Battle of the Bulge - FIRST RECIPE! - Basic Soup

Finally, the first of the recipes. This is what I call Basic Soup. When we are in our "we really have to get a breakthrough and get the weight loss started" mode Mrs. de-I and I with our 60+ year old metabolisms need to have our dinner be under 300 calories. So remember the overall goal of this whole program - tasty, filling dinners at under 400 calories.

I call this the Basic Soup because I can use the flavor principles discussed earlier and a selection of veggies mentioned before to make many, many variations off this same theme. The basis of the of the basic soup is broth plus flavored veggies and a tiny bit of meat. The basic flavoring of the veggies is just a little garlic sauteed in olive oil. For this version here are the components for two servings

• Carrots - 3 oz, 30 calories
• Potato - 5 oz, 56 calories
• Broccoli - 4 oz (cooked), 30 calories
• Chickpeas - 1/3rd cup, 63 calories
• Chicken - 3 oz cooked dark meat, 153 calories
• Chicken Broth - 28 oz, 60 calories

Total calories - 492 / 246 per serving

I cut the carrots small and boiled them with the potatoes (also cut small) for 10 minutes

I like to make my own broth and freeze it but use canned broth all the time

When I make my broth I save the meat and divide it into 3 oz portions

Broccoli I will either roast or steam and then use it as a component through the week

Things like chickpeas and beans, I will open a can and use in small amounts in various dishes. By the way, when I use canned beans, I like to wash them in a strainer. It seems to me that it gets the tinny flavor of the juice off of them.

THE basic flavoring technique - sauteing a little garlic in olive oil. I cot this from Marcela Hazan's books which suggest that you put your garlic in cold oil and then bring it up to heat. Just doing this and adding your veggies with a bit of salt and pepper adds tons of flavor!

All the veggies added plus a little dried basil. I saute this for about 4 minutes just to get the flavor into the veggies

I add the chicken for the last minute

I've heated the broth separately. I split the veggie/chicken mixture between two bowls and put in the broth.

Presto - Basic Soup - Tasty and 246 Calories