It seems to me the ever popular Broccoli Soup recipe is for Broccoli and Stilton Soup. I wanted to avoid having a dairy product in my soup, so the soup could be kept for longer, which meant leaving out an ingredient like Stilton. So this is my take on Broccoli Soup.

You can't beat good home-made soup and this is another easy one to make. When making this sort of soup quantities do not have to be exact and ingredients can be changed to suit your own personal taste.

I have used chicken stock cubes but if you want to keep your soup vegetarian just replace the chicken stock cubes with vegetable stock cubes. It will obviously change the flavour slightly but it will still taste good.

Supermarket celery tends to be pre-washed, without any dirt in sight, so all you need to do is top and tail it and then chop it, including the inner leaves which are tender and full of flavour and goodness. The great thing about making home made soup is that there is little waste and you get all the goodness from your ingredients.

Ingredients

750g Broccoli, cut into florets
750g Celery, chopped
4/5 Garlic cloves, roughly chopped
3 or 4 Chicken stock cubes
Bunch of fresh Parsley
Freshly ground Black pepper
Water

Method

• Broccoli

  Celery

  Remove the main stem from the Broccoli so that you are left with the florets. Place in the pan.
  
  
• Top and tail your celery and then chop it, including the inner leaves. Add to the pan.
  
  
• Peel and roughly chop your garlic cloves. (You can use more or less according to your tastes.) Add to the pan.
  
  
• Add water to the pan so the level is about one inch from the top of your pan. Bring to the boil and then leave to simmer for an hour or so.
  
  
• Taste the soup to see how salty it is. At this stage you add three chicken stock cubes. Once dissolved taste. (I prefer Knorr stock cubes. I use the stock cubes both to enhance the flavour but also to season the soup as stock cubes are quite salty which is why you should add and then taste after they have dissolved.) After tasting add the fourth chicken stock cube if required.
  
  
• Finely chop your Parsley (plenty of it) and add to pan. Add a generous few twists of freshly ground black pepper. Continue to simmer for a further two or three minutes and then remove from the heat.
  
  
• Liquidise the soup in either a liquidiser (will need to do in batches) or with a hand-held liquidiser so that a smooth consistency is achieved.
  
  
• Serve immediately or leave to cool and store in the fridge and reheat as required. If not using all at once only reheat the amount you need each time and not the whole pan of soup.

Serves 8

Making anything like this does not require you to use precise amounts so do not worry too much about weighing or the size of the ingredients.

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