Broccoli and Stilton Soup

I have finally emerged from the madness of Christmas, back to the real world. I now have time to write blog entries and make soup, unlike the bleak time between mid-November and New Year's Day, which feels curiously like some sort of demon has stolen away your soul and free will and turned you into a robot capable only of toast, pasta and baked potatoes. But here I am on January 2nd 2008 (!) declaring:

NEW YEAR, NEW SOUP!

I saw the big pile of broccoli in the supermarket and suddenly decided that I must must MUST make broccoli and stilton soup. I then lost my mind somewhat and bought way too many vegetables. This is down to two things:

1). Tesco have started doing organic veg boxes for people to buy in their shops, instead of having them delivered and I found one marked down to a silly price, hurrah!
2). The box has pictures of ladybirds on it.......

Anyway, this is a delicious soup and if you are not a fan of stilton, I would urge you to try it anyway. Stilton as a cheese is strong and slightly sharp, but when it melts into the soup it gives the whole dish a savoury creamy edge that you wouldn't get with anything else and only the faintest hint of cheesiness.

Ingredients
50g butter
2 medium onions, peeled and diced
500g broccoli, in florets
1 medium potato, peeled and diced
850ml vegetable stock
100g blue stilton, crumbled
milk if needed

Melt the butter and add the soften onions, then add the potato, broccoli and stock and simmer for 10-15 until broccoli is very soft.
Whizz up this mixture with a hand held blender or a liquidiser (please be careful, if using this, of exploding soup). Once it is smooth, add the stilton and warm through enough to melt the cheese. At this point you can add some milk if it is a little too thick.

There is not need for salt in this recipe as the cheese is salty so do be careful. I have no idea how you could snazz this up or make variations. You could perhaps use cauliflower instead or one of those mad looking romanesco broccolis.



2 comments:

Catherine said...

What think you to using some old cranberry and mould cheese instead? Coz I've got some. What the devil do I do with it, hm?

Mairi said...

Hmm, I don't know. It's white stilton that has the cranberries in so I'm not sure if that is as melty melty as the blue. I think there's only one was to find out though!