Broccoflower and blue cheese soup

This morning I picked a couple of heads of broccoflower, which as the name suggests is of course a cross between broccoli and cauliflower.



I made the soup by gently frying a chopped onion in some olive oil, adding garlic and 1/2 tsp curry powder, then the roughly chopped broccoflower, then finally some vegetable stock* and salt and pepper. I cooked it until tender, then let it cool slightly added a good dash of cream then whizzed it with my stick blender. We ate it with some home made foccacia bread.


* I make my own vegetable stock by saving veg peelings - gradually filling a bag I keep in the freezer. When I have sufficient peelings I put these in the slow cooker with some water and leave overnight, then I strain the liquid and bottle into old cream bottles and freeze until needed.

Pumpkin soup

The pumpkins are keeping quite well, although we noticed a bit of caterpillar damage to one end of one of the large banana pumpkins, so I cut out the damage and made up a big batch of soup today with most of the remaining pumpkin. Here is the recipe. I doubled the quantities and will freeze some of it.

1 Tbspn olive oil
2 large onions, chopped
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1kg pumpkin, cubed
1L vegetable stock
Optional: dash of cream stirred in before serving

Sautee onion in oil on low heat for about 7 mins, should be soft but not brown. Add spices, turn up heat and cook for about 1min stirring.
Add pumpkin and stir to coat. Add stock and bring to boil, cover and cook on low heat for about 30mins.
Cool slightly. Whizz with a stick blender or food processor. Return to low heat, add salt and dash of cream if wished, mix. Serve hot with toast or fresh crusty bread.