Recipes Collection

Announcing my other blog and the Aunt inspired soup series

Heartfelt thanks to your warm, kind and soothing words. I do feel glad I shared my feelings with my blog sisters - you are a wonderful bunch of people. And now I keep my promise of sharing with you my positivity blog - Ive called it The Feel Good Blog. Every little thing that makes me feel good, everything Im grateful for will go in here. Its just two posts old, so you havent missed too much. Please bookmark this site and I would love you to share with me all things that make you smile. Its my little endeavor to share happiness and the feel-good feeling that we can all do with.


So much for my health conscious cooking, I wonder why I was so step-motherly to soups until now. Its just like when you never get down to doing something, its so out of your mind anyway. My soup reminder came when I was at my moms place for a while. My mom gave me the gossip that Aunt G has been making soup each evening at 6 - and each day its a new soup, something like Soup of the Day in those nice little cafes. This was enough to spike my interest. And when she said yesterdays Soup of the Day was Cucumber soup, I told her lets go, check on Aunt G now!

My moms sister and my granny live a couple of buildings away, and it goes without saying that when Im there, I drop by my aunts house in the evenings to catch up on whats happening (whats cooking rather). Shes one of the most innovative cooks in the family and shes always upto something interesting in the kitchen. At least most the times, lets say! So that evening, it was a tomato-carrot-lentil soup. OK, so I stole the lentil idea for my soup from her, but hey mine is a more exotic combination. See below.

By the way, if you end up trying my recipe below, please tell me if you didnt go WOW on seeing the colour of the soup, when it came out of the blender! Do NOT forget.




Soup of the Day - 1
Category - Soup, Quick dinner, No fat
Time to table - Under 20 minutes
Serves - One greedy person

Ingredients
1 cup packed spinach leaves, washed thoroughly
1 medium beet, peeled and cubed
1 small carrot, cubed
1/2 cup cooked yellow lentils (tur dal)
1 medium tomato, quartered
Seasonings - see below


Directions

1. In a pan, place 1/2 cup water. Bring to a boil, throw in the beets and carrots. Cover and cook for 10 minutes, till the veggies are nearly tender. Then add in the spinach leaves and tomatoes, covering and cooking for another 2-3 minutes.
2. Drain the veggies and let cool. Reserve the drained liquid.
3. In a blender, puree the tender veggies, cooked lentils till very smooth.
4. Remove this in the same pan with the reserved liquid, add some water to thin out the soup if you wish. Bring to a simmer.
5. Serve into a large soup bowl. Season with lots of pepper, pinch of salt and some lemon zest (and a dot of Amul butter too)

Nutrition notes

• My aunt likes to add some milk in the end to most soups, to give them a creamy taste and also to get an interesting colour. However I am against mixing dairy with green leafy vegetables as it makes iron absorption difficult.
• The lentils gave a nice body and an different dimension of mellowed out taste to the soup. You can use any leftover cooked lentils, or anything youve reserved in the freezer.
• In my opinion, lemon zest gives a nice flavour when beets are used, as they give a sharp edge to the metallic taste of beets and spinach.
• A trial proved that people who start their meal with a low cal soup, ended up consuming 20% less in the entire meal. This kind of reduced food (calorie) intake over a period of time, can help reduce weight or maintain lost weight. This is actually true in my case. I had this soup for dinner with two slices of whole wheat bread, toasted, and I had no appetite to eat any more.

Coming up soon are more healthy soups. Ive already made 3 different types this week - yoohoo!!!