We all tend to have turkey meat left over after Christmas/Thanksgiving, but there’s so much more you can do with it than making sandwiches.

Here’s a few ideas:

• Turkey & Lentil Soup
• Turkey Tikka Kebabs
• Oriental Turkey Stir Fry
• Turkey & Parsnip Curry
• Turkey & Spinach Lasagne
• Thai Turkey Salad
• Turkey Meatballs and Spaghetti
• Warm Turkey & Pasta Salad
• Low Fat Turkey Soup
• Perkey Turkey Soup

That should be enough to get you started!

If you have a recipe you think we should look at, or even run your own food blog that you’d like to see highlighted, feel free to drop a link in the comments section or email us at endiet@endiet.com and we’ll take a look.

Recipe Requirements:

• The recipe must be in a blog — professional sites get enough notice. We’re looking for real people making real food for real families.
• Must be available in full online, no registration required.
• Must not require extravagant cooking time. We don’t mind dishes that take longer if they can be prepared ahead but we’re talking weekday meals, not dinner party specials, here.
• Must not use specialist ingredients. That’s harder to define: what’s specialist in Birmingham may be common in Los Angeles and vice versa. However, if the recipe states that an item is easily available “at any good health food store” or “in your local asian specialist shop” then chances are it won’t be featured here.
• Must not use pre-processed produce. “Combine one packet of ready-made soup with sour cream and slather onto the frozen chicken nuggets” isn’t going to cut it. If it requires a name brand product as an ingredient, it’s probably not for us.
• Must use fresh, natural ingredients. Fruit. Vegetables. Meat fresh from the butcher. Chopped herbs, etc.

At my house there are 5 adults and 2 toddlers to feed. Two of those adults are males and neither of them wants “twig and tree bark” (better known as diet or low-fat) food. Part of the reason this recipe is one of my favorites is that it is a big winner at my house and no one, but me, knows that it is a “diet” dish. I’ve made it three times since I acquired the recipe and it is always gone before everyone gets their fill, so this last time I doubled the recipe. That gave everyone enough, plus I get a bit left over for lunch the next day.

So in honor of Soup Week here at endiet.com, I give you:

Creamy Chicken & Spinach Soup

• 9oz cheese tortellini
• 14.5oz fat-free, reduced sodium chicken broth
• 1 can 98%fat-free cream of chicken soup
• 16oz chopped frozen spinach (thawed)
• 9oz cooked diced chicken breast
• 2 cups skim milk
• 1/2tsp ground thyme
• 1/4tsp black pepper

Cook tortellini according to directions on the package, using the chicken broth instead of water. Do not drain broth once tortellini is cooked. Add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and cook until heated through. (just a few minutes) Makes 6 servings at 1 & 1/3 cup.

P.S. The original recipe calls for only 8oz of spinach, but since I do love me some spinach, I have doubled it.

• Onion, chopped
• Green peppers, chopped
• Garlic cloves, peeled and minced
• Green cabbage, chopped
• Cauliflower florets
• Tomatoes, chopped
• Thyme
• Paprika

Heat olive oil in a large pot at a low heat. Fry the onion, peppers and garlic until golden and soft, around 10 minutes. Stir in the cabbage and cauliflower and fry for a few minutes more. Increase the heat to medium hot, then add in tomatoes, thyme and paprika and stir well. Cover the vegetables with broth, cover, and simmer until the vegetables are tender but stop before they are falling apart. You can chill or freeze at this point. Bring to a simmer before serving.

• 1-4 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1/2 inch ginger, cut into thick slices
• 2-3 stalks of lemon grass
• Curry powder (you can go very spicy with this if you like)
• Coconut milk
• Boneless/skinless chicken, cut into small cubes

Don’t add the following until directly before serving:

• Spinach leaves
• Spring onions, sliced
• Coriander leaves, chopped
• Lime juice

Mix the garlic, ginger, lemon grass and curry powder into the broth and bring to a boil. Allow to sit for 5-10 minutes and then strain out the solids. Bring to a boil again and add chicken, simmer until the chicken is cooked through. Mix in coconut milk to taste. You can chill or freeze it at this point. Before serving, bring to a boil and then add the greens and a touch of lime juice, serve immediately.

• Broccoli, roughly chopped
• Chives
• Tabasco sauce
• A very small amount of cream

Heat the broth and simmer the broccoli for 10 minutes. Stir in the chives and Tabasco and heath through. Liquidise the result and then stir in the cream. Run the liquidiser again until you have a creamy soup. Warm through before serving.

• Soy sauce (go gently!)
• Sesame oil (ditto)
• Spring onion (Green onion to Americans)
• Spinach leaves
• Chard leaves, ripped into shreds
• 1 egg (don’t add until serving!)

If you are preparing this ahead, let the broth cool then add in all the above ingredients and chill. When ready to serve, heat the soup up quickly, then beat the egg and stir it in rapidly so it leaves trails of cooked egg. Serve immediately.

Photo By Giovanni JL

There’s a few reasons for this. One is that it seems luxurious, I feel posh and maybe even a little bit spoilt. I’m always looking to fend off feelings of deprivation (WAH! Why can’t I have a Big Mac?) and this is one of my little tricks to keep me feeling happy about the diet.

There are lots of articles about eating slower, savouring each mouthful, in order to ensure you don’t keep eating after you are full. I think that separate courses, with a quick break in between, helps us to eat slower while tricking us into feeling like we are eating more – there’s a little bit of a break between the courses. It also keeps the main meal from looking pitiful, those initial hunger pangs have already dealt with and so there is less of an urge to overfill the plate with food.

The trick is to keep it simple — it’s not like I have time to do Cordon Bleu cooking on a week night! So I plan out a set of soups at the weekend, ready for serving during the week.

Soup isn’t hard to make, freezes like a dream, and it most of them don’t need any faffing on the night – just heat and serve! The trick is to start with one base and add in flavours and textures to keep them each nicely separate.

I make my own chicken broth and I do recommend it for the very best flavour (luxurious, remember?) but if you must use pre-made stock, then I would take the time to boil some vegetables and herbs in with it for a touch more flavour (and then strain).

Now you need to make sure you have plenty of containers to store it in: I chill soup for the next couple of days and freeze anything that I’m planning to serve more than three days away.

You can get really clever and do double batches, chilling one for later in the week and freezing one for later in the month! But I’m rarely that organised.

Now, how to keep that soup from seeming the same everyday? No problem. This week I’ll be offering you five different soup ideas with a basic list of ingredients to add for each. All of these are healthy but you can feel free to drop items that aren’t allowed on your diet, be inventive!

Then check the simple instructions and you have a new soup! The main time hit is the chopping so I try to do a bunch at once on a Sunday afternoon which limits the amount of fiddly work and, more importantly, the washing up!

This week we’ll do a 5-day menu of soups starting from an admittedly very large batch of chicken stock. The vegetable soups can equally be made with vegetable broth — the main thing is to remember that the stock is a critical flavour, not just a sideline and thus it needs to be of good quality. You have to really like the taste of stock cubes and salt if you want to try to use Oxo.

Day One:
Mexican Chicken Soup

• Coriander leaves, chopped
• Tomatoes, chopped
• Jalapeno chiles, to taste (the soup should have a bit of bite, not cause alarms to go off)
• Sweet corn
• Chunks of chicken, bite sized

Mix all the ingredients and add to the pot of boiling broth. Simmer until the chicken is cooked through. This can be chilled or frozen, just reheat. Serve.