to shamelessly abuse the AIBU topic to ask for soup recipes?

[pigeononthegate]

I'm living on soup and salad at the moment (low calorie diet to lose a large amount of weight for health reasons) and I'm incredibly bored with all the soups I know how to make. I'm looking for recipes which are low calorie but flavourful, as I'm a greedy bastard and intense flavours make up for the lack of stodge!

I'll share my favourite to start us off:

Roast 4 chicken thighs in the oven, strip all the lean meat off and chop it up

Fry two large onions in a splash of oil until there is plenty of colour on them, then add half a pound of chopped mushrooms and fry for another minute

Add a litre of chicken stock, half a litre of water and a tbsp of Marigold powder (or two veg Oxo cubes), a tsp of pepper and a large pinch of mixed herbs

Mix a heaped tbsp of plain flour with a bit of water and add while stirring. When it thickens, add the chopped chicken and simmer for 15 minutes before serving

All recipes gratefully received! The MN "soup is not a meal" contingent need not apply

Fry two rashers of bacon in a stock pot with garlic. After 5 minutes add some pureed ginger, about a teaspoon.
Cut up 1 onion, 2 celery sticks, 3 carrots, 4 potatoes and add to the pan with a bayleaf, cooking for 15 minutes.
Add around 700ml of chicken or vegetable stock, slowly simmer for 20 minutes. Add some milk and blend for a smooth soup.

This Indian Chickpea and Veg soup is delicious
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/9044/indian-chickpea-and-vegetable-soup

I usually leave out the green beans, blend the lot until smooth and stir a tsp of yogurt through to serve. DC hoover it up like there's no tomorrow when they get home from school in the winter.

Hugh F-W's parsnip and ginger soup is fantastic.

This is a favourite in our house:

www.food.com/recipe/celery-soup-with-stilton-delia-smith-403425

I also make fantastic lentil soup, but it starts with boiling a smoked gammon joint in cider (also two peeled onions, quartered, 2-3 carrots and a tbsp of black treacle) then skimming it, liquidising the veg and boiling it up with about 200g of lentils.

Not worth buying a gammon joint just to make soup imo, but the gammon is utterly delicious.

Thai style Butternut Squash and Sweet Potato.

1 large butternut squash
2 large sweet potatoes
2 large onions
3 garlic cloves
2tbsp Thai red curry paste
1 tin of coconut milk
Fresh coriander to garnish

Cut the squash and pots into large wedges and dry roast in the oven with a bit of salt and pepper, until soft. Leave to cool for a few minutes.

Fry onion, garlic and curry paste for a while and then add the squash and pots. Pour in the coconut milk and add 1ltr of veg stock.

Cook for 15 minutes and then blend until smooth.

On the thread 'which bought soup is nice because I'm ill so can't make my own' people are singing the praises of Cully and Sully, who helpfully publish recipes to make their soups on their website.

www.cullyandsully.com/content/recipe-wall

I want to make the cauliflower cheese, beetroot and goats cheese, white winter veg, mushroom, chowder, cauliflower and garlic and the lentil ones.

I sometimes just simmer the veg in veg stock instead of frying in butter and use Greek yogurt instead of cream and it's still nice, so you could do that if you need it to be very low calorie.

Oooooh beetroot and goat cheese soup. Yum!