Vegetable Soup

Another one of the soups I enjoyed during my 'Seven Days of Soup' challenge whereby I took on souping and juicing for one week, to shift some baby weight before our family holiday to Spain (7lbs in one week is not to be sniffed at).

This particular soup though is a fail safe, and can be adapted to whatever you may have in the fridge or larder. I make this regularly and batch cook so it makes a family dinner, but then the same again, which goes in the freezer for another week. Soup freezes really well!

Feel free to adapt to the ingredients you have to hand but I suggest always using either a white or sweet potato, a carrot or parsnip to make up the 'bulk' of the soup. This recipe is suitable for vegetarians too.

Vegetable Soup



Here's how:

• 1 white potato
• 1 carrot
• 1 parsnip
• 2 celery sticks
• 1 leek
• cupful peas
• 1 onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 tsp celery salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1.5 pints vegetable stock
• 1 tbsp rapeseed or vegetable oil
• Handful bay leaves

Firstly pour in the olive oil into the pan and place on a gentle heat. Peel and dice the onion and mince the garlic and add to the pan.

Slice the celery and leek and they can go into the pan too.

Peel the potato and wash thoroughly, add to the pan. Do the same with the carrot and parsnip.

Make up the vegetable stock and pour over. Give a stir and season accordingly with the salt, pepper and bay leaves.

Cook for 30 minutes until the vegetables are soft to touch with a fork.

Remove the bay leaves and allow to cool slightly. Then blitz with a hand blender or a Nutribullet or alternative blender, return to the pan and re-heat. Enjoy!


The other soups I enjoyed during my 'Seven Days of Soup' included:

Asparagus and Crispy Bacon Soup
Red Pepper Soup
Curried Parsnip and Spinach Soup
Chicken Noodle Soup with Pak Choi Soup
Thai Sweet Potato Soup
Chunky Lentil, Bacon and Kale Soup

Winter Vegetable Soup

Here's a lovely meat-free soup recipe perfect for a speedy mid-week supper or lunch in the cold winter weather.

The beauty of this soup, is you can add whatever vegetables you have lurking in the fridge, odds and ends welcome.

This particular version makes enough for two hearty portions of around 370 calories per portion so perfect if like me you are on a healthy eating regime or fat fighting. 

Winter Vegetable Soup

Here's how: 

• 1 onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/2 red chilli (optional) 
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 carrots
• 3 parsnips
• 2 leeks
• 50g peas (I used Birdseye Frozen Peas) 
• 1 Knorr Vegetable Stock Pot made up with 1 pint water (or other vegetable or chicken stock)
• Black pepper
• 1 tsp coconut oil

Firstly add the coconut oil to a thick bottomed pan and switch onto a low heat.

Now peel and finely dice the onion and garlic and add to the pan. Slice the chilli if you are using and add to the pan.

Allow to soften whilst you prepare the vegetables: peel and dice the carrots and parsnips and slice the leeks.

After a few minutes add the leeks to the pan and allow to gently fry for two minutes before adding the carrot, parsnip and peas. Now top up with the stock, add the bay leaf and a generous pinch of black pepper.

Pop the lid on and cook on a gentle heat for thirty minutes.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool for fifteen minutes. Now blitz with a hand blender or pop into a blender.

Return to the pan and re-heat till piping hot. Serve with crusty bread if your calorie count allows. Enjoy!

Baby Bites Nourishing Vegetable Soup

This is a lovely nutritious soup recipe with plenty of flavour despite using just water to make rather than stock – thus removing any salt element immediately. It is particularly good if little one has a cold too as the garlic and ginger are both incredibly restorative.

I serve this with some toast dunked in the soup and allow Bridget to feed herself these while spoon-feeding the rest but this would work equally well with pitta bread or rice cakes.

Equally the beauty of a vegetable soup is that you can use any vegetables you might have lurking in the fridge, parsnips, swede, sweet potato, spinach and cauliflower all work well in this soup.

This makes six portions and this freezes really well too. Just pop out of the freezer in the morning and the small portion will be defrosted in time for lunch or dinner.

1 garlic clove

1 thumb nail size piece of ginger

2 sticks of celery

5 cherry tomatoes

1 carrot

¼ head of broccoli

2 tbsp frozen peas

Drizzle of olive oil

1 bay leaf

1/2 pint water

Firstly crush the garlic and chop the ginger up. Add a drizzle of oil to a saucepan and add both to the pan on a low heat to soften.

Meanwhile peel and dice the carrot and slice the celery (make sure it’s thoroughly washed first) and then add both to the saucepan with the tomatoes.

Allow all to soften and then pour over the half pint of water.

Chop the broccoli into small florrets and add to the soup mixture with the bay leaf and frozen peas and simmer on a low heat for 30 minutes or so.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool for ten minutes, then either use a hand blitzer or place into a blender and liquidise to a thin soup.