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Wellbeing 

Here is our fourth wellbeing post from Lucinda at The Lonely Cook instagram page and this month she is teasing us with some spring inspired refreshing soup. 

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Spring is on its way! 

Or so I hear… It can be hard to believe during the grey wet days we’ve been having here in Bath, but the shining clumps of snowdrops and purple haze of crocus beneath the trees in the park assure me that it is so. This time of year calls for food that both nourishes and warms, yet also bears tidings of the glorious freshness to come. So this month I’ve created a zesty yet comforting noodle soup to take us through March and into those less biting April showers. Its bang on trend, incorporating the current health-foodie obsession for courgette spaghetti, or ‘courgetti’, made so ubiquitous by those unbearably gorgeous and glamorous sisters, Hemsley + Hemsley (if you haven’t encountered them yet, check out their book The Art of Eating Well, it is a must for all kitchens!). And if you really want to make it completely of-the-moment, then you can make it with bone broth. Not eating meat, I have used a homemade vegetable stock but chicken stock would work equally well (preferably homemade). Boullion powder would be absolutely fine, but do not use a stock cube or equivalent as even the organic ones tend to contain sugar.

One of the reasons courgetti has become so popular is because so many people have difficulty digesting gluten. Gluten is a protein found in wheat and many other related grains such as rye, barley and spelt (although many consider the latter to be kinder on the gut and more nutritious). Coeliac disease – an auto-immune disease which attacks the gut when gluten is present – is becoming more and more common and the only prescribed treatment for it is to have a gluten-free diet. However, just as many if not more than those diagnosed as coeliac find that gluten causes bloating, stomach pains, bad skin, tiredness and an ongoing list of health issues. Hence our supermarket shelves are becoming more and more burdened with a whole host of gluten-free products. It is great that the food industry is providing alternatives, but many of these are full of sugar and all sorts of unpronounceable chemical ingredients to make up for the absence of wheat. Pasta, being such a western diet staple, is of course one of the greatest of these commodities, but I am yet to find a gluten-free pasta that is clean and manages not to taste horribly cardboard-y or disintegrate into a pile of slimy mush! Now I am not for one second suggesting that courgetti could ever be mistaken for the real thing – it could not. But it can be made into lovely spaghetti- or taglliatelle-like strands which hold their shape and provide a beautiful, light, and nutritious base for a wide variety of sauces and dressings. Also, because you serve them raw or nearly raw, they are very filling. Win!

To make the courgetti you can either invest in a spiralizer (only make sure you have plenty of storage space as they are rather bulky), or as I do simply use a julienne speed-peeler or a normal speed-peeler, running them repeatedly down the length of the courgette until you begin to see the fluffy seeded core (this is very watery and does not hold well, you can add the leftover courgette to the next batch of vegetable stock!). The julienne peeler makes spaghetti shaped strands, whereas the normal peeler creates long thin ribbons which can then be sliced into flat noodles. I find the flat noodles work best for this soup.

The ginger, lemon and chilli in this broth make it a wonderful cold-buster, clearing out your chest and sinuses with wonderful zing. I grate the ginger and garlic on a microplane grater (another essential and inexpensive kitchen tool) as this releases their fragrant oils and juices. The herbs add a lovely freshness, and the whole bowl is so green one can’t help but feel spring-like when you look at it. It is light yet filling, hot yet refreshing – the perfect recipe to cheer up these damp days.

As always, feel free to play with the ingredients, using whatever herbs and veggies you have lying around. Leftover roast meat would be a great addition, or you can poach some fish or seafood in the broth as it heats. 

Whatever you do, get courgetti into your life, it is the indisputable culinary hero of the season!

Until sunnier times, lots of love from 

thelonelycook x