Change For Life Challenge- Monday

Lunch- Harvest Vegetable Soup

I kicked off the first day of my Change For Life Challenge with a lunch time option from the recipe booklet- Harvest Vegetable Soup. I know that when you’re working it can be quite difficult to eat a healthy lunch on the go. Most of us don’t have access to a kitchen to prepare food in the workplace (myself included) so I often make my lunch in advance. I actually made this Sunday night and I made enough to have for 2 days and some to freeze. The recipe serves 4 so if there are only 2 of you like there are in my house, I would suggest making it all anyway and saving some for another day.

Soup ingredients

I make soup quite often but I know that if you’re new to cooking it can be quite daunting picking ingredients. You learn what goes together over time but I thought this recipe was a great starting point because it is a good base which you can add to and adapt when you get more confident.

The instructions for this recipe were easy to follow but be careful with the cooking times because at the top of the page in the handy timings diagram (and stated below) it says cooking time 15 minutes but in the instructions you are told to simmer the vegetables for 25 minutes. It takes more like 30 minutes in total.

I liked the use of the sweetcorn, I think it added a nice colour and texture but if you’re not keen on any of the ingredients, you can always leave them out or swap them for another. The best thing about soup is that you can pretty much include whatever you want. It’s a great way of using up vegetables and of experimenting with flavours.

Soup for lunch and enough to take to work tomorrow

Recipe- serves 4

177 calories per portion, 10 minutes prep time, 15 minutes cooking time

Ingredients:

1 onion, chopped finely

1 leek, trimmed and sliced

1 carrot, diced

200g swede or turnip diced

400ml reduced-salt vegetable stock

1 level tbsp cornflour

600ml semi-skimmed or 1% fat milk

75g sweetcorn (frozen or canned in water)

Freshly ground pepper

4 wholemeal rolls to serve

What to do:

1. Put the onion, leek, carrot, swede or turnip, potato and stock into a large saucepan. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered, for 25 minutes, until the vegetables are tender.

2. Blend the cornflour to a smooth paste with 2-3 tablespoons of the milk. Add the remaining milk to the saucepan with the sweetcorn, then stir in the blended cornflour. Heat gently, stirring constantly, until the soup thickens and just begins to boil.

3. Season with black pepper and ladle into bowls. Serve each portion with a wholemeal roll.

For more recipes, sign up for the free Change4life recipe booklet.