I’m sure I’m in the same boat as everyone else in the sense that finances are extremely tight and have been made worse because of the increase in the cost of living. i’ve always enjoyed cooking and creating recipes for this blog and social media but I am now going to alter the way I approach doing this. I would always try to cook something new and exciting, using ingredients that you wouldn’t perhaps find in anyone’s fridge or cupboard. I simply can’t afford to do that now. But this week, I’ve realised that I don’t need to spend tons of money on making a delicious dish!
One thing I often struggle with is coming up with ideas for lunch, especially something healthy-ish. I’m not overly keen on sandwiches and the weather just hasn’t been warm enough for salads yet. Last week I had loads of coriander and carrots in the fridge so thought I would try to make a carrot and coriander soup. I’ve never made one before and also haven’t tasted a good one. But, it went down a storm and it was so so tasty!! Tom and I had it for lunches at work and Autumn ate it too, in fact she couldn’t get it in quick enough. It cost around £2.50 to make and I got 5 good portions out of it, so that’s about 50p a portion! This is very much using up bits and pieces in the fridge. I had a random piece of fresh ginger in the fridge and used that, but to be honest, I wouldn’t normally and ground ginger will do just fine.
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1 kg carrots, peeled and roughly cut
- 2 medium brown onions, diced
- 3 cloves of garlic crushed
- Half a packet of coriander (I use the stalks in the soup as they add tons of flavour and use the leaves once the soup has been blitzed)
- Salt and pepper
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 2 tsp ground coriander
- 1 litre vegetable stock
Method:
- Heat up around 1 tbsp of oil in a large pan and saute the onions and garlic for around 5 minutes.
- Next, add the carrots and cook on a medium heat for 5 minutes or so. In the meantime, make up your stock.
- Before adding the stock, add your spices and stir through thoroughly. Allow to cook for a couple of minutes on a high heat. Your kitchen will start to smell amazing now!
- Add the vegetable stock and the coriander stalks and stir through. Put a lid on your soup and simmer for 25 minutes.
- After 25 minutes, blend your soup mixture up either in a food processor or using a hand blender. It will be quite thick, I enjoy my soup like this but if you prefer it thinner, just add some more water.
- Stir through your chopped coriander leaves and serve!
- I served mine with some good old fashioned sandwich bread, a dollop of creme fraiche (only because I had some in the fridge) and a sprinkle of dried chilli flakes and some crispy salad onions. These were all things I had in the fridge or cupboard but it is delicious as it is.
Hope you enjoy and make sure you follow my social media pages where I’m going to try and share more yummy budget meals!
Gemma and Life 