Green soup

This is a summer soup. I make gallons of it once the courgettes kick in, mostly at the request of Rosie who calls it "proper soup". It is a bit difficult to write a recipe for it as I usually just use whatever is to hand, but I'll have a go!

I usually head off into the veggie garden in my stripy apron and fill the lap with cucumbers and courgettes, dropping a few on the way back to the kitchen. I might grab a bit of flat leaf parsley on the way too.

It really is great for using up the glut of courgettes - but is at its best once the cucumbers are around too. In fact, 'proper' green soup is probably made with 100% cucumbers, even when served hot it tastes cool somehow! I suppose it could be served as a chilled soup too, but I'm not much of a fan of chilled soups and I have never tried it.

When there is a glut of courgettes I chop them up into chunks and put them in the freezer in plastic bags in the right quantities to make a batch of this soup. I don't bother with blanching - I'm not sure really what that is for - and it doesn't make a difference to the soup. Just grab a bag out of the freezer and put them into the pan frozen, then follow the recipe as normal.



INGREDIENTS



An armful of green things: courgettes, cucumbers, lettuce, spinach, nettles etc. Use singly or in combination. The minimum quantity is the equivalent of about four large cucumbers.

A knob of butter or 1tbsp of olive oil

500ml chicken stock (or water and a sachet of instant miso soup)

100g of soft cheese (approximately half a 200g tub of Philadelphia light) or use creme fraiche, or one of the soft goat's cheese logs they sell at Farmers' Markets. I once made it with Feta cheese and that too was delicious.

Freshly grated nutmeg

Black pepper



METHOD

• Chop the courgettes/cucumbers etc into chunks and put them in a large pan with the butter/oil. Slap on a lid and leave to sweat until soft and transparent.


• Add enough stock to make the desired soup consistency.


• Grab one of those stick blender jobbies and buzz the soup in the pan until it is smooth (or put it in a blender/food processor, but that's more washing up!)


• Add the soft cheese, as much nutmeg as you dare and the black pepper and buzz again.


• Serve with oatcakes for a delicious healthy low fat, low GI meal.

NOTES

• Swirl with double cream if you are really posh/showing off/not on a diet.
• I once made it with yellow courgettes - yellow soup!