Diet Coke Quorn

Another food post for you today!

Something I cook quite often is Diet Coke Quorn. The first time I heard about cooking with Diet Coke, I thought it sounded a) gross and b) insane. Coke's a drink, right? Why would you put it in your food? But I was intrigued enough to try it, and surprised when it tasted amazing. It's kind of like sweet and sour.

 This dish is vegetarian. It's not technically vegan since Quorn contains a small amount of egg white, but I'm putting it up anyway because the Quorn could easily be replaced with tofu, extra vegetables, soya pieces, tempeh, chick peas/garbanzo beans, chunks of vegan sausage, or whatever else you fancy. (It could also be replaced with chicken).

It's also probably not the most attractive thing to look at, but trust me. It tastes awesome and is stupidly easy to cook.

Recipe:
Throw one large, chopped up onion into a pan with 1tsp oil, or if you're low fat, a few sprays of Frylight and a splash of water. Fry for a minute or two until soft.
Dump 225g of rice into the pan (I used long grain, brown basmati, but it doesn't really matter what you use). Add one can of diet cola (I am far too cheap to buy actual Coke - I use cheapie own brand supermarket stuff and it works just fine), and watch the cool fizzing effect.
Add 240ml of water and a vegetable stock cube. Toss in some Quorn pieces (or whatever you want to use instead) and some vegetables (whatever you have hanging around is fine. I used carrots and red peppers here).
Simmer until the rice is cooked (time will vary depending on the type of rice you chose but it'll be somewhere between 10 and 25 minutes) and has absorbed all the liquid. You will need to keep an eye on it, stir it every so often, and probably top up the pan with a bit of extra water here and there, unless you really want half cooked rice welded to the bottom of the pan.
Eat. This made enough for three very filling portions, and cost very little. My husband (meat eater) ate two out of those three portions. He is always happy to eat vegetarian food as long as it fills him up and tastes good, so that's a great recommendation right there. Oh, and if you follow the Slimming World Green/EE Plan and use FryLight instead of oil, this dish is Syn Free!

Google Reader (and possibly GFC) are going!

So you may or may not have heard the news that Google will soon be retiring its Google Reader service - whilst GFC is not automatically closing, once Google Reader is gone, GFC will become somewhat redundant and the general opinion seems to be that it won't be long before they get rid of that too.
At the time of writing, I have 154 followers. I value absolutely every single one of you equally!! However since the vast majority of those 154 currently follow me via GFC you can probably understand that the thought of it ceasing to exist fills me with dismay.
So. If you currently follow Glitter Mountain via GFC,  please check out my sidebar where you will find following widgets for my Bloglovin', Hellocotton and Networked Blogs accounts, as well as my Twitter account, where I post links to all of my latest posts. (You can also subscribe to an email feed).

Super Soup!

Everybody loves a bargain, and I have a great one for you today!

Browsing the shelves at Asda last weekend I came across these little treasures: ready prepared bags of ingredients for making soup. 

I don't normally buy many ready-prepared vegetables (except frozen or tinned ones), because it's nearly always cheaper to buy the unprepared veggies and peel and chop them myself. But seriously. Look how cheap these are! Normally just £1, I got them on special offer for 85p a bag. Each one contains almost everything you need to make a litre of soup, no chopping or peeling required. All you need to add is water and two stock cubes. Bargain!

Here's Leek and Potato (which also contains onion and parsley), all ready for cooking. The instructions say you can whizz this soup up in a saucepan in about half an hour, so it already ticks the 'quick' box as well as 'easy' and 'cheap'. However, I was feeling especially lazy today, so I slung the whole lot in the slow cooker (which took all of 10 seconds - that's my kinda cooking, y'all) and left it for 8 hours while I went to work. 

Here's the end result, after a quick blitz with a stick blender. My 85p packet made enough soup for four people. It was also delicious and full of win. 

Next up was carrot and coriander (again there is onion in this too). I was feeling a bit experimental by this point, so I only added half a litre of water, so it would be super thick and chunky.

Another quick blast with the stick blender, and presto! Chunky carrot and coriander goodness that tasted every bit as delicious as the leek and potato, and so thick it was practically a stew. 

I was already feeling smug about the yumminess I'd created, so imagine my delight when I totted up the overall cost. I made 6 bowls of delicious and healthy soup for £1.70 (large ones, mind - I don't do small portions. I was stuffed after one bowl and two slices of bread) That's less than 30p a bowl. There was no added fat whatsoever, and if you're following the Slimming World green plan, you'll be pleased to learn that this is completely syn free. Even better, I spent less than 5 minutes actually making it all. Cheap AND lazy :)