SMART Kitchen

Here’s an easy soup recipe from the Smart Kitchen. It’s full of colourful vegetables and healthy vitamins to cheer us up. Don’t worry if you haven’t got any coriander, it will taste pretty good without!

Watch this space for more tasty meal ideas…

Recipe for Carrot and Ginger Soup

Ingredients for carrot soup

  • 2 tablespoons oil
  • 2 onions
  • 2 celery sticks
  • ½ leek
  • 2 garlic cloves
  • 400g carrots
  • 2cm piece root ginger
  • small bunch of coriander leaves & stalks
  • 1 vegetable stock cube
  • 1 litre hot water
  • 1 lime juice & zest
  • salt and pepper

Put the oil in a large pan. Chop the onion, celery, leek and garlic as finely as you can and put them into the pan. Fry gently for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, grate or finely chop the ginger and add to the pan. Peel and finely dice the carrots and add them to the onion mixture. Continue to fry until the onions are soft, stirring often.

Add the water, stock cube, coriander stalks, seasoning and lime zest. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer on a low heat for about 15–20 minutes until everything is soft. Whizz with a stick blender if you like. Add the chopped coriander leaves and lime juice to taste.

Serve 😋

Chopping Celery

Recipe for Dahl

  • 1 large onion
  • 2cm piece root ginger
  • 2 garlic cloves
  • 2 medium carrots
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 150g Lentils (red/green/brown or a mixture)
  • ½ teaspoons chilli powder (to taste)
  • ¼ teaspoons turmeric powder
  • 1-2 teaspoons curry powder or equivalent of coriander/cumin/mustard seed + garam masala
  • 1 vegetable stock cube
  • salt and pepper
  • hot water
  • ½ lime juice
  • ½ tin coconut milk (optional)
  • ½ tin chickpeas (optional)
  • Few chopped stalks & leaves fresh coriander (optional)

Ingredients

Put the oil in a large pan. Chop the onion finely and fry gently over a low heat until soft.

Chop Garlic and ginger

Chop the garlic and ginger and add to the pan.

Grate the carrots and stir them in with the lentils.

Grate carrots

Add all the remaining ingredients including the coconut milk if you have it, and enough water to cover the lentils.

Mix ingredients

Bring to the boil and turn down the heat to low.

Bring to boil

Simmer for between 30-40 minutes, stirring frequently and topping up with water when necessary so the mixture doesn’t dry out or burn, until the lentils are soft and creamy.

Stir in the chickpeas and fresh coriander if using.

Serve with rice.