Becca Jane St Clair

When I was younger and home sick from school, my mom would always make me a bowl of Campbell’s vegetable soup with ABC pasta (I liked vegetable soup better than chicken noodle). When I became a vegetarian, I stopped eating it because it had meat based (beef or chicken) stock in it. And then I moved to the UK and stopped being vegetarian, but Campbell soup wasn’t sold here until recently. Two weeks ago when I was sick I happened to be looking at the tinned vegetables in Tesco and I spotted a tin of mixed veg – carrot, potato, parsnip, and peas. I thought it might be nice as a soup, so I picked some up and I’ve been making this soup every few days since. It’s quick, cheap, easy, and surprisingly tastes just like Campbell’s, so it’s also a nice bit of comfort food for this expat.

Vegetable Soup
Syns: 0

You will need:
1 tin mixed vegetables
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1L vegetable stock or broth (made from scratch, cubes, or stock pots*)
handful of pearl barley, small pasta, or rice (optional)

1. Check the cooking time on the barley, pasta, or rice as this will determine how long the soup will take. Pearl barley takes about 30 minutes, but small pasta only 10-15 minutes.
2. Combine everything in a large pot, bring to a boil, and then simmer per directions on the barley, pasta, or rice (I simmer mine for 30 minutes).

And you’re done. This made plenty for my husband and I to have for lunch over two days. I think the total cost for this is under £1, so it’s quite frugal too!

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*Double check to make sure your stock is still syn free, or calculate the syns. Oxo cubes are free.

DISCLAIMER: I do not work for Slimming World, I am not affiliated with Slimming World beyond being a paying customer/member, I get no personal benefit from writing this post other than the joy of sharing.

Please note: Syn values are based on my exact ingredients using the online calculator. Your Syn value may vary based on your ingredients and the size of your baking containers and portions, so use this number as a guide only. Syn values also frequently change, but these values are correct at the time of publication.

The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

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Several months ago, my husband’s aunt hosted all of us for a Sunday dinner and asked everyone else to bring along a sweet. About a month before that, just after our niece was born, I brought over a meal to my Brother and Sister-in-Law and made them some brownies. SIL asked if I would make them again, so I agreed and then I was rooting through my cupboard and found a bag of peanut butter chips I had brought back from the US and I decided to make some blondies too, since Tim’s sister loves peanut butter. Both were a big hit, and when Tim’s aunt decided to host a family dinner again, the request came through from my sisters-in-law (sister-in-laws? How do you plural SIL?) for brownies…..and blondies. The only problem was that I had used the bag of PB chips last time and as it was a grocery item from the USA, I had no way of getting them. So, I went on a hunt for a decent PB blondie recipe. Pinterest yielded a bunch, and then my sister (from another) linked me to a recipe. It only had seven reviews and one review said it was more like a cake, but there also was a side bar link to another PB bar recipe, so on analysing both recipes and then converting down to metric, I came up with this recipe. It’s still a little more cakey than a traditional brownie, and I think I used more white chocolate last time, but these are pretty peanut buttery!

Peanut Butter Blondies

You will need:
275g peanut butter* (I used Jif, you can use any brand. I used smooth, but if you like chunky, use chunky)
100g butter, softened (I used Stork)
175g caster sugar
175g brown sugar
4 eggs
1TBS vanilla essence
200g flour (I used self-rising, plain might have been better and not gone so cakey!)
100g white chocolate chips (optional. Add more if you want!)

1. Pre-heat the oven to 175C and spray a tray bake tray** with fry light or line with baking parchment.
2. Cream together peanut butter, butter, and both sugars.
3. Add vanilla and add eggs one at a time.
4. slowly mix in flour.
5. stir in white chocolate chips
6. Spread evenly in the baking tray and bake 30-40 minutes or until top is golden brown and it pulls slightly from the edge
7. Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack.

Makes 32.

I did not calculate syns for this treat, but I do know that peanut butter has a lot of syns in it. Something like 4 or 4.5 per Tablespoon (15g!), so at a bare minimum you would be looking at at least 6 syns per piece (if divided into 32) at a rough estimate using flora light instead of stork, and that’s without the white chocolate chips too. So…..yeah. This has lots of syns in it. If I was planning on keeping it at home, I would work out the syns more accurately, but since I’m taking this to a party, I’m not concerned in knowing.

***

*I would love to try this out with almond butter or other non-peanut butter butters for people with peanut allergies. I bet it would taste really good!
**I bought a pack of 10 tray bake trays at ASDA for £1 or £2 that I’ve been using every time I make brownies so I can easily give it away to someone without worrying about getting the tray back.

The contents of this post, including images are © Rebecca J Lockley and Tim Lockley unless otherwise stated and should not be reproduced without permission. If you are not reading this on http://blog.beccajanestclair.com, my facebook page, Networked Blogs, the RSS feed(s), or through an e-mail subscription, please notify me.

[LJ readers reading this on the LJ RSS feed: Please click on the link at the top of the entry to go directly to my blog to leave a comment, as comments left on the LJ RSS do not get seen by me. Facebook users reading this from my Networked Blogs link can either comment on facebook or on my blog. If you are reading this through an e-mail subscription, you might need to go directly to my blog to view videos and images.]

For full Copyright and Disclaimer, please read http://www.blog.beccajanestclair.com/copyright/