Catherine Devaney is a regular contributor to The Courier’s food and drink magazine, The Menu. Here, she shares a recipe for broccoli and spinach soup.
We have two new additions to the family – mini lop rabbits. One is a bundle of snuggly adorable black fur.
The other has a predilection for escape and a tendency to bite (he eyes me suspiciously through the kitchen window).
This week I rather over-estimated how many summer vegetables two baby rabbits can eat (my knowledge of rabbit care being largely derived from watching episodes of Peter Rabbit & Friends). And so we made soup.
Nothing says weekends more than a pot of simmering soup on the stove, for a quick late lunch or even a mid-afternoon pick-me-up snack. Soup is such an incredible way to use up leftover vegetables, or a glut of one green thing or another.
And because it freezes so well, it’s a great go-to for rushed days when something simple and nourishing is in order.
Dice one onion and sauté in foaming butter and a dash of rapeseed oil. Add diced courgette and stir. Add lots of chopped broccoli, stir, then cover with vegetable stock or water, add another generous knob of butter and bring to the boil.
Turn down to a simmer and cook for a few minutes until the broccoli is just tender. Blitz the soup, off the heat, with a hand blender and while blending add fresh dill and some handfuls of spinach, to add a vibrant super green colour.
Season with sea salt and black pepper.
Songs to cook to
You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me by Dusty Springfield. I rediscovered this song when watching the brilliant Informer on BBC iPlayer recently!