Zucchini, Fennel and Spinach Soup with Basil: Another 5:2 Soup

Sorry for not having been posting for a few days. I do have an excuse; I have had shingles. While I am on the mend now, the last couple of weeks have been spent attempting to get some  sleep (highly unsuccessful) and smearing various goos all over the sore parts of me. Even considering cooking was more work than I could handle, although I did go in to my regular job more often than not. At home we ate from the freezer and takeout. Try to avoid getting shingles if you can. Painful, to say the least. Okay, VERY painful.


So this first post back isn't a Meaty Monday post, but a Fast Diet, or a 5:2 recipe for a soup I am planning to have today, and share with Donna at work. Takeout isn't good for my figure. Ahem.


This soup is deeply flavorful, but fresh tasting, quick to make, and partly stolen from a Rachael Rae recipe. It uses things you can still find in the farm markets and grocery stores in late September. It is also under 50 calories per serving, plus it is gluten free and vegan, unless you use a meat stock.

Zucchini, Fennel and Spinach Soup with Basil

Zucchini, Fennel and Spinach Soup with Basil

With a nod to Rachael Ray, as I saw a good-looking recipe in her magazine for a zucchini - fennel soup recently. My version still tastes rich, but will fit easily into your Fast Diet or 5:2 Plan.

1 lb. zucchini , diced (about 2 medium)
8 oz. fennel bulb , cored and sliced (about 1 small- medium)
2 shallots, sliced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups baby spinach (85g)
2-4 Tablespoons sliced basil leaves
(optional: 1 tsp. chicken stock base)
few grinds of nutmeg and white pepper
sea salt

Place the zucchini, fennel, shallots and garlic in a large saucepan, and cover with water.  Add the stock base if you are using it. Salt lightly. Bring to a boil, cut back to a simmer, and cook about 10 to 12 minutes until the vegetables are tender.  Add the spinach, basil, nutmeg and pepper, and cook an additional 2 minutes or so until the spinach has wilted and is bright green. Taste for salt  and pepper and add if needed. Puree with an immersion blender, or a regular blender and serve hot. Makes 4 hearty servings under 50 calories each.

Light Spicy Peanut Sauce with Chives

I always joke that I could probably eat packing peanuts if they were coated with spicy peanut sauce. At least most people assume I'm joking. It's one of my favorite sauces, but usually it's so high in calories I have to pass it up and make something more bathing suit friendly. In my Junior League and Devon Horse Show volunteer days, we often had committee meetings at dinnertime, right after work, and when they were at my house, spicy peanut noodles with chicken were the most requested menu item. That was also when I had the metabolism of a hummingbird, and the rich noodles didn't stick to my waist. Now sadly, I eat them guiltily, knowing that I'll be running an extra mile and trimming something else off my plate to make up for indulging.

While I was lolling abed this morning in that lovely half awake stage before the alarm, considering how to use up the last of the chicken we'd smoked in the Big Green Egg this past weekend, and briefly I considered sesame noodles with smoked chicken. But the I realized I had to weigh-in at Weight Watchers on Thursday and those sesame noodles were going to be a no-go. Peanut noodles,.....hmmm, no better, but then I remembered the jar of peanut butter powder lurking in my smoothie cabinet.(Yes, I keep most of my non-perishable smoothie ingredients in the same cabinet. It makes my morning routine go smother) It's defatted and has far fewer calories. I've actually never reconstituted it into anything spreadable, but as a part of a recipe? I decided to give it a go. 

So before 7 AM this morning I was busy stirring up this peanut sauce and had some for lunch today. With the smoked chicken, some shirataki noodles, and a bunch of slivered carrots, onions, bell pepper and broccoli. Wonderful! Get yourself some powdered peanut butter and give it a try. Your tastebuds and your scale will both be happy. This may be light in calories, but it's got all the flavor of the real thing. 

Note: the most commonly available powdered peanut butter brands are Just Great Stuff Organic Powdered Peanut Butter, which I use, or a product called PB2. Usually it's in the natural foods section at the supermarket.

Light Spicy Peanut Sauce with Chives, light on calories, not on flavor!

Light Spicy Peanut Sauce with Chives

Serves 4

4T powdered peanut butter
2T rice vinegar
2 tsp Thai fish sauce
1 tsp. dark sesame oil
1 T Cholula hot sauce
1 tsp powdered ginger
1 garlic clove, crushed to a paste
1T wheat-free tamari soy sauce
2T minced fresh chives
(1-2 T water or vegetable stock, if needed)
1T minced cilantro, optional

1. Mix all the ingredients up to the chives in a small bowl with a whisk.  Stir in the chives, and the water or stock if the sauce is thicker than a vinaigrette dressing. Stir in the cilantro if using and serve over noodles, fish, chicken, steamed vegetables, or eat sneakily with a spoon.

Spinach, Cauliflower & Bell Pepper Bake, Revisited

This was posted a while back during vacation season...and I just made it again. It was late Summer and  this was a side dish to my husband's grilled (burnt) offering. I was even lamenting the slim pickings in my vegetable garden at the time. Well, I really had nothing to complain about. Because now it is late Winter, and the vegetable garden, is brown and full of dead leaves and other winter debris that has collected inside the fence over the last few cold, dark months. The cauliflower, peppers and spinach are easily available, and good at this time of year, and this does make a great (ova-lacto) vegetarian, gluten free meal for a wet chilly windy night like this one. just too good to relegate to summer only.  With a nice piece of bread or a gluten free roll, a glass of white wine and some fruit  for dessert...and you can sit back and pretend you picked it all in your yard, even if the snow is flying.

Spinach, Cauliflower & Bell Pepper Bake

From last Summer:

Now that we've joined the Big Green Egg cult, I haven't cooked a single piece of meat in the house, unless you count a pan or two of bacon. While I used to be the BBQ Girl around here, regularly loading and running a smoker full of apple logs and briskets while my disinterested DH watched baseball, I am now Kitchen Girl. The Egg has kindled a new interest in outdoor cooking in him and I am relegated to the side dishes. For the moment...I'll be back out there as soon as I can.

Meanwhile, though, it has given me a man-free kitchen to whomp up something to go with the manly burnt offerings (actually he hasn't burned anything, but it sounds good). And when you cook the meat outdoors, there is no roasting pan to wash. So it's all good and I pretty much love our Egg as much as he does, maybe more, since I've wanted one far longer. But I digress...

Remember I was whining about  the slim pickings in the garden last Friday? Well, it still is producing a little of this and that. All good.  Some shallots dug a few weeks ago, garlic, and bell peppers. And I got a very small cauliflower at the farmers market on Friday which, when you are aiming for low- carb, is a godsend. It made the base for a good cheesy dish that's somewhere between a casserole and a crustless quiche. You can add or subtract whatever you don't like here, but the eggs and sour cream proportions need to stay constant, or, well, you have an entirely different dish...possibly not bad, but different.

Note: to grate cauliflower, just scrape it on the big holes of a box grater, or chop it medium-fine in a food processor. To cook it, I just sauté it in a bit of butter until soft. If you want to keep this dish vegetarian, either use vegetarian Worcestershire sauce, or Pickapeppa sauce which has no anchovies in it.

Homegrown peppers and shallots.

Spinach, Cauliflower & Cheddar Bake

3 cups of grated cauliflower, cooked soft
1T extra virgin olive oil
1 large shallot, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 red bell pepper, diced 1/2"
5 oz. baby spinach
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp. Cholula or other hot sauce
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 cup shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Oil a 9" square oven-to-table baking dish. Heat the olive oil in a large nonstick frying pan, and add the shallot, garlic and bell pepper. Sauté on medium heat until the pepper is soft and the shallot is limp. Stir in the spinach a bit at a time and cook until it just wilts. Turn off the heat and set aside in the pan to cool for a minute or two.

Infinite possibilities with fresh-from-the-garden vegetables.

Whisk together the eggs, sour cream hot sauce and Worcestershire in a medium bowl. Stir in the cheese, and the vegetable mixture from the pan. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish and bake for 45 - 60 minutes until brown at the edges and bubbly. Good side with grilled meat or as a vegetarian main with a salad.

Serves 4-6.