The Low-Calorie Cabbage Diet Soup

By Jackie R Silver

If you know tonight's a party night, cut back during the day: choose a low-calorie yet filling lunch like cabbage diet soup or salad. Eat stuff that has less calorie content. These usually have more fiber and water, so we feel full quicker.

Cabbage, cooked and sliced, can be scrumptiously crisp, with a light pleasing taste. Brassicas such as cabbage has hydrogen sulphide, which becomes active during cooking at about the time cabbage starts to become soft. Hydrogen sulphide eventually vanishes, but between those times, cabbage gets its feature rank flavour and smell.

Either heat cabbage quickly, or heat it slow and long, ideally with other foods so that seasons can mix. Cabbage diet soup may contain fiber, protein, Vitamin B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, Vitamin K, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorous, Potassium, zinc and most important, vitamin C.

Cabbage has an extensive and diverse story. But, due to the fact that there are a lot of variations of cabbages under the plant genus "brassica", it is hard to be certain if the kind the Romans and Greeks had is the alike this time's sphere cabbage or more similar to Chinese cabbage or kale. The sphere cabbages we see now were a valuable vegetable by the Dark Ages, and during the Middle Ages they were plenty, as we can observe in the paintings of that era.

These usually display baskets at market or tables in the kitchen overflowing with food, and cabbages in different types were often prominent. Old recipes propose cooking cabbages with onions, leeks and herbs. During the time when everyone except the super-rich cooked everything in just one pot, cabbages were assumed to be heated slow and long.

Cabbages for cabbage diet soup should look fresh and had no blemishes. When selecting, do not pick any with stale leaves or are puffy. Spring greens and savoys can be stored in a cool place for several days; more compact cabbages will keep for much longer.

Preparing cabbages for cooking cabbage diet soup is easy. Trim the surface leaves, if needed, and then chop into quarters. Cut off the stalk then shred or slice.
An example recipe for cabbage diet soup is Cabbage Soup with Sausage. Spicy or smoky sausages add substance to this soup, which makes a hearty and warming supper, served with crusty bread and green salad.

You can keep up your weight with a low-calorie or well-balanced diet like cabbage diet soup; just choose one and stay with it. Planning is needed. Dieters who sustain their weight have a tendency to eat the same foods most of the time, but they alter the side dishes.

A cabbage diet soup will taste different if mixed with other greens and seasonings. You're still having soup for dinner. A usual cabbage diet soup that we can vary allows dieters to be consistent without being boring.

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How to Make Tomato and Red Pepper Soup

By Kimathi J Muchomba

Soup is a food that is made by combining ingredients such as meat and vegetables with stock, juice, water or another liquid. A basic tomato soup is simply tomatoes cooked together with celery, onions and carrots for flavoring. Other seasonings may be added, including salt, pepper, sugar, garlic and green pepper, and milk may be used to create cream of tomato soup.

Whether prepared from a can or homemade, tomato soup is a source of vitamin C, vitamin A and iron.

Canned tomato soup is low in calories but high in salt. One cup has 85 calories and 695mg of sodium. This represents 28 percent of the recommended daily value for salt, based on a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet. You'll receive 17g of carbohydrates, which includes 6g of sugars and no dietary fiber.

With only 2g of total fat, tomato soup provides 2 percent of the daily value for total fat. It contains no cholesterol, 0.36mg of saturated fat and 1.4mg of the healthier unsaturated fats.Here is a basic home made tomato and red pepper soup that is simple and less costly to prepare

INGREDIENTS

1 chicken stock

1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil- to garnish

Extra virgin olive oil-to garnish

600g ripe tomatoes- quartered

400g tin chopped tomatoes

2 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion- chopped

2 large red peppers, seeds removed and roughly chopped

2 cloves garlic- chopped

METHOD

1. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan.

2. Saute the onion, peppers and garlic for about 5 minutes.

3. Add the fresh tomatoes and cook for another 3 minutes.

4 Add the tinned tomatoes, the stock and a cup of water. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

5. Remove from the heat and allow to cool a little.

6. Puree the soup in batches in a food processor or with a hand-held blender.

7. Strain through a coarse sieve and add a little extra stock.

8. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Serve hot, and garnished with the basil and a of drizzle extra

olive oil

Serves 4

NB;

1. Roasting the vegetables gives the soup a delicious flavor.

2. Halve the onions, tomatoes and peppers, place them on a lined baking tray, drizzle with a little olive oil and roast at 200ºC in oven for 60 minutes, turning the onions and peppers once before using them in the preparation of soup.

Name: Kimathi Jackson Muchomba

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Chicken Soup - Does It Heal?

By Julie E Lewis

They say chicken soup is good for the soul, but what about the body?

Let's take a look at chicken soup as a medicinal remedy for the common cold. Was Grandma right, if you eat chicken soup when you're fighting the common cold, will it help?

The chicken soup folklore has been around as long as people have, handed down generation to generation, along with the favorite chicken soup family recipe. The medicinal claims have never been proven, but from the time of the ancient Greeks, it has been used religiously to lessen the affects of a cold or the flu.

The ingredients in chicken soup include chicken of course, carrots, celery, water or broth and spices, always including garlic. The soup is served steaming hot, which is where I believe one of the medicinal claims stems from. Let's face it; whenever you're feeling stuffy, drinking anything that is steaming hot helps to open up the sinuses, which immediately helps you to breathe better, thus you begin to feel better.

If we take a closer look at the ingredients of chicken soup, one in particular stands out for its antioxidant benefits. Garlic is considered by herbalists to be one of the most useful herbs for medicinal purposes. Many cultures have used garlic for centuries in medicines, as it is a known antioxidant, used to treat many respiratory ailments including hoarseness, coughs and the common cold. The main compound in garlic, allistatin has antibiotic qualities used in some cultures to treat whopping cough, flu and other viral and bacterial diseases.

Anyway you look at it, a steaming bowl of hot chicken soup when you're feeling under the weather can't hurt, and if you add garlic to your recipe, it may help.

The recipes below should be individualized, use the ingredients that you and your family like, don't like carrots? Use turnips instead. If your family is partial to peas, add peas. Use rice instead of pasta, whatever suits your taste. Just be sure to add the garlic, as stated above, its medicinal attributes make it a great addition to any soup.

Basic Soup Recipe

Chicken broth

1 3 lb chicken, 3 quarts of water

3 large Carrots

3 stalks of Celery

Onion Salt and pepper to taste 1 bay leaf Fresh chopped basil.

Put all the ingredients in a large stock pot and simmer for 3 hours, skimming the surface often. Remove the chicken, remove meat from the bones, and put aside. Discard vegetables, and chill broth. After broth as chilled for a while, remove fat from the top. You are now ready to use broth in your soup.

chicken soup

2 cups chopped cooked chicken

8 cups chicken broth

Salt and pepper to taste

Carrots, chopped

Celery, coarsely chopped

Diced garlic to taste

Any small pasta

Simmer until carrots and celery are soft and pasta is cooked, about 10 minutes. Serve hot.

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Soups - Ham and Split Pea Soup

By Lynne Evans

There are many ways of preparing this soup and you can use split green peas or yellow ones, depending which you prefer, or which you have in your store cupboard. Personally I prefer the green ones and use the yellow ones to make fava, which is a dip rather like hummus. You can leave the soup chunky or puree it until it is thick and smooth; it is entirely up to you. I like to add cumin seeds and coriander seeds which have been dry-fried to bring out their flavour and a dried red chili, but you don't have to use these things. If you do want a spicier soup than usual, use a teaspoon of coriander seeds and 2 of cumin seeds, dry-fry them for a minute or two until they release their aroma and add them to the soup when you add the water. The dried crumbled red chili pepper can also be added at this time. This recipe is for the traditional green split pea soup with ham. I hope you like it!

Ingredients

750 gr of ham hock or knuckle, washed and rinsed

500 gr green split peas, cleaned to remove any dirt or grit

1 large onion, chopped

2 celery stalks, trimmed and halved

4 medium carrots, cleaned and thinly sliced

4 cloves of garlic, halved

2 large sprigs of thyme or 1 tsp dried thyme

8 sprigs of parsley either curly or flat-leaved

2 bay leaves, torn but still intact

10 black peppercorns

salt to taste

freshly ground black pepper to taste

4-6 allspice berries (optional)

sprigs of parsley to decorate each bowl if desired

Method

Put the ham hock or knuckle and peas in a large pan and cover with 2½ liters of water A and bring to the boil. Remove any scum which comes to the surface.

You can either fry the onion, garlic, and carrots gently in olive oil, or simply add them to the pan after the scum has been removed along with the herbs and spices.

Partially cover the pan and cook, simmering, for an hour and a half.

Check that the peas are cooked and if necessary cook for half and hour more with the lid on firmly.

When the soup ingredients are cooked, remove the ham hock and allow it to cool before removing the skin and then flake the meat from the bone with a fork. Return this to the pan and mix well, then blend the soup in batches until it is smooth.

Reheat the soup and serve in warm bowls and decorate with parsley sprigs if using.

Bon appetit!

http://www.herbs-treatandtaste.blogspot.com If you liked this recipe, why not find more on this site, along with information about food, herbs and spices which keep you healthy?

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Soups - 5 Ways to Make Any Soup Recipe Healthier

By Neema Malik

Soups are one healthy preparation that is made and enjoyed in every continent, from Europe to Asia and from Australia to South Africa. Only the flavour, the ingredients, the spices and the way of preparing it differs but it is basically the same everywhere; all the ingredients are cooked together to give a nutritious, filling, delicious, and in a way complete and healthy dish.

Each of us find many reasons to enjoy a bowl of soup; it take care of the solid and liquid needs of the body, can help in losing weight by making us feel full, helps in getting over fever or cold and a lot more. Whatever may be your reason to have the bowl of soup, enjoy it wholeheartedly, because here are a few tips to make any of your favourite soup healthier.

Use fresh ingredients

Many of your soup recipes will call for ingredients like canned tomatoes, ready to use vegetable broth and a lot more of those canned and preserved ingredients. But as all of us are aware; fresh is healthy, so you can always try to replace these bottled vegetables and preserved products with fresh and healthy substitute. Fresh and garden picked veggies and fruits have more antioxidants and vitamins in it and substituting these in your formula helps to make a healthier soup than your old canned version. Remember soup made from scratch is much healthier than the one made from bottled, canned and preserved ingredients.

Swap cream with milk

Your rich and creamy soup calls for the addition of fresh cream that not just makes your soup tastier but sadly put in a lot of calorie with it. If you prefer a healthier low calorie version of the soup, swap your cream with milk which just adds about 20 percent of the calorie coming from cream but gives you the same great taste.

Blot the fat

Many number of soup are butter based or have ample amount of fat in it, to remove the calories from the fat, you can skim off the fat from the soup after it is prepared. There are different ways of skimming off fat from soup; you can either refrigerate your soup for three hours and remove the top fat layer which will get solidified, or you could drop in some lettuce leaves to absorb the fat and take out the leaves after a short time. Blotting the fat with a piece of bread can also do the magic of making your soup healthy and fat free.

Use more of herbs and spices

An extra bit of herbs in your soup can help it to get a flavour zest and to increase the healing and antioxidant property of your soup. Coriander leaves, ginger, garlic or other spices like pepper can improve the taste and flavour of the soup and all at once, make it healthier. But don't overdo the spices and herbs as using more than the perfect amount can spoil the flavour of your soup making it spicier than you really prefer.

Make your soup a complete meal

You can include shredded chicken breast pieces, beaten egg or cooked chick peas in your soup preparation to make it a whole meal and to introduce more of protein into it. Balancing the amount of protein and the carb in your soup can help the 'One Bowl of Soup' to fill your stomach, refill your soul and to fulfill your diet requirements.

So here you are with a few more reason to enjoy a steaming bowl of healthy soup.

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Quick, Easy, And Tasty Soups: Roasted Chicken, Cream Of Spinach, Meatball Vegetable Stew

By Linda Carol Wilson

I am a soup person year-round but I know some people prefer soups in the Fall and Winter. Even though it doesn't feel like Fall here in North Texas with our 40 straight days of triple-digit temperatures, I know many of you will soon be having cool weather. In honor of your cooler weather and what we hope we will see eventually, this article is all about soup. Whether you like it to be brothy, creamy, or thick (stew), we are sure to have a recipe here to please you.

ROASTED CHICKEN SOUP
2 cups roasted chicken, shredded or diced (Can buy chicken in deli)
2 tsp olive oil
2 medium onions, halved and thinly sliced
8 cups chicken broth
1/8 tsp fresh ground black pepper
2 medium carrots, sliced
2 stalks celery, sliced
3/4 cup curly noodles

Heat the oil in a 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook until they begin to brown, stirring occasionally. Reduce the heat to medium. Cook until the onions are tender and caramelized, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat.

In a 4-quart saucepan over medium-high heat, heat the broth, pepper, carrots, and celery to a boil. Stir the noodles and chicken into the broth. Reduce heat to medium and cook for about 10 minutes until the pasta is tender. Stir in the onions; soup is ready to serve.

QUICK AND EASY CREAM OF SPINACH SOUP
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
dash of ground nutmeg
4 1/4 cups milk
1 pkg (10-oz) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and water squeezed out

In a large saucepan melt the butter; add the chopped onion. Cook, stirring, over medium heat until the onion is tender. Stir in the flour, mixing well to avoid lumps. Add the salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Gradually blend in the milk while stirring. Continue to cook, stirring, for about a minute or two until thickened. Stir in the spinach and remove from the heat.

MEATBALL VEGETABLE STEW
If you love beef stew but don't really have the time to cook the beef and make the stew, try this recipe that uses meatballs.

4 cups water
2 medium russet potatoes, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 medium carrots, cut into 3/4-inch slices
1 large onion, cut into chunks
2 tbsp beef bouillon granules
1 bay leaf
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 lb lean ground beef
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
2 medium zucchini, cut into 3/4-inch slices
1 cup frozen peas
1/3 cup flour
1/2 cup cold water
1/4 tsp browning sauce, optional

In a large Dutch oven, bring the water to a boil. Add the russet potatoes, carrots, onion, bouillon, bay leaf, thyme, basil, salt and pepper. Return to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 10 minutes.

While the above simmers, combine the ground beef, bread crumbs, egg, and Worcestershire sauce. Shape into 1-inch balls. Add meatballs to the Dutch oven along with the sweet potatoes and zucchini. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to simmer, cover and cook for another 15 minutes or until veggies are tender.

Discard the bay leaf. Stir in the peas. Combine the flour and cold water; stir into the stew along with the browning sauce, if using. Bring to a boil and cook and stir for a couple of minutes until thickened.

Yield: 6 servings.

For more of Linda's quick and easy recipes visit her blog at http://grandmasquickfixrecipes.blogspot.com She also has a large collection of old fashion recipes at http://grandmasvintagerecipes.blogspot.com

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How To Make Gazpacho Soup

By Richard Allen

Some like it hot some like it cold, well actually only the idiots like it hot as Gazpacho soup should be served cold, if not slightly chilled, as it is a great refresher on a cold Summers day.

It is a very simple recipe an only takes a few minutes to prepare. The basic ingredients you will need are as follows: -

1kg of Ripe Tomatoes - Peeled, deseeded and chopped into small chunks

½ A Cucumber - Peeled, deseeded and chopped

1 Green Pepper - Peeled, deseeded and chopped

4oz of fresh bread with the crusts cut off

1 small onion - Roughly chopped

1 garlic clove - Chopped or presses in a Garlic presser

1 Tablespoon of white wine vinegar

4 fluid ounces of Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper to taste as required

4-6 Ice cubes, ideally crushed

Basil sprigs as garnish

So now you have assembled all of the ingredients then let us begin making the soup!

Firstly hold back a few of the tomatoes, pepper and cucumber as a garnish for the soup.

Then place all of the bread in a blender, and blend until the bread is in crumbs. Then add the rest of the tomatoes, cucumber and pepper. Blend until smooth, then add the onion, garlic, olive oil and again blend until very smooth.

The tomatoes should give the soup enough juice to make the soup into a nice liquid, but you can also add water if the soup is too thick. Often if it is too thick then it down to adding too much bread into the mix. Trial and error is the key to getting it right! Then season with salt and pepper as required.

To serve the dish (Which really is best served very cold, and not hot as a few famous celebrities have sent it back to the kitchen to be heated for!) divided into four serving bowls, add the crushed ice cubes to soup and still them well in.

Then place in the fridge for 30 minutes or ideally an hour. Then when it comes to serving the gazpacho soup lightly garnish with the tomatoes, pepper and cucumber that you held back. Lightly scatter a few basil leaves on top and then serve with some fresh crusty bread (French baguettes are ideal).

So there you have it the ideal recipe for gazpacho soup. This recipe takes just minutes to prepare and is a great appetizer on a hot Summers day.

For more great recipes and advice on How To Grow Tomatoes for gazpacho soup, then find out more about How To Grow Vegetables today.

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