Creamy green soup

Another soup! I just love soup and it's so easy, plus it's an excuse to eat homemade bread. I was anticipating spring a bit to early with this one, but fancied something refreshing rather than stodgy. The greens used are 'light', spring type greens rather than the heavy leaves of winter.


Creamy Green Soup

Serves 4-5

Takes about an hour if you're speedy with your chopping, took me more like 1hr 10mins


2 Courgettes

2 trimmed leeks

A crown of broccoli

200g french/green beans

3 tbsp green pesto (can adjust to taste)

3-4 tbsp Creme Fraiche

1200ml vegetable stock

2 tsp dried thyme

3 cloves garlic

Salt and pepper to season, although with the pesto, salt isn't too necessary


* Prepare the veg - slice the leek in half lengthways then slice into thin slices (slice, slice, slice). Cut the florets of broccoli off the stem, chop the courgette into small, 1.5cm pieces and cut the beans in half or thirds if you're not blending at the end. Chop the garlic into small pieces.

* Heat some oil in a large pan and fry the leeks, garlic and thyme gently until soft but not brown (about 5 minutes)

* Add the rest of the vegetables and fry for 10 minutes, until just starting to go soft.

* In the meantime make up the stock, then add to the pan once the vegetables have finished their 10 minutes of frying.

* Bring to the boil, then cover and simmer for 25 minutes. This makes the vegetables very soft! If you prefer not to blend your soup and want to keep a bit of crunch to the veg, adjust the cooking times accordingly.

* Stir in the pesto and creme fraiche, then blend in a food processor or using a hand blender.

Warm potato, green bean and broccoli salad with feta

This based on another BBC Good Food recipes from the salad section, but I seem to be having trouble accessing their site lately. I can't remember the ingredient amounts exactly, but I'll outline it as best I can here.


Serves 4

Takes around 30 minutes too cook in all


400g new potaoes or baby news

200g green (runner/french) beans

A mid-sized crown of broccoli

Juice of half a lemon

A decent handful each of dill and chives

At least 2 -3 tbsp good quality olive oil

A 200g block of feta or goat's cheese

A handful of pine nuts

A bag of baby spinach leaves to serve

I also served the meal with half an avocado each. Because I love avocadoes!


* Chop the beans in half and separate the broccoli into florets

* Bring some water to the boil and cook the potatoes for 15 minutes

* While the potatoes are cooking, mix together the oil, lemon juice and herbs and pine nuts in a large bowl

* When the potatoes are done, remove them from the pan with a slotted spoon and place them in the bowl with the dressing. Mix well.

* Using the water from the potatoes, boil the broccoli and green beans for about 4 minutes. When done add them to the potatoes and dressing and toss together well.

* Cut the feta into small rectangular pieces. Arrange the spinach leaves on plates and spoon the dressed salad mixture on top. Top the salad with the feta cheese. Now is the time to slice your avocado. If you have lemon juice left, squeeze onto the avocado to prevent it browning.


I loved this meal. So healthy, filling and tasty, all in one dish! I did adapt the recipe somewhat, as I served it warm, used feta instead of goat's cheese and added chives and the baby spinach, And the avocado. I didn't feel the recipes would have been interesting or tasty enough without the additions. It's a good time of year to make the most of fresh, in-season produce, so make it now!

Spring soup

This is a big, chunky broth that I put together to celebrate the fact that spring was coming! I overestimated the size of my pan though and ended up leaving out some of the ingredients, including some extra stock which would have been useful as I kept it overnight. Make sure you use good quality stock, as the vegetables by themselves aren’t especially tasty. I used Knorr’s premade vegetable stock.

Spring Soup

Serves a generous 4

Time to make close to an hour with inefficient time keeping and inexperienced chopping!

1.5 litres of good vegetable stock

1 crown of broccoli

4 plum tomatoes

100g green beans (French beans)

1 large courgette

Bunch of spring onions

3 measures of garlic (cloves, sliced, or tsps. of Bart’s)

1 bulb of fennel

Few springs of thyme

75g pasta for soup or broken spaghetti

Seasoning

Optional: a dollop of pesto or cream cheese or parmesan (or all 3?) for on top.

Optional: bread to serve with

* Prepare the veg – separate the broccoli into small florets. Slice the courgette thin, long slices. Chop the green beans in half and deseed the tomatoes and slice thinly. Finely slice the fennel and the onions. Heat some oil in a large saucepan.

* Fry the fennel, garlic and spring onions on a medium heat for around 15 minutes, making sure they don’t brown too much.

* Add the rest of the veg, the herbs, the pasta and the stock and seasoning then bring to the boil. Cover, then simmer for 10 minutes.

Serve hot with dollops of pesto (or whatever your prefer) and some good bread.