On our bank holiday day out to Skipton in the typical English bank holiday weather of drizzle, drizzle and more drizzle, we escaped the rain into WH Smiths for a while. I was browsing through the cook books and I saw the Biggest Loser cookbook (linked in to the TV programme). The TV programme is kind of a guilty pleasure for me, and the book seemed to have some good recipes in, so I thought I’d buy it. At £13 it wasn’t that bad, until I noticed a discount sticker knocking it down to £6.50. Then it scanned through the till at a fiver, which made my day!

My first recipe to try is for my lunches at work this week, a sweet potato and sweetcorn soup. The quantity of sweet potato didn’t seem like much (one medium/small potato), but when blended up, it made a lovely thick consistency. It doesn’t look that appetising in colour, but it sure is tasty! I think it would be easy to vary the spices too, swap the chilli for curry flavourings to make a completely different soup.

(Serves 3)
Ingredients:
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
Half a small red chilli, very finely chopped (optional, but tasty)
1 medium sweet potato (about 250g), peeled and chopped into small chunks
700ml vegetable stock (I used one Knorr Vegetable stock pot)
1 can of sweetcorn (mine was 260g drained weight)
Salt and black pepper to taste

Method
1. Heat the oil in a large pan over a medium heat. Fry the onions for about 5 minutes (until softened), making sure to stir so it doesn’t stick. Add the garlic and chilli and cook for another minute or so.

2. Add the sweet potato and stir the pieces in the onion mixture. Add enough stock to cover the vegetables and simmer for 10 minutes.

3. Add the sweetcorn and the remaining stock and cook for a further 5 minutes, until all the vegetables are soft.

4. Add a little salt and pepper (to taste), then whizz in a food processor until smooth.

Nutritional Information (per serving)
Calories: 200
Carbs: 33g
Fat: 6g
Protein: 5g
Sugar: 9g
Fibre: 7g