Chunky Ginger and Black Eyed Bean Soup

Gavin WrenRecipes, Soup, Vegan, Vegetarian

Today I'm making a vegan black eyed bean soup which is crammed full of healthy vegetables, making a chunky soup that will fill the emptiest of bellies but also bursting with bold flavours to satisfy the most demanding of taste buds. It's easy double or triple up the quantities to make ahead and freeze for next week's lunches.
About 10 years ago I lost a lot of weight. Over 4 stone to be exact, it also proved to be a turning point in the food history of my life, it was a time when seismic change occurred to some of my most deeply ingrained, English eating habits. Soup became my new lunchtime God, eschewing the bread it replaced, leading me to hunt high and low to find or create the perfect, filling, tasty soup. This vegetarian ginger and black eyed bean soup is my latest effort, and boy, it’s a good’un. Death of the Sandwich. I gave up eating sandwiches. That stalwart of the lunch table, which had filled my boots and nurtured me through my childhood, adolescence and twenties, into the tall, strong and fat man I became by the age of 30. Bread had been so integral to my life that I had barely chosen…

Chunky Butternut Squash and Lentil Soup

Gavin WrenRecipes, Soup, Vegan, Vegetarian

A filling and sustaining chunky soup loaded with goodness and hearty ingredients. This chunky butternut squash and lentil soup is a meal-in-a-bowl which virtually becomes a stew as the liquid is almost entirely soaked up by the lentils, chickpeas and squash. The Indian influenced spices have come in to play, featuring a warming host of flavours which will warm your cockles even when the temperature's so cold that the central heating doesn't. It's so good that it's my lunch bowl for the next three weeks, yes, I've just made a triple batch of this, giving me a happy fridge and freezer full of lunchtime joy.
Today I’ve got a fantastically filling, Indian influenced, chunky butternut squash and lentil soup with chickpeas that will keep your tummy filled, your body fuelled and your cockles warmed throughout the coldest days of the winter. Fantastic India. I’ve just returned from a truly beautiful holiday in Goa, India, where I spent three weeks doing yoga, laying by the sea, reading and travelling across the width of the country to the eastern city of Ranchi, to visit my 93 year old, Canadian resident great uncle. I rarely see him, as we’re separated by 4,368 miles and the Atlantic Ocean, but we had both travelled to India for our Christmas breaks this year, so travelling a mere 1,200 miles across India to see him was the itinerant equivalent of popping down the road to meet for a coffee. We had a lovely time and I hope I’m still flying to the…

Supergreen Wholegrain Miso Soup

Gavin WrenRecipes, Soup, Vegan, Vegetarian

An amazingly wholesome supergreen wholegrain miso soup rammed full of hearty, warming, nutritious wholegrains and micronutrients, it’s a fully rounded one-pot meal in a bowl that gives you all the energy you need to live a healthy, happy life. It makes the prefect vegetarian lunch or dinner meal soup for autumn and winter when the mornings are cold and you need something to look forward to, plus it's an easy make, you just need to leave it simmering away while you go about your life. Find the full recipe on lepetitoeuf.com
I hope you’re ready for the most wholesome, healthy, winter-warmer, one-bowl-meal of a recipe I’ve ever published. This recipe is packed full of supergreens plus it’s a wholegrain miso soup, taking the often light miso soup and making into a hearty, balanced meal soup. It even looks healthy! Just looking at this recipe makes you lose a few kilograms, making and eating it is the equivalent of visiting Lourdes whilst running a marathon and getting blessed by the pope. It’s like the 3 in 1 Cilit Bang of healthy soups. Inspired by my eternal search to create lunch recipes that are one-pot wonders and can sustain me through the afternoon, I pulled together all the things I wanted in a soup; healthy, filling, low fat, tasty, nutritious and piled them into a bowl. The result is this spectacular soup which I’ve just made four litres of, which will take care…

Spicy coconut and beetroot soup

Gavin WrenRecipes, Soup, Vegetarian

Spicy coconut beetroot soup
A month or so ago I promised you Beetroot soup ‘v2’ and that soup has finally made it’s way from the shelves of the corner shop, via my shopping bag, with a brief stay in the fridge before being nestled in various pots and pans and ultimately ending up in my stomach. Along the way, I took a few photos of the journey to share with you all. This coconut and beetroot soup ended up being quite a treat as well, because like the ugly duckling, this soup was the one which didn’t make the grade, it fell at the first hurdle and was rejected in it’s original form, poor thing. But I stripped it back, looked for it’s essence and did some personal development on it with a singular direction of flavour and it really has blossomed into the beautiful swan. I’m tempted to say it has Caribbean influences,…

Beetroot, apple and horseradish soup

Gavin WrenRecipes, Soup, Vegetarian

A mountain of cooked beetroot
Bee’roo.
Bee’root.
B’root.
Beet.
Root.
I just can’t seem to say it right. The first person to point this out was my girlfriend, who regularly sends up my pronounciation of the word beetroot. A typical* conversation at home might go like this: Me: “Do you fancy some bee’roo soup for lunch”
Gf: “B’ROO?”
Me: “OK, let’s try again. Would you like a bowl of homemade beeTrooT soup?”
Gf: “B’ROO?”
Me: “I’ll take that as yes.”
(* Grossly exaggerated) This linguistic laziness seems to be quite a common English tradition where people regularly drop letters from words. All over the country, people drop their h’s and t’s when they pronounce words to either sound cool, be cockney, lazy, or just because they do. Even my hairdresser’s name is an example of it, being called ‘Enry ‘Iggins, presumably in reference to the musical My Fair Lady. Anyway, pronounciation peculiarities aside, last…

Hearty roasted garlic and squash soup with kale

Gavin WrenMain Dishes, Recipes, Soup, Vegan, Vegetarian

Roasted garlic and butternut squash soup with kale in the saucepans
Winter = Soup. Summer = Salad. If there were ever two dishes that were clearly defined by the seasons, then these must be the top contenders. And in case anyone starts shouting “what about winter salads and ‘slaws”, I’m a fan of winter salads (Check out my roasted kale and goat’s cheese salad if you’ve not seen it already!), BUT, nothing beats super fresh, flavoursome summer salads that have gone from plant to plate in the shortest time possible. They’re just magical. And whilst we’re revelling in this joyous abundance of fresh produce in the summer, you’ll find the soup section in your local supermarket almost completely curls up and goes into hibernation. But, it’s all very logical, because homemade soup is simply the best thing to have for your lunches during the winter. It’s easy to make, cheap and endlessly tweakable to add the flavours…