BROCCOLI & STILTON SOUP

January is definitely a soup kind of month - there's something immensely comforting about eating a steaming hot bowl of soup when the weather is as chilly as it has been lately. It's also a great portable lunch - I often used to pack up a thermos of soup when I worked in an office. I admit that this recipe is not all that dissimilar to the Cauliflower Cheese Soup I posted a while back (link here) but I hope you'll forgive me because the end result tastes quite different. Although the cheese (and butter) in it might not be so great for the waistline, this soup does at least deliver one of your five-a-day. It's also s(o)uper tasty!

If I'm perfectly honest, my main reason for making this soup was to use up the last of our Christmas cheeseboard. We had a really nice selection of British cheeses this year - creamy Somerset Brie, crumbly Wensleydale with cranberries, tangy vintage Cheddar and strong blue Stilton. I do love a good cheeseboard, but I'm not someone who regularly eats cheese on its own so most of the leftovers were used up in cooking. I just love how oozy and gooey cheese goes when it's melted - yum! There are loads of tasty ways to use Stilton in cooking - my favourites are to add nuggets of it to macaroni cheese and to crumble it over a mushroom or squash risotto.

Broccoli & Stilton soup

Serves 3-4

10g butter
2 tsp vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
150g (peeled weight) potato, peeled and cut into 1-cm cubes
225g broccoli, separated into florets
750ml vegetable stock (I used Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon Powder)
100g Stilton (or other blue cheese), cubed
freshly grated black pepper and nutmeg, to season

Heat the butter and oil in a large saucepan over a low–medium heat. Add the onion to the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, for 8 minutes, until softened. Stir in the garlic and cook for a further minute. Add the potato, increase the heat a little and cook for 5 minutes.

Put the broccoli into the pan and pour over the stock - don't worry if the stock doesn't quite cover the broccoli. Bring to the boil, then partially cover the pan and simmer for 15 minutes, or until the broccoli is very tender.

Season to taste with plenty of black pepper and nutmeg. Remove the pan from the heat and, using a hand-held stick blender, process the soup in the pan until smooth (or leave the soup a little chunky if you prefer).

Add the Stilton to the soup, return the pan to a low heat and stir until melted. Transfer to bowls and serve.

Tips

• Skip the butter if you're counting the calories - it's there for the flavour but the soup will taste perfectly fine without it.
• I use the broccoli stalk as well as the florets - just remember to peel off and discard the thick outer skin before slicing.
• A stick blender makes the job of blending soup incredibly easy but you can, of course, use a blender or food processor instead. Just allow the soup to cool down a little before processing and work in batches if necessary.
• I like my soup thick, but feel free to add extra stock (or even a little milk) if you prefer a thinner consistency.

CAULIFLOWER CHEESE SOUP

I've been wanting to make this soup for a few weeks but couldn't quite bring myself to do so because it would be like admitting that summer was over. I know that there are lots of lovely summery soup recipes out there, but for me soup will always be an autumn/winter meal – a cosy, comforting kind of food that is as synonymous with the chillier months of the year as falling leaves, winter woollens and crackling log fires. Well, it's now (as of yesterday) officially autumn here in the UK, so I figured that there could be no better way to mark the changing seasons than by cooking up a batch of one of my favourite soups.

I think this recipe started out as a broccoli and Stilton soup (which, in my opinion, is equally tasty) and evolved from there. If I'm perfectly honest, no-one in my family eats cauliflower (although I persevere with offering it to the kids) and my oldest child doesn't eat soup, so I'm not exactly on to a winner here with my family. It's no great hardship – all the more yummy soup for me!

It's important to use a good strong Cheddar cheese in this recipe. I like to use a bit of butter when I'm making a creamy soup because I think it adds to the flavour, but you don't have to – just use a little more oil. This is not a slimming soup (although there's no reason you couldn't enjoy it while dieting if you watch the portion size) but given that my body is going to be spending the next few months shrouded in layers of winter clothes I couldn't care less!

Cauliflower cheese soup

Serves 4

10g butter
2 tsp vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
150g (peeled weight) potato, peeled and cut into 1-cm cubes
1 head of cauliflower, separated into florets (about 600g prepared weight)
750ml vegetable stock (I used Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon Powder)
115g extra-mature vegetarian Cheddar cheese, grated
pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

Heat the butter and oil in a large saucepan over a low–medium heat. Add the onion to the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, for 8 minutes, until softened. Stir in the garlic and cook for a further minute. Add the potato, increase the heat a little and cook for 5 minutes.

Put the cauliflower into the pan and pour over the stock - don't worry if the stock doesn't quite cover the cauliflower. Bring to the boil, then partially cover the pan and simmer for 15 minutes, or until the cauliflower is very tender.

Remove the pan from the heat and add the cheese, stirring until melted. Season to taste with grated nutmeg. Using a hand-held stick blender, process the soup in the pan until smooth (or leave the soup a little chunky if you prefer).

Transfer to bowls, sprinkle over extra grated cheese and nutmeg (if you like) and serve.