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