggies)
• salt and pepper

Method

1. Chop all your veggies. This is the labour intensive part of the recipe (or food processor FTW).
2. Heat the oil and butter in the body of the pressure cooker or a heavy bottomed, large saucepan or pot
3. Fry the onion and bacon until the onion is translucent and the bacon starts to brown
4. Add the other ingredients
5. Cook until all the veggies are soft (carrots are a good test) - in my electric pressure cooker, this took 40 minutes
6. Taste for salt and pepper, and season if necessary

Nutritional values

(per serving, assuming 8 servings; calculated with My Fitness Pal)
Total Fat: 20g; Total Carbohydrates: 11g; Dietary Fiber 3g; Nett Carbs: 8g; Protein: 12g

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

I have seen a few of these come across my Pinterest feed recently, and although I'm not the biggest cabbage fan, they looked quite cute, easy, and banting friendly (minus the rice).

I more or less went with this recipe from Low Carb Crock, only changing the fresh herbs for dried, the onion powder for what I had in the house, and I think their cooking time is a bit much.

I made mine in the slow cooker, as per the link, because that thing saves my life during the working week. I'm sure you can just as easily bake it in a low oven, and that there are many recipes out there that can guide you regarding times and temperatures.

As I said, I'm not a big cabbage fan, but I really enjoyed this. Hubby did too; however the kiddo steadfastly refused to eat the cabbage. Our rule is, you have to try at least one bite, but he was over tired tonight so I let it go this once. He loved the filling though.

Now the only thing I have left to do, is figure out what to do with all that left-over cabbage.

Low carb stuffed cabbage rolls

Ingredients

Wrappers

• 1 large cabbage

Sauce

• 1 tin chopped tomatoes
• 2 tsp sweetener (e.g. xylitol)
• 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tsp salt

Filling

• 500g minced beef
• 1 cup grated parmesan
• 2 tsp minced garlic (about 2 cloves)
• 1 tsp onion powder (I used Ina Paarman's Green Onion seasoning)
• 1 tsp dried mixed herbs
• 1/2 tsp white pepper

Method

1. Steam or boil the cabbage for 5-10 minutes until the leaves are cooked enough to be soft and pliable but not mushy and grey
2. Mix together all the sauce ingredients and spread enough over the bottom of the slow cooker pot to cover it in a thin layer
3. Mix together all the filling ingredients until well combined (I prefer to do this with my hands)
4. Carefully peel one leaf at a time off the cabbage, and roll a portion of the filling in it, tucking the ends in underneath to make a neat parcel. I got out about 8 parcels, which was perfect for the bottom of my slow cooker.
5. Arrange the parcels in a single layer on top of the sauce in the slow cooker, then cover them with the remaining sauce
6. Cook on low for 6-8 hours, or on high for 4-5

Bobotie (In a Pumpkin)

For our first banting dinner, I was inspired by two things. The first was half a pumpkin that was sitting in my fridge, and the other was this video by Suzelle DIY on how to make bobotie in a pumpkin.

After googling a bit for a low carb bobotie recipe, I decided on this one that was shared by a listener on RSG. I changed it a little; some things I didn't have to hand, and some things because I'm pretty sure it's a typo - 500g of butter is a whole block :)

I had a little filling left over after stuffing the pumpkin, and baked it separately for lunch the next day. I was quite pleased with how it turned out, and it makes a great centre piece to present to guests. I made a little basmati rice for the kiddo who liked it as well (except for the onion, which I had to pick out by hand... you've got to learn to pick your battles - no pun intended - especially when he ate all his pumpkin).

Banting bobotie

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp oil, butter or coconut oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 500g minced beef
• 2 tsp curry powder or garam massala
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 apple, grated
• 6 Tbsp (90ml) unsweetened desiccated coconut
• 1 Tbsp sweetener (e.g. xylitol)
• 2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 sachet or Tbsp of concentrated beef stock (or salt to taste)
• 4 eggs
• ½ cup cream
• 1 small or half a large pumpkin - optional (I used a boerpampoen, or white pumpkin, which isn't too watery)

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 180^o C
2. Heat the oil over medium heat
3. Sautee the onions, then add the mince and brown
4. Add the spices and saute until they get fragrant
5. Add the vinegar, apple, sweetener and coconut
6. Cover and simmer over low heat for 10 minutes
7. Place in either a greased oven dish, or the hollowed out pumpkin (remove the seeds, but not the flesh, unless there isn't enough space)
8. Beat the eggs and cream together and pour over the filling
9. Bake for 1.5 hours (or half an hour if using an oven dish). If using a pumpkin, test by checking if the pumpkin flesh is soft with a skewer or toothpick. If not, check if the egg custard topping is set.