The last day! November ninety – day thirty

I’m celebrating the last day of my spending challenge with split-pea soup and a spend of zero so far today. I’ll be going out later, but only to someone’s house.

I hadn’t cooked any split peas recently as it took rather a long time to get through the previous batch. What I really fancied was lentil soup, but have no lentils, so split-pea was the next best thing. I hadn’t soaked any, but I thought of a way around this – I’ve seen a few recipes for quick soups using bean flour. While I do have a dry container for the Vitamix it seemed a bit of a faff to get that dirty to make some flour, and I’d probably have to make more flour than I could use in one go in order to get it to blend properly, so instead I put about half a cup of dried peas into the normal blender  container with two or so cups of water and whizzed them up with a chilli pepper, garlic and some spices.

You may recall that back in September I bought ten kilos of onions? Well, they’re finally at an end! The last one got fried up in a tiny bit of oil, then I added the blended pea mix and some bouillon powder. Once the soup heated up it got incrediby thick! I ended up adding more water. I also added some potato and rainbow chard mix found in back of the freezer leftover from the summer when I was getting a veg box delivery. The potatoes didn’t like being frozen much, they went a bit lumpy, but overall the mix added a bit more interest to the soup.

To serve, I topped it with some pickled summer squash and onions my mum made in 2011. She found them at the back of her cupboards earlier this year and was a bit dubious about them but they’re in a good strong vinegar solution and still perfect for livening up meals! I also made a very simple flatbread with self-raising flour, water and bouillon powder cooked in a pan greased with just a trace of olive oil.

To wash it down I had a smoothie made from dried apricots, frozen redcurrants, apples and gooseberries and a tablespoon of flaxseeds, diluted with water.

I’m fairly pleased with that meal. It covers most of my nutritional needs and it tasted pretty good and left me feeling full but not like I’d ruined the diet. I’m still looking forward to something deep fried tomorrow though!

 

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