Glorious! SkinnyLicious Soup - Texan Four Bean Chilli

Today's review is the Glorious! SkinnyLicious Soup Texan Four Bean Chilli. I strayed from my usual pre-made soup brands as soon as I saw the Texan Four Bean Chilli. I love Chili Con Carne, I always order it if I see it on a restaurant menu but I rarely have the time to make a proper one at home. My favourite part of a Chili Con Carne is the thick blend of meat and beans and I wondered how this would translate over to a soup. 

From the heart of Cowboy country comes our SkinnyLicious Texan Four Bean Chilli Soup. Haricot, Red Kidney, Black Eye and Black Turtle Beans are cooked with real Texan spices such as Ancho chilli, paprika and cinnamon to create the flavour of horse riding through cacti as the sun sets over the desert sands. 

OK... I've eaten horse before, I had a Findus lasagne the day before they were recalled and I don't think I want my soup to taste like that! 

Texan Four Bean Chilli is vegetarian, dairy-free, gluten-free and half a pot is 1 of your 5 a day. 

I like to pretend I'm really cooking when I have these pre-made soups so I rarely microwave them. I chucked it in a saucepan on the hob and was pleased to find it looked like a watered down Chili Con Carne, By the time it was sufficiently heated it had thickened up nicely but still too soupy to chuck on top of rice or a jacket. 

The mixed beans were obvious but there were lots of other ingredients I could spy including rice. I know its named Texan Four Bean Chilli but the recipe stays truer to the more authentic Mexican Chilli and includes chocolate - not that it tastes of chocolate but it adds a real depth and richness to the flavours. 

I snuck a couple of mouthfuls while I was 'cooking' and felt it had a slight kick but it wasn't as spicy as I usually take my Chili. Once I'd bowled it all up and sat down things soon changed. 

I've never had vegetarian Chili, the more meat the better and at first I missed not so much the taste of the meat, more the texture but I soon found the chunky mix of the beans and rice and they were more than enough.

All the ingredients retained a good texture, no mushy beans or rice whatsoever. As mentioned the soup contains chocolate, in Chili Con Carne you aren't supposed to taste it but I've noticed whenever its used - it just adds an extra something special and the same goes here. I was really quite impressed with the flavours actually and then the spices kicked in! 

I said at first it wasn't very spicy but I take that back, my God it was hot and a good hot! Spicy hot not just ridiculously hot where you can't taste anything else, I might not have been able to feel my tongue but I could taste all the different flavours with an increasing addictive heat. 

Rating:

I ate this first on Thursday, then again on Monday and as soon as Asda get some more I'll be buying those too! One of the best pre-made soups I've tried.

9/10 

New Covent Garden Soup Co Soup of the month - January

I've made no secret of my love of New Covent Garden Soup Co soups and I have a love/hate relationship with their soup of the months. If it's good, I'm gutted it will be gone in a couple of weeks time but it runs the risk of not being good enough to be a standard flavour but one they wanted to try out anyway. 

NCG (I really can't be bothered to keep writing their name out!) have a range of 'Skinny Soups' ironically most have more calories than the normal line but are all "delicious and satisfying, yet less than 2% fat, all green traffic lights and (per half carton) 2 of your 5 a day". 

This months soup is Chunky Root Vegetable,

Looks:

It was a bit on the thin side for a chunky soup before I warmed it up but it thickened nicely. It doesn't look the most appealing, a bit sickly in colour but there seemed to be plenty of veg and black turtle beans.

Taste:

For the amount of veg present, I expected my first taste to be one of the many different used. Unfortunately the first, and most, of my spoonfuls tasted heavily of black pepper. It's the very last ingredient in the ingredients list so I have to assume the machine went a bit haywire on the batch mine came from but it was massively over-seasoned. The only times I couldn't taste the black pepper was when I could taste the garlic and thyme so I really do think I ended up with a dodgy lot - either that or NCG have got their seasoning ratios way off. 

Fighting my taste buds to taste the veg, I was otherwise pleased. The vegetables do have a good fresh flavour it's just covered in pepper. The carrots especially tasted extremely vibrant and fresh and all the veg held on to a decent texture, no mushiness whatsoever. I also enjoyed the black turtle beans, mainly again for the texture as they hold a little more bite than the rest of the vegetables. 

It had thickened up while heating, but the actual soup was still on the watery side especially for a chunky soup. I'd have liked a thicker 'base' so to speak.

Rating:

6/10 It's not one of my favourites, purely because of the pepper - the vegetables were very nice and it was satisfying and extremely filling. If anybody else has tried this I'd appreciate it if you could let me know whether they're all massively peppery or if its just mine!

Yorkshire Provender Christmas Turkey soup & All The Trimmings

I am a great lover of soup, normally I stick to New Covent Garden Soup Co fresh soups but I chanced upon this Yorkshire Provender soup in Waitrose. They aren't a brand I've tried before but I couldn't turn down the chance to try a Christmas soup! 

'Christmas Turkey soup & all the trimmings' is just that:

Tender turkey partners roast veg, sage & onion, finished with a hint of cranberry sauce. 

The actual ingredients are onion, potato, turkey, parsnip, carrot, Savoy cabbage, cranberry sauce with some herbs, cream and stock. 

The soup had a distinct poultry scent to it, it had a familiar Christmas dinner smell to (slightly turkey, slightly stuffing) but mainly it smelt like chicken soup. 

There was no mistaking the turkey meat for chicken though. Not only were the pieces absoloutly huge - proper chunks of chopped turkey but praise God, they actually used dark meat. In a nation obsessed with 'clean eating' everything is breast meat, which is dry and tasteless - the dark meat is where it's at! Rich juicy and full of flavour, this was some tasty turkey! It wasn't chewy or stringy in the slightest it almost melted in my mouth - I was very impressed with the quality of the meat, especially for a soup. 

The soup itself was pleasant, it tasted slightly chickeny but it is made with chicken and vegetable stock. The herbs give it more of a stuffing flavour (unlike the strange huge stuffing balls in the Marks & Spencer Christmas soup as reviewed by Lucy over at Reaching For Refreshment) and overall had a roast dinner type flavour which, when eaten with the turkey had a festive feel. It is on the watery side however the addition of the, again, huge vegetable pieces gave it a much thicker and more enjoyable texture. The potato is nice and adds a bit more chunkiness, the Savoy cabbage and carrots had a great texture - still slightly crunchy or 'al dente' if you're posh and were full of flavour. The parsnips were slightly softer but not mushy and were delicious too. The one thing I didn't notice was the cranberry sauce but never mind - I'm not that keen on it anyway! 

Just one more picture to show every piece of turkey really was that big, it wasn't a fluke! You can also see the seasonings which they hadn't scrimped on either, not too little or much - the goldilocks of soups! 

Very nice and freezable so I'm going to stock up! 

8/10 

New Covent Garden Soup Co. -

I could sit here and say this cold weather makes me want to eat soup, but that would be a lie. I want to eat soup all of the time. 

Although it's November this is the Soup Of The Month for December. I'll let New Covent Garden Soup Co. Advertising department tell you what makes up the White Christmas Soup; 

Our White Christmas Soup
Our Soup of the Month for December is a wonderfully white creamy soup that will bring you Christmas warmth and cheer in a bowl. Our chefs have lovingly blended cauliflower, potato and single cream until smooth and creamy. Then finished off with aromatic truffle infused oil, white wine and a hint of white pepper to bring you this deliciously luxurious soup. So wrap up warm, rejoice in festive good cheer and enjoy our divine White Christmas Soup.

This photo doesn't show you how pale this soup is. I have one that does but it would look like you were looking at a blank screen - it's just off white with a slightly creamy tinge to it. It was a bit weird to look at as most foods I eat are full of unnatural bright colours!

I have very little patience so always try to eat it right away, even though I basically burnt every taste bud on my tongue off, I could taste the potato immediately. New Covent Garden Soup Co do potato soups well and it's no exception here. Once it had cooled down enough to enjoy I noticed that while the potato was the stronger, there was another flavour mixed in there too. It could have been the cauliflower or the truffle oil, cauliflower isn't a particularly strong flavour and to be honest I've never tried a truffle infused oil before so I have nothing to compare it to. 

The soup is deliciously creamy, both in flavour and mouthfeel and while it's a thin, un-chunky (that should be a real word) soup it's smooth and thick feeling. 

Even though I have no clue what a truffle infused oil tastes like, I'm pretty sure it was the ingredient that made this taste a bit more special. Very tasty and despite the fact that cauliflower and potato aren't really associated with Christmas it does have a special, festive vibe to it. 

7/10