Lo-Cal Easy-Peasy Pea & no-Ham Soup (Lite)

I have to confess that I have joined an on-line diet club. Now I can try to lose weight without having to meet other fat people. To be honest, the diet & exercise plan is a bit rubbish, but at least I now know that if I keep below about 2200 calories* a day, I can lose weight sensibly and safely.

In theory.

Now, I know you are probably thinking that 2 gallons of sweet, strong elderberry wine isn't going to help with the grand weight-loss plan, and I have to agree. But the wine wont be ready for at least a year, and a chap can, if he puts his mind to it, lose several pounds in that time.

The diet club website does have one enormously useful feature in that you can key-in, store, and experiment with, your own recipes and calculate (and I really can't vouch for the accuracy) the calories and fat content in your total cook-up, and therefore also per portion of your recipe. I entered the ingredients of one of my customary Friday-night curries and was quite literally mildly surprised at how many calories it contained.

Anyway, here's my new favourite autumn-friendly tea-time snack: not as easy as opening a can, but possibly better for you, Or not.

Pea and no-Ham Soup

(There's no ham in it).

This recipe yields about 3 generous mugfuls of thick & comforting soup at about 100 calories and 1.5g of fat each. You could easily double up the quantities, or even triple them**

• 200g frozen peas (garden or petty***)
• A medium/large carrot (about 100g), peeled & chopped up small
• A smallish potato (again about 100g) peeled and diced
• 1 (knorr) ham stock cube and 1 veggy stock cube.
• 1 tablespoon (15ml) tomato puree

The ingredients - arranged neatly.

1. Put the peas, chopped carrot & diced tato into a medium saucepan and add a pint of water.
2. Bring to the boil, cover, and simmer for about 20 mins, or until the carrots and tatos are very soft.
3. Dissolve the stock-cubes and the puree in the pot and allow to cool, until cool enough to...
4. Whizz the soup up in a food whizzer until smooth.
5. Return the soup to your pan, season, & return to a simmer. I like mine with plenty of salt and white pepper. Why not try kicking it into touch with a pinch of chili flakes****?

*        That's about 3 bottles of wine a day, and a small snack.

**      Why stop there? Make a batch load for the whole family for the entire week!

***    Petit in French

****  Or Don't. Up to you really. All I can do is suggest...*****

***** How about some mint?