Cookfest

7 days into the new year and I have lost 2 pounds!  Woohoo! Not sure how I achieved that because I fell off the wagon rather a lot in the second half of the week when I found a huge bag of Christmas spiced biscuits in the cupboard that were too delicious not to eat and of course once the bag was open it had to be finished off before the biscuits went soggy, right? And I kind of accidentally ate a few other things that were a bit naughty too BUT overall there was a lot less junk than I have been inhaling the last few months, so YAY.  I actually did pretty well with meals and MOST of what I ate was healthy food from the Happy Herbivore plan.

Today I spent a lot of time cooking. 5 hours cooking! I think I racked up a week's worth of Fitbit steps just walking between the cooker and the fridge. It wouldn't normally take so long (the HH recipes are generally quick and easy) but I was being good and inputting every ingredient and weight into MyFitnessPal which made it take quite a lot longer, but it's OK. It kept me off social media at least ;-p

I cooked up 12 meals, 6 lunches and 6 dinners. I also ate one of them - 'Oh My Greens! noodles' and had it with a cup of Lady Grey tea.

Maybe I'm just being a bit British but the only thing I don't like about the HH meals is the overly amusing names.  I'm sure it's probably necessary as a selling point to make things more fun but ugh. The food is usually decent and tasty but I like a name to describe what I'm eating, not make me laugh. Mr O asks me what I'm eating and when I say 'Bodacious Butteritos' or 'Broccoli Poppers' I just get laughed at and asked 'yeah but what the hell is that?') Anyway, I digress. Amusing name aside,The noodle soup was massively filling and tasted really nice. So filling, I didn't want my dinner until really late in the evening: Taco Poppers.

They're meant to be eaten with Queso Sauce, which I don't like - not any fault of the recipe, but it's basically a type of vegan cheese sauce, and I never liked cheese sauce even when I did eat cheese. So I made vegan ranch dressing instead. There's not much food that doesn't taste better with a drizzle of some sort of cool yoghurty thing on top.

In other news: the No Buy continues. I have been very good with money the last 7 days and not spent anything I didn't absolutely have to spend. I kept in budget for the weekly grocery shop for the first time in a bazillion years. And I somehow resisted buying anything in the January sales even when people all around me are squealing about how they bought some shoes for £4 or some such amazing price. 7 days down, 93 to go...

Cheap vegan cream of celery and potato soup

I shot myself in the foot by saying I'd get back to blogging soon didn't I? Pretty much as soon as I posted that, I came down with the mother of all nasty viruses (thanks to my germ incubator of a child) and was flat on my back for AGES. Today is the first day I am even vaguely able to think about looking at a computer screen without my head splitting in half! Anyway, I wanted to share this soup which I made the other day in a rare lucid moment between coughing and sneezing and passing out on the couch like some sort of zombie. Due to being ill, I had been neglecting the grocery shopping and my fridge was rather empty. So I invented this quick and easy comfort food with whatever I could find.... cream of celery and potato soup!

Chop, and throw into a pan:
One head of celery, one onion (I only had red ones, which was fine except it made the soup a bit grey looking. If you want green soup, use normal onions instead). Three cloves of garlic (this was me trying to kill my virus. You might want to use less). One potato. Add enough vegetable stock to just about cover the contents of the pan, bring to the boil then simmer it until everything has gone soft. Pour in about half a cup of soya milk (if you're not vegan you can use cow's milk instead). If you like it lumpy, heat through and serve. Otherwise blitz it up with a stick blender. This made enough for two big bowls of really thick soup. I had mine with hedgehog bread and it was really tasty!

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 :)