Autumn Vegetable Soup - a Pressure Cooker Recipe

Up until a couple of weeks ago if anyone had told me that I needed a pressure cooker in my life I would've laughed at them. If I needed to make soups or stews I had a slow cooker for that, so why would I need a pressure cooker. I work from home and have all the time in the world to put dinner on, so I would use the slow cooker and leave it cooking all day, and have a delicious stew for dinner. Except I don't. I don't because I am a procrastinator. I know I should chop the vegetables and prepare the meat first thing, and I know that it will only take me a few minutes to do so, but I don't. I keep saying to myself 'oh I must do that veg and put the slow cooker on', and before I know it it's the middle of the afternoon & the slow cooker is still on top of the cupboard.

This is where the Pressure King Pro comes in handy for me, as soups and stews and lots of other delicious meals, can be cooked in next to no time. Fluffy rice takes just 5 minutes, steamed vegetables take under 4, casseroles in under 30 and a whole chicken can be cooked from frozen in just one hour!

I definitely DO need a pressure cooker in my life, and I didn't even know it!

Over the past couple of weeks I have barely turned the oven or hob on to cook a meal, instead opting to make most of our meals in the 5 litre Pressure King Pro. We've been enjoying bolognese, chilli, soups, rice dishes, pulled pork, potatoes, chicken, stews and vegetables. The machine is simple to use, with the touch of a couple of buttons and a twist of the lid, it then does its thing for a few minutes before beeping to indicate that the cooking time is over. You then have the choice to leave it to keep warm and release the pressure naturally, or release the pressure manually by moving the valve, to speed up the process. I usually go with the latter, unless I've cooked a stew which I want to keep warm for a while before serving.

The Pressure King Pro is a good looking machine, which blends in nicely into my kitchen, and although I've reserved a space for it on top of the cupboard, it hasn't actually got up there yet as I use it so often. It comes complete with a measuring cup, spoon, and steamer tray (which is a little tricky to remove when hot, unless I'm using it completely wrong), and a recipe booklet with ideas and cooking times to start you off. I've also noticed that it's possible to buy an additional inner pot, which would be really useful when cooking chilli and rice, or bolognese and pasta for example.

Now that it appears winter has set in (I'm in full blown onesie mode at night now!), it's definitely time for soups and stews again. Last week I wasn't quite ready for a thick and hearty soup,, so instead I opted for a chunky vegetable soup in a light broth. I like to eat the chunks of soft veg, but it can be easily blended with a stick blender to a smoother, thicker consistency if preferred.

The soup is lovely served with hot buttered toasted bread, or served on top of a few slices of grilled cheese topped baguette to allow all the lovely juices to soak into the bread - soggy bread isn't for everyone, but don't knock it until you've tried this!

I've been sharing my ventures with my new Pressure King Pro over on Instagram and Instagram stories, and after seeing some of my meals my friend decided that she needed one in her life too, and promptly bought one. My mum has been eyeing mine up too, and although I said that if I ever received a pressure cooker to try out on my blog she could have it afterwards, I've now changed my mind, so she'll have to buy her own - sorry Mum!

Since the arrival of my new Pressure King Pro I've barely turned the oven or hob on. I'm loving how simple it is and how quickly it cooks meals, which is perfect for someone like me who has every intention of cooking dinner in the slow cooker but forgets until it's too late. This veg, lentil & quorn soup / stew took just 15 minutes, and tastes as good as it would if it had been cooking all day in the slow cooker. . . . . . #soup #stew #veggiemeal #vegetarian #vegetarianfood #familymeal #healthyeating #pressurecooker #pressurekingpro #foodie #instafood #foodblogger #review

A post shared by Helen (@thecrazykitchen) on Sep 4, 2017 at 11:01am PDT

Today I had a little spring in my step. The sun was shining & I was on a high after booking flights for our annual girly break to the Algarve next year ☀️ It's now back to being miserable & rainy so I cooked a nice comforting family meal of sausage & mash. The onion gravy was made in my new Pressure King Pro, with the carrots steamed on top. Clean plates all round 👌🏼 . . . . . #familymeal #sausageandmash #comfortfood #pressurekingpro #easymeals #foodie #foodblogger #instafood

A post shared by Helen (@thecrazykitchen) on Sep 7, 2017 at 10:04am PDT

The 8 year old requested egg fried rice for lunch, and egg fried rice was what he got. Fluffy basmati rice cooked in the Pressure King Pro in just 5 minutes, with egg, peas & soy sauce 💛 . . . . . #pressurecooker #pressurekingpro #lunch #rice #friedrice #easycooking #easymeals #familymeal #foodie #foodblogger #instafood

A post shared by Helen (@thecrazykitchen) on Sep 9, 2017 at 4:21am PDT

Do you have any favourite pressure cooker recipes to share?

About the Pressure King Pro 5L

The 12-in-1 Digital Pressure Cooker will create delicious, hearty, home-cooked meals faster and easier than traditional cooking methods in minutes, rather than hours and with a simple press of a button!

The Pressure King Pro cooks with pressurised steam, locking in more vitamins and nutrients than many other cooking methods, and infusing your food with its natural flavours and seasonings, making delicious, healthier family dinners up to 90% faster than conventional methods. You’ll get that slow-cooked taste and tenderness in minutes rather than hours!

• Worry-free cooking with the family sized pressure cooker that cooks meals up to 90% faster than conventional cooking methods.
• Quick, safe and easy to use, the Pressure King Pro maintains the perfect temperature from centre to edge and from top to bottom, whilst cooking your food quickly and evenly.
• The 12-in-1 Digital Pressure Cooker will create delicious, hearty, home-cooked meals faster and easier than traditional cooking methods in minutes, rather than hours and with a simple press of a button.
• 12 pre-programmed settings to make cooking simple: Meat, Rice, Stew, Soup, Pasta, Fish, Steam, Canning, Delay Timer, Fast Re-Heat, and dual Keep Warm/Slow Cook setting.
• The Pressure King Pro’s super-heated pressurised steam locks in more of the important vitamins and minerals in your food than many traditional cooking methods, including boiling and steaming. What’s more, your food will be infused with incredible, slow-cooked tenderness and taste!
• With the BONUS recipe book included, you can make a wide variety of meals from slow cooked hearty stews, fluffy and creamy risottos, wholesome soups to delicious pasta dishes - with the Pressure King Pro you can even cook a whole chicken in just 25 minutes with succulent and flavoursome results.
• The 24 Hour Delay Timer mode means you can switch it on in a morning and your food will be ready to eat when you get home.
• The Keep Warm mode automatically kicks in when your food is cooked, so your food will stay hot until you’re ready to eat it.
• Fast Reheat mode warms up already cooked food. 
• Great taste without added fat –add fats or oils for additional flavour if desired.
• Compact, sleek design that fits easily on your countertop.
• 5 litre capacity (900 Watts) so you can cook huge amounts for your whole family.
• Made from high-quality stainless steel and is non-stick, simply wipe it clean and you’re ready to cook amazing meals over and over again.

Available from High Street TV for £69.99, including delivery

Commissioned post for High Street TV & Pressure King Pro

Creamy Broccoli Soup - Slimming World Friendly Recipe

We are a family of soup lovers here. My youngest will often ask for a bowl of tomato soup for dinner, especially if it's accompanied by a few slices of home made bread. As well as being a hearty meal, it's a great way to get some extra veggies into our diets, which can be especially difficult with teens.

Having soup for lunch is also a great way to feel satisfied at lunchtime when I'm watching what I eat. I'm currently following the Slimming World plan, albeit intermittently at times (in between wine weekends and Wispa Wednesday), and this soup is not only easy to make, it's also very satisfying and doesn't make me feel like I'm eating diet food, as it's so rich and creamy.

Revive your Lunch-Life - Sea Salt & Black Pepper Crackers for Soup

It's easy to get into a bit of a rut with lunches and sometimes you need to think outside of the box a little to put a bit of spice back in your lunch-life. It should be easy for me as I work from home and have the world at my feet when it comes to ingredients (unless it's a day like Monday when I was talking for too long after the school run and missed my grocery delivery, whoops!), but I often find myself not knowing what to eat for lunch.

The Covent Garden Soup Company asked me to be part of their Revive your Lunch-Life campaign and to create a recipe to accompany one of their many soups.

I love soup, especially home made, but I can't always be bothered to spend my morning peeling and chopping to make a batch of fresh soup. Plus, y'know, I would want some fresh crusty bread and thickly spread butter to dip into it, and plain bread doesn't hit the spot for me.

These sea salt and black pepper crackers, however, do hit the spot. They are salty but not so salty that it leaves you gasping for water, and they are the perfect amount of peppery, which for me is quite peppery, and are great dipped in soup as they stay crispy.

It was hard to decide what flavour soups to get as so many of them sounded so tasty, such as Chicken and Chorizo Jambalaya, Boston Bean & Monterey Jack or Broccoli Pea & Pesto, but that decision was taken out of my hands when I reached my local Tesco as they only had a handful of flavours in stock. I went for Slow Roasted Tomato, as tomato soup is always a big hit in this house so I knew I wouldn't be alone in eating it. With just 84 calories per 300g serving (half a standard carton), it was a healthy option too.

Sea Salt & Black Pepper Crackers by Helen Jessup on Scribd

The crackers are easy to make, and make a great alternative to bread, whether you eat your soup at home or on the go, and are made from just a few ingredients found in most store cupboards. If you use white flour you may need to reduce the quantity of water as wholemeal flour tends to need more.

How do you revive your Lunch-Life?

This recipe has been commissioned for The Covent Garden Soup Company

Pea & Ham Soup

This pea and ham soup is not only very cheap to make (less than 50p for the peas) it also makes use of leftover gammon that I'd boiled in Dr Pepper at the weekend. There wasn't enough left to make a meal, but it was the perfect amount to add to the soup.

Whilst I'd cooked this in a saucepan it would be an ideal slow cooker recipe, which could be left cooking all day on low.

Pea & Ham Soup - serves 4/5

300g dried marrowfat peas

cold water

splash of olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1 litre stock (vegetable, chicken, pork or ham)

salt & black pepper

200g ham or gammon, diced

• add the peas to a large bowl and cover with cold water
• leave to soak for 6 hours, or overnight
• heat the oil in a large saucepan and fry the onion for 2-3 minutes over a medium heat
• drain and rinse the peas and add them to the saucepan with the stock
• bring to the boil and simmer for around 30 minutes, until the peas are soft
• remove from the heat and blend until smooth, with a stick blender
• add salt & pepper to taste, and the diced ham
• return to the heat until the ham is heated through 

The kids absolutely loved this with fresh crusty bread, and have asked me to make it again very soon!

Creamy Onion Soup (and a Thermos Flask review)

I was recently sent a Thermos stainless King 1.2l flask to review, so as the weather is getting a little cooler, I decided to make some soup for the husband to take to the allotment at the weekend. We've grown rather a lot of onions this year so I used a few of them to make a creamy onion soup to keep him warm whilst he dug up our remaining potatoes.

Along with the potatoes, onions and courgettes that were in plentiful supply, we also grew quite a few tomatoes, which unfortunately never reached the rosy red stage due to the lack of sun and warmth towards the end of the summer - green tomato chutney is now in the pipeline!

If you're thinking of venturing into the world of vegetable growing you could either wait until the spring before you start sewing your seeds, or lengthen the growing season with a polytunnel or cloche, such as the ones from Premier Polytunnels. This would definitely help me to grow some red tomatoes next year.

Creamy Onion Soup

4 large onions

25g butter

150ml white wine

250ml stock (chicken or vegetable)

black pepper
50g sachet of creamed coconut (I used Pataks)

• cut the onions in half & slice
• heat the butter in a large saucepan
• add the onions and cook over a medium/high heat, stirring regularly, until they're brown and completely softened
• add the wine & stock & bring to the boil
• season with freshly ground black pepper
• simmer for 20 minutes before stirring in the creamed coconut

The retro looking flask in matte black, comes with a lifetime guarantee, and is one of the best selling Thermos flasks throughout the world. This flask not only looks great, but it's designed to keep drinks hot or cold for up to 24 hours. Although I haven't put the 24 hour claim to the test yet, I poured piping hot soup into the flask at 9.45am and it was still hot at 2.15pm.

rrp £29.95

I was sent a Thermos stainless king for the purpose of review

Butternut Squash & Tomato Soup

The weather recently has definitely been more spring like. Coats have been ditched and more time is being spent outdoors. Then, all of a sudden, a frost hits again and we feel that we're back in the depths of winter. What better way to warm yourself up on a chilly day than with a bowl of soup. This butternut squash and tomato soup is extremely simple to make, has few ingredients, yet tastes as good as a good quality cream of tomato, and is a lot healthier too.

The husband wasn't feeling too good so I served him a bowl with a cheese toastie, sprinkled with a few bacon flavour bread bites, from this month's Degustabox.

Butternut Squash & Tomato Soup

1 butternut squash, peeled and chopped

water

1 stock cube    

400g can of chopped tomatoes

salt & pepper to taste

• Add the butternut squash to a large pan
• Cover with water & add the stock cube
• Bring to the boil and simmer until the squash is softened
• Add the tomatoes and bring back to the boil
• Remove from the heat and blend to a puree with a hand blender, adding more water if necessary
• Add salt and pepper to taste

The soup is completely free on Weight Watchers filling & healthy plan (minus the cheese toastie and bread bites).

Healthy Soups - Creamy Leek & Potato

The healthy eating has started and the fitness mission is well and truly underway. Extra vegetables are being consumed, and whilst the kids aren't particularly fussy about eating them, one of the best ways to make sure they get enough is in home made soup. Two of the most popular flavours I make are a butternut squash and a curried parsnip soup, but this time I tried another flavour, which is always a risk, not knowing if the kids will enjoy it.

Soup is usually a very thrifty meal, and a potato soup is possibly one of the thriftiest. Throw these together with a couple of leeks and you have enough soup for a family for less than £2. According to the 'Real-time Food Consumption in the UK' infographic produced by Quandoo, since you started reading this blog post over 4000 kg of potatoes have been consumed in the UK.  Obviously I didn't use quite that many in this recipe, although if I did I'm sure it wouldn't have taken very long for my lot to eat it all!

Creamy Leek & Potato Soup

1 tbsp olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

1 clove of garlic, crushed

250g leeks, sliced

6-8 medium potatoes, peeled & diced

1 litre vegetable stock

150ml reduced fat creme fraiche

salt & pepper

• Heat the oil in a large pan
• Add the onion, garlic & leeks & fry for 2 minutes
• Add the potatoes & stock & bring to the boil
• Place a lid on & simmer until everything is softened (or add to a slow cooker and cook on medium/high for 3-4 hours)
• Stir in the creme fraiche
• Either blend with a hand blender, or mash with a potato masher if you like a bit more texture to your soup, adding additional stock if you want a thinner soup
• Season with salt & pepper to taste 

Thankfully everyone loved this soup so it's another one to add to our regular soup list. I like to add a swirl of hot pepper sauce to mine...

I found these beautiful duck egg bowls & plates in Tesco at the weekend and couldn't resist buying them.

Why not go back to the infographic and see how many potatoes have been consumed since you last checked...

This post has been commissioned by Quandoo

Thai Green Curried Parsnip Soup

I'm not very green fingered but every year I try to grow a little something - we just about manage enough potatoes for one meal and the carrots make a nice treat for the hamster. I'm lucky enough to have friends with allotments though, and have had all sorts of vegetables that they have grown in abundance, including onions, giant yellow courgettes, chard, rhubarb and parsnips, lots and lots of parsnips.

Last time I received some I made a Roast Parsnip Cake, which was delicious, but as I'm trying to steer clear of the cake I thought soup might be a healthier option, especially as the kids loved the curried parsnip and apple soup I made a while ago.

I don't have quantities here as I made a huge batch and froze some of it, but a regular 500g bag of parsnips should make enough for a family of 4.

Thai Green Curried Parsnip Soup

Parsnips, peeled & chopped

Stock or water

Thai green paste (I used Thai Taste, which is made of all natural ingredients & is also suitable for vegans & vegetarians)

Coconut cream (or milk)

• Add the parsnips to a large pan and cover with water or stock & add 1-2 tbsp of curry paste
• Bring to the boil & simmer until parsnips are soft
• Blend until smooth, adding the coconut cream & additional stock to gain the right consistency

All served with a freshly baked bloomer.

I received a sample of vintage cutlery from Jennifer's Cutlery, including this gorgeous little soup spoon.

 

Sous Vide Pea & Potato Soup - A Budget Recipe

I've had the Sous Vide Thermo Circulator for a couple of weeks now and had only tried cooking meat in it. Whilst browsing the Internet I spotted some recipes for soup so I thought I would try it out for myself. One of the benefits of cooking vegetables in the sous vide is that they keep their colour - great for butternut squash or carrot soups but less so when it's potato as I was doing. I decided to add some peas to give the soup some more flavour as well as colour but in hindsight I should've added them to the water bath towards the end of the cooking time as they don't really need cooking as such and would have been a more vibrant green.

This recipe can of course be made in a saucepan or slow cooker, in which case you would cook the potatoes in the stock and add the peas towards the end of cooking. I only added a little rosemary, and a lot less than I would normally add if I was making this soup in a pan, but you could really taste it in the finished soup.

Sous Vide Pea & Potato Soup

1kg potatoes, peeled and chopped
350g frozen peas
pinch of salt, pepper and dried rosemary
1 litre of vegetable stock
Creme Fraiche for serving

• Seal the potatoes and peas in vacuum bags, ensuring that they are spread evenly within the bag
• Set the water bath to 82C
• Immerse the bags and cook for around 2 hours
• Blend the vegetables with the stock until smooth and heat through before serving
• Serve with a blob of creme fraiche

This is another of my budget recipes coming in at a little over £1 for the whole recipe which served all 5 of us.