Monday, November 13, 2017

Soups for drinking

I did really great for several months when I was triathlon training at avoiding sugar, gluten and dairy. Then I went on vacation, fell off the wagon and now it’s nearly Thanksgiving and I haven’t gotten back on. But I’m trying.
The latest crazy food idea that I have – drinkable soups. It isn’t that crazy. I’ve seen these kinds of things begin sold, but they’re expensive (like $4-5 each) for something I can definitely make at home. So I made a couple this weekend. I made creamy zucchini and carrot soup and curried sweet potato and peanut butter soup. I’m pretty happy with how both turned out.
My primary goal is to try to get more vegetables in during the day. For a while there I was doing smoothies with spinach and fruit every morning, but there are a few challenges with that right now:
1.     I’m doing intermittent fasting right now so I don’t eat until 10:30 or 11 am each day. If I made a smoothie before I leave for the office, then let it sit for a few hours, it would completely ruin the texture, and I’m not going to take a blender to work.
2.     It’s cold. Smoothies just aren’t as appetizing when it’s cold outside.
So I decided soup will be my break-fast each day. I made the soups a little thicker, more concentrated than I’d actually like to drink that so that I can add a little hot water to them when I’m ready to drink them.
Curried Sweet Potato and Peanut Butter Soup – to be fair, I did use a recipe I found on pinterest at the starting point for this, but really only kept the potatoes and onions. I added the rest because it sounded good. https://cookinglsl.com/creamy-sweet-potato-soup/
2 large sweet potatoes, steamed then pureed
1 small onion, diced
2 tbsp butter or oil
1 tbsp curry powder – I used Jamaican curry and put closer to 2 tbsp in, but start small and you can add more to your liking.
½ tsp salt
2 tbsp smooth peanut butter
Handful of fresh cilantro
While the potatoes were steaming, I sautéed the onions in butter. Once they were nice and soft, I added the curry powder to the onions and stirred them up a bit. Then removed from heat.
Once the potatoes were steamed and cooled off a little, I removed the skins, then put them in my blender. I added a little chicken stock and water to thin it out and pureed away. Once I was happy with the texture of the potatoes, I added the onions, salt, cilantro and peanut butter. Pureed some more, then put it in the refrigerator. Again, I kept this mixture a little thicker than what would be considered drinkable in my opinion. I brought about 5-6 oz to work in microwavable cup with a lid, microwaved the mixture for about 90 seconds, then added about 2-3 oz of hot water to make it drinkable. It is delicious.

For the most part I followed this recipe more closely. Changes I made: 

  • I also included half of a red bell pepper.
  • I omitted the flour and the milk. I plan to add a little coconut milk at the time of drinking.
  • I added some additional herbs & spices – sage, thyme, turmeric. 
  • I pureed the whole pot once it was done.