Thai carrot and lemongrass soup

Dare I type the words 'January detox'.  Well, I just have. I truly don't know how long this will last and I suspect I may fall off the wagon relatively quickly. However, here is the first of my recommended detox type recipes. It is a delicious thai style suggestion, again from Olive magazine. You might have some carrots left over from Christmas and can use low fat coconut milk. This soup was just the ticket for me, having woken up on New Year's day with a bug, which Gipsy Spread blamed on my skimpy NYE outfit!


What you will need
1 onion
1 clove garlic
1 stick of lemongrass
A thumb size piece of ginger
500g carrots
165ml coconut milk
600ml vegetable stock
1 lime


Firstly, chop the onions, garlic, ginger and lemongrass (removing any of the hard woody outer stalk). Soften in some olive oil for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, peel and chop the carrots. Add these to the pan with the above ingredients and soften for a further five minutes.


Finally, add the coconut milk (reserving some for decoration if you wish) and stock to the pan with the juice and zest of the lime. Cook the mix until the carrots have softened, a further 5-10 minutes. Blend either with a stick blender or upright blender.

Serve garnished with fresh coriander and black pepper, plus a drizzle of any reserved coconut milk.

The Olive magazine does provide the nutritional content of this recipe, so I can tell you that a single portion is only 197 calories, which makes it great for anyone doing the 5:2 diet or just wanting to reduce your intake in January to make up for December!