lentil Italian soup recipe for warming winter meals

     When the cold winds blow, nights draw in and a nip of frost chills the air there is nothing better than a pot of soup waiting for you to return home and just needing to be heated up to make a restoring meal that warms you right through. The great thing about soups is that they are easy to make in double or triple quantities, so that on the weekend you can cook up a big pot of soup and have some for lunch, before refrigerating or freezing the rest for mid-week suppers. 

     A good winter soup will even improve in flavour with the keeping and my favorite Italian lentil soup is one of these. Two or even three days after making, its flavour has developed into a robust but mellow richness that is perfectly comforting and needs nothing more than some crusty bread to make a satisfying and nutritious meal. 

     There is nothing fancy about this soup, its origins are the home kitchens of rural Italy where you use good ingredients and don't need to mess with them. If you are a dedicated foodie and can get your hands on some Castelluccio lentils from the high Piano Grande in the Apennine mountains of Italy, then these are just the best, but any variety of small brown lentil works well here.Lentil Soup Recipe1 medium onion2 carrots2 sticks celery3 tablespoons olive oilยฝ tin tomatoes chopped with their juice cups brown lentils rinsed and checked for bits1 l stock or watersalt and pepperChop the onion, carrots and celery quite finely. Warm the olive oil in a heavy based pan and saute the vegetables gently till softened. Add the tomatoes and cook over a medium heat with the lid off until all the liquid has evaporated and you have a thick sauce consistency. 

     Season with salt and pepper. Stir in the lentils and cook for a minute stirring, before adding the stock or water. This soup is tasty enough just to use water here, but if you happen to have some ham stock in the freezer left over from the Christmas gammon it will add a whole new dimension to the soup. Simmer for about 40 minutes until the lentils are tender. The cooking time depends on the variety of lentils, so you can check after 30 minutes. Add more water if the soup gets too thick as the lentils can absorb a lot of water. Serve with crusty bread and butter and perhaps a sprinkling of freshly grated parmesan on top.This makes enough for four to six good servings, but you can easily double the amounts and freeze half for another day. Or if you are having the soup two days running and want to vary it a little, on the second day add some more water to it and once it is heated throw in a couple of handfuls of a small pasta shape to cook in the soup. The pasta will take on the flavour of the soup and make a wonderfully hearty complete meal. You never know, even kids who profess not to like anything as healthy as a lentil could be tempted by the pasta and discover that lentils actually are quite tasty after all!

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All the cabbage soup recipes are an opportunity for art and food

     Cabbage soup diet recipes are not tricky at all. That's because the ingredients in the soup are not really all there is to the eating plan. Now the soup should not be loaded with fats and carbohydrates but it can be made in many different fashions and still work as a key ingredient of this eating plan. Cabbage soup is a filling, but low calorie dish that's cheap and easy to make. 

     That's really one of the keys to the success of the cabbage soup diet. You can eat all the soup you want and you stay full, not starved. There's more to the diet than just the soup, but the soup is a key part.Certainly not any kind of long-term eating plan, the diet is just one way to drop a few pounds in a big hurry. Like most diets this will not result in real weight lasting loss unless you follow a few guidelines. What must happen to get real weight loss is habits must change. A long-term program for weight loss means changing lifestyle. The beauty of a plan like this is that you can actually see the scales move almost before your very eyes. That may be some motivation to make the other changes to put yourself on a real long-term sustainable weight loss and fitness plan.Making soup of any kind is something of an art form. 

     You can make soup using what you have. So a recipe is just a starting point. Actually soup recipes just invite substitutions. That way your soup becomes unique. Here's a basic recipe that's used as part of the Cabbage Soup Diet. Spice it up and add or subtract whatever you like.Another Cabbage Soup Recipe 1 large head cabbage 1 large bunch celery 2 bunches green onions 1 large can whole tomato 2 cans of chicken broth (13 oz) 3 large bell peppers salt and pepper to tasteClean all the vegetables, slice, chop and add in to a large pot. Add whole tomato, chicken broth and then cook on low heat for 15 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Cabbage soup is cheap eating, but it should be tasty too. It's a staple of rural living people in many parts of the world, and those people are often eating better than the rich folks. 

     The cabbage in this plan is mostly a filler but then again cabbage is a nutritious part of a diet as well and one that can be tasty as well as nutritious and filling. All cabbage soup recipes are a place to start. The art to soups is combining ingredients so soup becomes yours. It's really a matter of using what you have in a way that looks and tastes good and makes the soup a welcome addition to the meals, not something that is bland and somewhat tasteless.

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3 Easy healthy recipes and Asian soup tips

     So what makes a soup healthy and nutritious? Well, it is packed full of nutrition and vegetables! It has no preservatives or flavour enhancers! It is cooked naturally and served immediately! It has packed with herbs and spices that are tasty but good for you immune system!Soups are wonderful because they are easy to prepare and make. There are many types of soups suitable for different seasons and people’s tastes.Please note, avoid cooking your soup in a microwave because it can damage and reduce the health benefits of your soup.Soup 

     1: Pumpkin soup with sour cream.Cook you own chicken stock by cooking 10 litres of water, bring to the boil, add 1 brown onion, cut and cook for 30 minutes.What you need:1 whole pumpkin1 potato choppedChop pumpkin into 2 centimetres cubic then add to soup, together with a teaspoon of pepper, salt, sugar and cook for another 3 minutes. Turn off stove and rest pumpkin. Place the pumpkin into a blender and blend until fine. Do this for the whole pot.Bring the pot to the boil and serve with chopped chives, sour cream and dinner roll. This is a very warm healthy soup that will warm anyone on a cold winter day.Soup 

     2: Corn Potato Soup with roast chicken slices.5 corn cobsChicken stockRemove the kernels from the cobs and place all the corn kernels and cob into the pot. Cook for 30 minutes. Let the soup rest for 5 minutes then blend. Place through a sieve to remove the larger particles. Then place back in pot and bring to the boil. Serve with chopped chives, roast chicken slices and dinner role. Bon Appetite!Soup 

     3: Vietnamese Sour Soup with Vietnamese vegetables. This one of the healthiest soups and delicious of all!Fresh fish fillets 200 grams total of prawnsMusselsShrimpTomatoBach-HaChivesCorianderPineapple slicesLady finger vegetableIn a pot of chicken stock, bring to the boil, place in tamarind, tomatoes, Vietnamese Bach-Ha vegetable, slices of fresh fish or whole fish, which depends on your appetite for fish. You can substitute prawns for fish and add other seafood at the end before you serve. Cooking the seafood too early will ruin the texture of the meat. Place in the tamarind. Flavour with fish sauce and sugar and add pepper. Cook for 20 minutes then add the seafood. bring the soup to the boil and then serve.Sprinkle with chives, coriander and pepper to garnish.You can Vietnamese soup with rice and fried fish. This is a very healthy traditional meal in Vietnam.

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