Mmmmmmm Soup with ZERO ProPoints!

I dragged my behind out for a walk today to explore the far off areas of my little bit of the world.  I found some lovely shops and stumbled across a beautiful little deli, selling the reddest tomatoes I have ever seen and oranges with the leaves still attached!  This delicious smell lured me inside and the source of it was a big pot of amazing aromatic soup.  Of course all posh deli's have prices to match their levels of swishness and this one was no exception.  As delightful as it smelled there is no way this Yorkshire lass is paying £4 for a pot of soup!

At home a scan of my cupboards and fridge revealed a half full bag of carrots and a big butternut squash.  I chopped these up and added half a chilli and two cloves of garlic.  The chilli and garlic aren't necessary but add extra flavour and depth.  Bland soup reminds me of baby food, the taste, texture and colour are practically identical so adding extras makes it taste 100% better.  To also add flavour to the soup, get your spices out.  I added generous spoons of cumin, turmeric, coriander and mustard seed, which is basically curry powder.  I popped this in the oven for 30 mins to toast the spices and slightly cook the veg which gives the soup a deep roasted flavour.  Amazing!

 

Orange Goodness pre roasting!

You may have noticed I haven't peeled my butternut squash.  DON'T, life is too short!  It is perfectly edible and is not noticeable at all when blended up.  When the veg is softened pop it into a pan with enough boiling water to cover.  Bring to the boil and then simmer until the veg is soft.  Blend this until you get a beautiful dark orange soup.  Pour into a bowl, locate spoon. Enjoy!

The finished product

What's Cooking...

I have a passion for jam, I don't know why, its just one of those things that I really love.  However all that fruit and sugar is just sooooooo calorific that it is banned from my house.  I'm following the Weight Watchers diet at the moment you may have heard that they have totally changed the points system round and introduced ProPoints.  I'm quite excited about propoints they seem to have some "science" behind them and have taken into account how the body processes food.  One big positive is that fruit is now free - I used to hate having to point an apple!  Pointless when you could have a bag of crisps for the same amount!

Anyway back to the jam.  Imagine my excitement when I found a post in the WW forum about 0pp jam!  I had to have a go.  I went to the shop last night and got all the bits.  Here is how to do it.

Stuff you need

1 box of frozen fruit

1 sachet of sugar free jelly.  I used the Hartleys one in strawberry.
Pan
Wooden spoon
Clean jam jar, or even a a plastic container will do.



1.  First put the fruit in a pan and warm on a low heat until it is starting to lose shape.
2. Then mash the fruit using a potato masher.  Nb.  My jam has lots of "bits" in it from the seeds.  I don't mind this at all, the fibre is good for you but if you hate bits then I think it would be fine to sieve the mixture at this point.

It should look like this after mashing.

 3.  Leave the mix to cool a bit then add a sachet of sugar free jelly and mix well.
4.  Pour the mix into a jar and place into the fridge to set.  It might be advisable to leave the mix to cool if you have a glass jar.

5.  Leave in the fridge overnight or for a few hours to set.

ZERO point Jam :-)

I had some for breakfast this morning with yogurt and some divine Dorset cereal muesli.  It just added some extra sweetness but is slightly tangy.  It works well with yogurt too.  Kind of like a homemade fruit corner.  Delicious!

I think this jam would be free on Slimming World too, 0 syns people!  If you are calorie counting then the fruit has 165cal, and a sachet of jelly 32 so for the whole pot just 197 cals.  Amazing!