Sweet Potato Soup Recipe

I bought a stick blender recently and it is quite simply brilliant. If you have kids that moan about 'lumpy bits' or homemade soup that 'isn't like the shop one' it's a must have.

As it's September I decided to make a soup for Saturday lunch and it's a nice quick one, sweet potato is such a soft root vegetable which makes it great for soup.

So I grabbed

• two onions
• 3 sweet potatoes
• 2 garlic cloves
• tablespoon oil
• vegetable stock cube

and I set to work, peeled and chopped the vegetables to about 2 cm cubes. Lightly fried the onion and garlic in the oil while I dissolved the stock cube in just over a pint of boiling water, and set the potato to simmer in a lidded saucepan.

After the onion was softened I added it to the saucepan and waited. 30 minutes was about long enough to ensure the sweet potato was soft enough to squash with a spoon, so I removed the pan from the heat and used the stick blender to blend down the vegetables into a super thick and tasty soup.

There was enough to serve 2 (or 3 not so hungry people) and served with thickly buttered crusty bread it was delicious. I love a simple soup.

First soup image with title Copyright: somegirl / 123RF Stock Photo all other photos my own

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My ten dieting secrets for successful weightloss

It finally happened. I have reached and actually fallen slightly under, my goal weight of 140lb (I’m currently 139.9lb). I weighed 155lb in January, when I weighed myself to see if giving up alcohol would make any difference to my weight over Dry January.

Tuna and egg salad with extra light mayonnaise

Using FatSecret a free diet app, which records calorie (also fat, carbs etc) and sets goals etc I have managed a simple diet since then and now am planning to just stay around this weight.

Several people have asked my my ‘dieting secret’ and sadly I’m not sure there is one. The secret is that well known one, you have to eat less calories than you need…then you lose weight. If you eat more than you need you gain weight, and if you eat the right amount you stay the same.

That said I do have some tips to sticking to your set limit. And some ideas for meals and snacks to keep the calories down.

1. Don’t ban any food. If there is a food you like and want to eat just include it in your plan. This might mean you have to eat a smaller portion, maybe half a pizza with a green salad rather than a whole pizza! or a small chocolate bar rather than a 1lb one, or it may mean missing out something else, so why not just have dessert for dinner? If you have a sweet tooth and crave lemon meringue just go for it, but you can’t have everything.
2. You will need willpower. There are lots of foods that taste much much better than skinny feels but if you want to lose weight you may have to say no, not every time (see point 1 above) but some of the time. Be prepared to feel like a holy martyr. Feel good about saying no and if you feel hungry and your stomach grumbles ensure you know how many calories you’ve had that day and then mentally tell your body to ‘suck it up and use some of the fat you have  already!’  (don’t do this out loud though, it’s considered odd)
3. Plan some snacks. If, like me, you are always hungry and fancying a nibble on something, plan some snacks. I have found that there are great low calorie options such as savoury popcorns, fruit, and even low calorie crisps that can be included in your diet.
4. To start with just record what you eat and when, I found using a dieting app was great for showing me where I was going wrong! When you see what you are eating and a pattern you can look at how to change it. If you always snack at 10.30 it’s silly to just stop – but you can change what you snack on (see above) Like wise if you tend to eat a larger meal at a certain time of the day, tailor your calories toward that. I like to eat a medium breakfast, snack at 10.30 and then have  a light lunch with a bigger evening meal for example. The FatSecret app is free and available on Android, Apple products and on the web. The website allows you to buddy up with people similar to you too, which can be a great boost.
5. Top examples of low calorie foods and meals I discovered are : Tuna fish, spookily low in calories and eaten with a salad (eg salad niciose) can be really filling for a tiny percentage of your daily allowance). Quorn, another high protein, low fat, low calorie food, great in a tomato sauce (homemade with no added sugars etc) with rice or green beans. Sushi, I found that a small pack of Yumie sushi at lunch was only 200 calories, perfect with a bottle of water, feels exotic and special full of flavour and very few calories. I’ve already mentioned popcorn, brands like Propercorn are great. 
6. Bulk up your plate with more vegetables (not root veg) and try to cut down on fat and carbohydrates. Lots of people will swear by a low fat or a low carb diet – in my opinion these work because fat and carbs have the most calories! I’ve used calorie counting only and have found adding extra lower calorie vegetables to meals has worked well.
7. Drinks are easy to consume and can hide an alarming calorie content. Alcohol really is an empty calorie (add Costa Chai Lattes to that list of hugely calorific drinks too!!) and alcohol is a poison, so I have given it up completely in the week. I now drink non alcoholic beer and wine after work instead, double health gain! Since finding out how many calories are in those yummy flavoured Frappes and Lattes in coffee shops I also tend to avoid them unless it’s a treat. Saving big money and numerous calories.
8. Be honest with yourself, if you don’t record everything you eat you might gain weight and will feel defeated. Better to see where you are going wrong on food intake so you can change it. It’s not easy to diet. You will need to change habbits. There is no magic trick. You just need to eat less. If you mess up a day, don't panic, just go back to doing it right the next day. I went to a couple of events where food was on offer so I just gave myself a diet holiday! That way I didn't feel bad, I enjoyed myself and went back to the diet afterwards. (oddly you do find as time passes you automatically make better choices anyway) 
9. I haven’t talked about exercise and that’s deliberate. I don’t exercise much and I didn’t step it up when I started this diet. The extra calories burned via exercise are surprisingly low.(you need an hour of fast cycling to burn off a single donut). Exercise will change some of your shape and convert fat to muscle and muscle is denser than fat and can weigh more. Most scientists agree that diet is much more important to lose weight than exercise (I’m not talking about over all health – exercise is obviously good for health, but losing weight is what I’m focusing on)
10. Drink more water. Everyone says this, but it's true and it helps. It stops you eating when really you are just thirsty. It fills your stomach if you drink water with a meal. It helps your body work and it's zero calories. And it's something to swallow!

So there they are, my diet secrets, which sadly boil down to eating fewer calories. But it is possible! It’s taken me 6 months at 1600 calories a day (1800 in the first 2 months) but I’ve lost 15 lbs. The FatSecret app allows you to choose how fast or slow you want to lose the weight and I chose slowly and it’s worked perfectly. I would suggest after losing 5lbs or so you reassess the calories you should be consuming, as you get smaller you need fewer to stay the same!

Homemade Quorn Chilli

Good Luck - let me know how you get on.

(This in not a sponsored post. Nothing to disclose here, move along)

Only getting it twice a week

Copyright: claudioratti973 / 123RF Stock Photo

Obviously I'm talking about the most recent idea from our interfering overlords, about schools meals. And I'm referring to fried foods and pies.

My daughter is 14 and I'm fairly sure that if these rules are brought in at her school canteen then the children will just use the chip shop along the road on the three days that no chips are served. 

But even if the "fried food" twice a week maximum is applied at other schools, it's ridiculous. Why is fried food seen as unhealthy but macaroni cheese is not? I'm guessing a cheese dish has plenty of saturated fat, while chips can be fried in vegetable oils. (oh, hang on ... "we have introduced a new restriction on how often cheese can be served as the vegetarian option." from 'The Rules')  And a restriction on pastry? pastry?! Really? So quiche is out along with vegetable pies, fruits pies...(DD cried out "No strudel!" in horror)

I'm starting to wonder what will be left that children can eat, as a mum of a teen girl who is underweight and like many children worried about 'getting fat' I am concerned that this is going to adversely affect her.

Drinks with too much sugar are in the firing line too including fruit juice, but presumably diet drinks with aspartame will sneak through this unhealthily cordon? Water will be pushed as the best drink...good luck with that, if you have a fussy drinker prepare yourself for the inevitable cystitis when they go all day without drinking. Milk will also be promoted.

Bread crumbed food is classed as fried too apparently? Honestly it's the usual stupid interfering that in the long run won't change anything all it will do is anger parents and children, make it difficult for schools and cause bloggers to rage! (DD had confirmed they have oven cooked potato wedges often...) Crisps are also banned, as are all sweets, chocolate and cereal bars.

If the all powerful government want to really make a difference they will have to do better than banning things, they will have to actually look at what is healthy, create recipes and stick to them. (and take away some choice, like in the 'olden days' where the choice was take it or go hungry)

My daughter will continue to take a packed lunch, a habit we got into as local schools all had their kitchens removed in the 90s to save money (!) and no doubt many children will do the same, lunch box police not withstanding.

I don't have a problem with children eating healthily, when I was on the primary school PTA I actively campaigned for more fruit for the children and it was implemented very successfully, but I think it's about choice, making healthy the attractive option, not banning things. From experience forbidden fruit (or in this case forbidden junk) will become the preferred option for most children.

Banning things never works. Encouraging an interest in eating and new and interesting menus might (Jamie Oliver tried this technique but the government are now saying it's too complicated)

oh and tuck shops are out too. 

Do not get me started on the lack of playing fields, teachers car parks in play grounds and the banning of many 'active' kids games....