EWSM Real Food Challenge Day 2

It is so cold here today it must be school holidays!  It has rained and rained and blown a gale, so we have all been huddled down in the house. I had to go to the Post Office this morning and boy was I glad to get home to our nice cosy house.

I didn't have breakfast before I went out so you can imagine how hungry I was when I walked in the door. And frozen through too. I could hardly wait for the porridge to cook.  I had honey on it this morning and it really was warming. By the time the bowl was empty even my feet had thawed out.

Lunch was easy, and real food too. Pumpkin soup (from the freezer) and hot toast from yesterday's bread. Delicious and just right for a blustery winter day.  It was cheap too, the soup was made with a pumpkin I bought for $1 at the local orchard a few weeks ago (it made 8 litres of soup).

My pumpkin soup is so easy it's ridiculous. And so cheap it's even almost free :)

Ingredients:
1 pumpkin - around 2 - 2.5kg  ($1)
2 large onions, peeled and diced  (15c)
2 large potatoes, peeled and diced (25c)
Vegetable stock (from the freezer or use stock cubes and water) (free, made from peelings and wilted veggies).

Peel and seed the pumpkin and cut it into chunks. Add the pumpkin, potato and onion to a large stockpot. Cover with vegetable stock (mine holds 10 litres, I usually add around 6 litres stock). Bring to a boil and cook until the vegetables are very soft. Remove from the heat and mix until smooth.

You can do this:

• With a stick blender
• In batches in a food processor
• Using a potato masher to mash the veggies then pushing through a sieve

The whole 8 litres cost $1.40 or just 4c per cup! And it's real food and healthy.

Now if you want to turn this into a superfood soup, use half pumpkin and half sweet potato. It will increase the price to around the $4.50 mark, but that's still just 14c a cup!  And it's super healthy with sweet potato and onion in it.

School holidays started here today so we were all home. And with everyone home the mid-afternoon munchies struck. The solution was a batch of caramel corn. Yum! And best of all it was made with real food!

It's simple really. Pop some popcorn and pour it into a large, heat proof bowl. Then take a small sauce pan and add:

3/4 cup raw sugar
90g butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
2tbsp honey 
2tbsp milk

Stir it altogether over a low heat until the sugar dissolves. Bring it to the boil and let it cook for 1 minute. Keep stirring so it doesn't stick to the pot or burn. Take it off the heat and pour it straight over the popcorn. Stir it quickly to coat all the corn. Spread it on a baking paper lined oven tray to set - it takes about 10 minutes. Then put on a good movie, hot chocolate and share the caramel corn (if you can!).

Our dinner tonight was delicious (and real food). The kransky was just the right degree of spicy, the potato salad was delicious as always and the broccoli, peas and cauliflower all came straight from the veggie garden.

Day two of the EWSM Real Food Challenge survived with no complaints!