Tom Yum Soup

Yummy eats today!

I spun for 30 minutes on Level 5 reading my Shape mag, stretched then came up to leftover Vegetable and Barley Stew for lunch.

With 2 Vita-weats and a glass of sugar free Pink Grapefruit cordial which I am a little obsessed with. It has no artificial flavourings or colours but does have aspartame in it. I don’t have it every day so I’m not that concerned though I try to avoid artificial sweeteners most of the time.

I also added some broccoli and the last of our spinach.

Afternoon snack was a bowl of this cereal which Adam bought a while back but I hadn’t tried because I generally don’t like Banana flavoured anything (I like fresh bananas!). It was pretty nice actually but had a lot going on in it

and went a bit mushy. I was super hungry for this bowl and it filled me up nicely.

For dinner tonight I made Tom Yum Soup from scratch! Go me! Tom Yum is probably one of my favourite Thai foods but it can be very oily at restaurants. This barely has any fat and tastes awesome! I used this Soup Mix I picked up at Park n Shop.

This version is also vegan!

In the mix:

• 1 Massel salt reduced Veggie stock cube and 6 cups of water (or 6 cups of vegetable stock)
• 4 small sticks of lemongrass, each end removed
• 6 red chillis
• 3 whole kaffir lime leaves (this is about 10-12 actual leaf pieces)
• 1 knob of Galangal or ginger, finely sliced
• bunch of coriander, chopped
• 1 t chilli paste in oil
• juice of 1 lime
• 2 T reduced salt soy sauce
• 1 small shallot, minced
• 10 cherry tomatoes
• 1 cup of Enoki mushrooms
• 300g firm tofu, cubed (or chicken or prawns)

The fragrant lemongrass (ends cut off)

It’s super easy too! Just bash the lemongrass sticks with a mallet OR if you don’t have a mallet (who does?) use an empty jar like I did. You do this to release the flavour of the lemongrass.

Throw the bashed lemograss in a pot with the stock, the whole chillis, the Kafir lime leaves, the galangal, the shallots

and bring to the boil. Once the water is boiling and the broth is getting fragrant (about 10 minutes), add the chilli paste, soy sauce, tofu, cherry tomatoes and mushrooms and bring back to the boil.

Lastly add the coriander and the juice of the lime. Then do a taste test and if you like it spicier add more chilli paste. If you like it sweeter add a little brown sugar. If its too spicy or sweet add some more lime juice. All up it needs about 20 to 30 minutes on the boil to reach the right flavour.

I left my lemongrass in the bowl but you don’t eat it so it can be pulled out before serving. This soup has a flavour punch and is super healthy! And the Enoki mushrooms are like noodles when they are cooked but virtually calorie free. Adam added some vermicelli to his which beefed it up a bit.

Check out the stats! This makes makes 3 serves (1 for me and 2 for Adam).

I can’t quite believe the fibre count there but it’s all from the chilli’s apparently. I would ignore it really because I didn’t even eat any of the chilli’s – they were just for flavour.

Fugi apple for dessert .

I will leave you with some cute pics of my Dad’s new baby calves. His cows have had 7 calves now in total. Aren’t they cute!