Wednesday 12th October 2016 - Nutrition

Another beautiful morning greets us this morning here in the UK.

My mum is returning from the US today and I am so looking forward to seeing her after a month away.

In preparation, I decided to make a delicious healthy nutritious soup full of veggie goodness as I know what its like to travel and be fed on not so nutritious food and being tired, needing good food to empower the body and mind.

I have named my soup 'Veggie Hot Pot' as it is a pot of pure goodness.  Here is the recipe for you to try at home.

VEGGIE HOT POT (Vegan & GF)

Serves 4

The good thing about this dish is that you can make it as chunky or 'soupy' as you like, so the decision is yours!

3 stalks of celery, sliced

1/2 bulb of fennel, sliced

1 medium potato, cubed

1 medium raw beetroot, cubed

2 large carrots, sliced and cubed

1/2 cup of mixed lentils (red lentils, green split peas, brown lentils, whatever you like) - rinse first

1 red pepper, cubed

1 200g bag of fresh spinach

1/2 cup of fresh coriander chopped (including stalks) - keep a tbsp aside for sprinkling on serving

1/2 cup of fresh parsley chopped

1 tsp fresh thyme (or dried if you don't have fresh)

Salt & pepper to taste

6 cups of vegetable stock

Juice from 1 lime (or lemon)

1 tsp of coconut oil (or sunflower)

Instruction:

1.  In a saucepan, sauté the celery and fennel in the coconut oil for a couple of minutes.

2.  Add the carrots, beetroot, potato & pepper and sauté for another 5 minutes.

3.  Add the stock water and bring to the boil, add the lentils and turn the head down to low so the mix can simmer gently and all the veggies and lentils can cook - about 30 minutes.

4.  Add salt and pepper.

5.  Once all veggies and lentils are cooked, add the spinach, parsley and coriander and simmer for a further 5 minutes.

6.  When you come to serve, dish up in soup bowls, sprinkle with some coriander, add a drizzle of the lime juice and serve with some crusty warm bread or raw crackers are equally delicious.

This dish has nothing but pure goodness, nutrients and vitamins and is so versatile that you can add whatever vegetables you have in the fridge, whatever flavours you like and you can eat this throughout the day.  Also great to have in your fridge for that quick snack in between meals.

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It is now 12.20pm.  Mum arrived speedily at around 10.45am, looking well and hungry so I am thankful that I made the above soup first thing this morning.

After catching up with some tea, we had lunch at 11.30am as mum was tired, hungry and wanted to go to bed.  She loved the soup, it smelt fab and tasted wonderful and mum loved it so a big thumbs up for this dish.

Now mum is sleeping and I am catching up with my blog and business planning tasks.

It feels so good to feel nicely full yet satisfied and light leaving way for me to get down and focus on tasks at hand without thinking of food constantly!

Today I wanted to leave you with this lovely quote I came across this morning.

Your conscience is a good friend.
Listen to it more often!

Have a wonderful day everyone x