Broccoli, Cauliflower and Kale Soup. An Autumnal Return.

Rocket Bean is back and here to serve you a fairly basic soup recipe that you can add to, chop and change and make all your own! My personal favourite version of this soup is basically the same recipe but with a bunch of Stilton added in to it, however for this post I decided to go with the healthier, vegan option.

When it comes to vegetable stock you can obviously just use store bought stocks (as I did for this recipe) however,  Rose Elliot's 'New Complete Vegetarian' cookbook has a good recipe for a nice and easy vegetable stock. This basically consists of simmering your veg (onion, celery, carrot, potato and parsley) for around 40-60 minutes before draining. The good thing about this stock recipe is that you can freeze or refrigerate until it is needed. 

Serves 6

Ingredients -

1x Head of Broccoli, chopped
1x Head of Cauliflower, chopped
1x Leek, sliced
2x Medium Onions, sliced
2x Cloves of Garlic, sliced
2x Medium Potatoes, sliced
1x Carrot, peeled and sliced
2x Large handfuls of Spinach
2x Large handfuls of Kale
Salt and Pepper, to taste
Herbs to taste (here I am using Thyme, Rosemary and Oregano)

Vegetable stock

Oil for frying
Water

As the soup will be blended at the end, the veg can be fairly roughly chopped for this recipe.

First up, chop your carrot, onions and garlic before adding to a large pan with a little oil, salt and pepper and your preferred herbs. Fry together for around 8-10 minutes over a medium heat to allow the onions to sweat and the flavours to infuse into the carrots. 

Next add in the chopped cauliflower, broccoli, leek and potato and continue to cook for a further 5 minutes. Note: You may want to make this in two batches if you don't have a big enough soup pot.

Now add in the kale and spinach, there's no real need to chop this up as it wilts down pretty quickly once the water is added to the pot and it will blend very easily once cooked as well.

Fill the pot with boiling water to cover the veg and add in your stock. Remember if you are making a large amount of soup to use the right amount of stock. For this large batch of soup I used 2 stock cubes. Bring the soup to the boil and then reduce the heat. Simmer for around 20 minutes until the vegetables have softened. Blend the soup, taste and add any more seasoning you may think it requires. Serve with bread.

Another thing to note is that due to the amount of soup made we had this for lunch over the next few days and it starts to taste even better when it is left for a day or so.

Hope you all had a good summer and are looking forward to some hearty Autumn recipes from RB.

JAB