Healthy Winter Meals

So winter has definitely hit in many parts of the country so now is when the it’s too cold, or it’s too wet excuses come out.

If you are struggling with exercise – you know you could always join a gym or even exercise inside- then it really is vitally important to focus on your food.

During winter we tend to let our diet slip a little as we are rugged up in big fitting warm clothes so it takes a little longer to notice the extra pount or two that joins us!

Cold weather can mean great warm foods, like stews or roasts with veggies and even soups.

Soups are a great way to stick to portions sizes as the other options can easily become comfort food and our usual portion sizes get thrown out the window.

Most good soups will have all the necessary food groups in there (protein, carbs and vegetables) which means they are generally quite hearty soups that fill you up – so there is no need to have bread or a roll.

Soups are also really simple to make and you can make loads of it so by putting some in the freezer you will have meals already made for the next few days or even the following week.

The recipe below is one of our yummy retreat favorites.

Chicken and sweet potato soup (serves 4)

Ingredients

1.25L (5 cups) chicken stock (low salt)

2 orange sweet potatoes, peeled, cut into 2cm cubes

1 large red onion, halved, chopped

2 garlic cloves, quartered

4 sprigs fresh thyme

1/2 tsp. dried oregano leaves

Freshly ground black pepper

2 small single chicken breast fillets

1 bunch fresh continental parsley

250ml (1 cup) full-fat soy milk

Method:

Bring the chicken stock to the boil in a large saucepan over high heat. Add the sweet potato, onion, garlic, thyme and oregano. Season with pepper and bring to the boil. Cook, covered, for 10 minutes or until the sweet potato is tender. Remove from heat. Set aside for 5 minutes to cool.
While soup is cooking, cut chicken into 1cm pieces. Coarsely chop parsley to make 1/4 cup, loosely packed. Set aside. Place one-quarter of soup in the jug of a blender and blend until smooth. Transfer to a clean saucepan. Repeat with remaining soup in three more batches.
Bring soup to the boil over medium heat. Add chicken and parsley and cook for 3 minutes or until chicken is cooked.
Remove from heat. Stir in soy milk and season with pepper.