Karen Wright: Comfort food season is fast approaching
I have always liked the month of September. As a youngster it was always exciting going back to school after the summer break, a new term, seeing friends again, new exercise books, new uniforms and so on.
Also, the weather is often still very pleasant albeit with a touch of autumn from time to time.
It is the start of the comfort food season too; we put all the summer salads on one side and seek out the seasonal ingredients of apples and pears, squash and root vegetables. Soup and casseroles become our friends once again.
Last week I decided to make some low residue soup. What does that mean? Soup that only contains things that are super easy to digest, so nothing high in fibre. This is important for me just now as I am preparing for a big operation and I want to give my guts a little rest.
I made the soup using root vegetables, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots and parsnip. It is important to peel these vegetables to get rid of the fibre in the skin. In my ‘normal’ life I would say the skins are the best bits, but they are off limits for a wee while for me. It is important that the vegetables are very soft too, so I made my soup in the soup maker that always cooks everything within an inch of its life!
This is what I did; I peeled and chopped the vegetables and put them in the soup maker and covered them with water to the minimum level. I added onion powder instead of using onion as the powder dissolves, I added a little marmite and a tablespoon of cumin powder. I seasoned it with salt and pepper and set the machine in motion. Twenty minutes later I had a bowl of steaming hot soup which I served with white sourdough bread and croutons.
There was plenty left and later that day I used it as a sauce in another dish, but I could easily have frozen a couple of portions instead.
The soup was a glorious autumnal colour and was so comforting and ticked all the boxes for a light lunch.
A low residue diet is just a temporary thing for me hopefully, and I will be returning to all the high fibre options soon, but it is rather nice to be ‘allowed’ white bread, white rice and white pasta for a change!