Tag Archives: Soups

Lentil Soup with Marmite Drizzle

Posted on March 7, 2013 by | 2 Comments

lentil soup with marmite drizzle

Marmite haters, look away now. This one is emphatically not for you. In the olden days it would have been no use to readers outside of the UK either. But – joy of joys, miracle of miracles, all hail the internet - you can now buy Marmite online and have it shipped anywhere in the planet. Take a bow, britsuperstore.com. You do the world great service.

One of our friendly followers, Tess HS, first alerted us to the possibility of adding Marmite to your lentil soup. This seemed like a great idea to us – one of the best ever, in fact – until we remembered that some strange people have an aversion to this moist, flavourful, heaven sent, sticky brown goo. ‘suppose there’s no accounting for taste…

So, in the interests of global accord, the only way to approach this seemed to us to do the soup and the Marmite separately, allowing lovers and haters both to enjoy their dinner. We served this with blue cheese too and the results were (pardon my language) absolutely freakin’ delicious. It’s vegan if you ditch the cheese, of course. Continue reading →

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Curried Split Pea and Roasted Red Pepper Soup

Posted on February 15, 2013 by | 2 Comments

Curried Split Pea Soup with Roasted Red Peppers

Ah, random bags of dried peas and beans, where would we be without them? I mentioned this particular bag of split peas before when I wrote up our Spicy Thai Bean Burger recipe. It’s still there, haunting the cupboard, apparently not diminished in size at all, no matter how many recipes I create with it. Which is great, of course. Firstly because thrifty is the new black so I am waaaaaay on trend with my split peas (dahlink). Second, it means that I apparently have an endless supply of heart-healthy, protein rich, low calorie, low fat, mineral rich legumes. Pretty cool, huh?

Split peas are so good for you that WH Foods* describes them as ‘a small but nutritionally mighty member of the legume family’. What’s not to love?

I recently learned how to roast red peppers properly, without mess, fuss or hassle (am I late to the party on this one?) so I decide to create a soup with them in too. Plus, as I’m sure you know by know, we Veggie Runners love a bit of zing to our food so I added some curry spices to get the ping of the zing just right.

*A great not-for-profit site that provide information on healthy eating – really worth checking out. Continue reading →

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Broccoli, Bean and Basil Soup

Posted on November 28, 2012 by | Leave a comment

When Bibi was little her favourite joke went like this.
Customer in restaurant, pointing to his dish: ‘Waiter, what’s this?!’
Waiter: ‘Why, it’s bean soup, Sir.’
Customer: ‘I know it’s bean soup but what is it now?!’
Ho ho, how we laughed. Bean and been – to a child just learning to spell this was truly hilarious. Sad truth is, we still find it funny now…

Anyway, on to the bean soup. As you know, where possible we’re all about the fast and easy. Oh, and tasty. This fab soup fulfills all of those criteria and then some. It’s super-quick to make, great for freezing and has protein, carbs, fibre and several of your 5-a-day too. Plus it has Basil the Wonder Herb; for such pretty little leaves, cleverly anti-oxidant basil provides a mind-blowing range of valuable nutrients, including vitamins A and K, and iron. All this goodness from a soup that’s ready in 10 minutes.

We used Greek basil to make this – the leaves are more tightly packed and, if anything, it’s even more fabulously fragrant than the regular kind. If you can’t get Greek, the regular will do just fine though.  As long as the basil is fresh, your soup will be a winner.

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Smoky Lentil and Tomato Soup

Posted on November 19, 2012 by | Leave a comment

After the Amsterdam marathon recently, my running buddies and I treated ourselves to dinner on the town. Well, it wasn’t quite on the town, as we were a) preserving our post-mara muscles by staying close to our hotel and b) skint. We found a great place with the use of my trusty 2008 guide book. Yes, I had an actual book made of real paper! Much better than the app-schmapp thing my friend was using, which kept sending us off on wild goose chases around the city (as if we weren’t running around enough already!)

We were staying near Albert Cuypstraat, where the famous market is, though to be honest it’s hard to understand why it’s famous. I can buy cheese and cheap shoes anywhere, thank you very much. Anyway, the trusty guidebook led us to a place called Bazar, a restaurant housed in a former synagogue – a quirky space with kitsch decor that includes vintage 50s advertising signs and enough twinkly lights for a thousand Christmas trees.  Continue reading →

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Easiest Broccoli and Stilton Soup Ever

Posted on October 25, 2012 by | Leave a comment

This is the easiest soup in the world to make. Really. Made from Bibi’s own recipe, it uses only three ingredients – yes, three! – and is at least 1000x better than any you can buy in the shops.

Stilton cheese has its own website with loads of fascinating facts (really!) and this information on its nutritional value. Basically, it’s high in protein and calcium, high in fat too but this is not a bad thing – runners use a lot of energy; don’t be afraid of getting sufficient fat in your diet. Continue reading →

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Tofu Pho – What the pho? It’s Vietnamese noodle soup.

Posted on October 18, 2012 by | 1 Comment

All over North America, there are restaurants that serve Pho, a Vietnamese noodle soup. And more often than not, they have a puntastic name (it’s said like our naughtiest swearword, without the ‘ck’ on the end) – “What the Pho” “Pho Sho” “Pho Shizzle”.

So far, so good. (Who doesn’t love puns?!) But did I mention that the soup is DELICIOUS? It might seem a faff to make your own broth at the beginning, but trust me, it’s worth it. The umami liquid is the colour of darjeeling and just as exotically beautiful. All of the adding on bits at the end would make this a really impressive meal for guests if you scaled up the quantities.

If I were to open a restaurant serving just this i’d call it ‘ToPho’.

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Spicy Butternut Squash Soup with Paneer Croutons

Posted on September 14, 2012 by | Leave a comment

 

Is it just me, or does it feel like autumn’s approaching? It’s been beautiful and sunny in London all week, but I’ve been looking at coats online, noticing every crunchy leaf on the floor and most importantly, craving soup, soup, soup.

I’m coming up with a plan of action for running in the dark autumn evenings and I took the soup matter into my own hands.

- Start running with clubs, like the W4 Harriers, or the very exciting-looking Run Dem Crew.
- Pay attention on my current runs to whether there are lampposts. I only moved into the area in April, so don’t know where will be dark from 4pm onwards in the winter!
- Find some buddies to run with?
- Move it indoors for some treadmill work. (How do you like running on a treadmill? I can only do about 5k tops before my head explodes from boredom. Any tips for prolonging?)
- Go for quick runs from work on my lunchbreak.

How do you keep training during the darker evenings? I’d really appreciate some hints and tips to keep me running. I get really hot when I’m running, so I think I might have to rock that strange look of vest and shorts and woolly hat and gloves.

I love soup, but if you’re planning a lot of exertion, it can be a bit insubstantial for your dinner. Here, I’ve circumvented that problem by adding some gorgeously spiced Indian cheese to add a bit of protein and all-important extra calories. This was inspired by this post here, but has undergone some major renovations. The second I read the words ‘paneer croutons’ I knew I had to make something similar.

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Miso delicious…

Posted on September 10, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Oh, how we heart miso here at Veggie Runners. I first gave some miso soup to Bibi when she was a toddler (lovely kid, never was a fussy eater) and it’s always been a staple of our diet. There are many reasons for this. It’s umami which, as I’m sure you know, is the fifth flavour – neither sweet nor sour, salty nor spicy. Just, well, umami…

Miso has a depth of flavour that’s sometimes hard to find in some vegetarian foods and, while I would have described it as emphatically savoury, the flavour is milder in some varieties than others. So mild, in fact, that I found a great article in the New York Times that includes a recipe for miso butterscotch sauce. Continue reading →

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Aromatic Lentil Soup

Posted on July 30, 2012 by | 2 Comments

We all know the jokes about lentil-eating, granola-crunching, hemp-wearing vegetarians. Apart from the fact that they’re not funny and wrong (though, hey, if I did want to wear granola I would!), they miss the fact that lentils can be DELICIOUS. The jokers will soon be laughing on the other side of their faces (what exactly does that mean, btw?) This is one of the tastiest soups ever – and really easy to make. Indeed, it’s so easy to make that you’ll think you’ve missed something out – until you taste it! Continue reading →

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Tom Yummy Soup

Posted on May 21, 2012 by | Leave a comment

I HATE having my training plan derailed by a cold rearing its snotty head right into MY previously clear one. So, when I felt that familiar malevolent tickle, I pulled out all the stops to prevent it sticking around. I made this deeply aromatic, antimicrobial, bug-busting soup and – success! I halted my cold before it had even properly begun, and now I can be out enjoying the glorious sunny early evenings that London keeps giving me as gifts.

The ingredients for this might seem a bit intimidating, but it’s SUCH a quick, tasty, fortifying meal once you’ve got them that they’re well worth it.

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