Broccoli and Stilton Soup

I LOVE cheese. Brie is my favourite kind, and as I've grown up, I've become a real cheese fiend. I've had endless wine and cheese nights, maybe ones where I've gotten slightly too giggly, but the best part of these is watching a film, and eating some funky cheese with crackers.

England's winter this year has been freezing, dark and not pleasant at all. The dark and windy scene outside my window puts me to feeling drained, lonely and in need of a big hug. Therefore, it's what I like to call "total soup weather". In my opinion, there's almost NOTHING better than having a warm bowl of soup, some bread. It's the food equivalent to getting a warm hug.

Now, I'm a total soup-head, with it being one of my favourite starters to pick in a restaurant. I, however, believe that it can be just a meal in itself. Puree form, broth form, chunky, stews, you name it. I'm a sucker for tinned soups too, Campbell's Cream of Chicken being my absolute favourite guilty pleasure.

This recipe is something I've had a couple times in restaurants. I wanted to use up a bunch of blue cheese I had left over in my fridge, and wanted to accommodate the warm and cosy feeling that soup gives.

The base is made up of potatoes. I realised when making this that I did not have a blender, so I had to make do with a masher and whisk, but I highly recommend that you use a blender or food processor, to make it extra smooth.

I also didn't have any garlic on hand, but my mum keeps these frozen garlic cubes in the freezer, which one cube is equivalent to 4 cloves, and it's very handy!

Recipe:

Prep: 10-15 minutes. Cook time: 30-40 minutes.

Ingredients:

-2 large potatoes, chopped

-1 white onion, finely diced

-2 ribs of celery, finely diced

-4 cloves of garlic- finely minced

-1 whole head of broccoli, cut into florets

-750ml of vegetable stock

-50ml of double cream

-350-400g of Stilton, crumbled

-2 Tbsp of butter

-2 Tbsp of olive oil

-Salt & Pepper, to taste

Method: 1) In a large pot over medium high heat, put in the butter and olive oil. Make sure the butter is in the olive oil, so that it doesn't brown and just melts. Coat the bottom of the pan with this.

2) Put in the onion and celery and sweat these out for about 5 minutes, just until they start to soften. Then add the garlic, and fry for a further few minutes until fragrant. Season this with salt and pepper. It's important to season as you go in little increments when making soups, so that everything is seasoned evenly.

3) Next, add the potatoes. Stir these in the oil and veg mixture, so it's fully coated, then pour in the stock. Give this a mix, pop on a lid and let this cook together until the potatoes are very soft and falling apart, about 20 minutes.

4) Blend this mixture up once the potatoes are soft until you get a smooth potato soup base. If you need to, add a splash of milk or water to thin this out. In this case, I used a potato masher and a whisk to really beat out the lumps, since I don't have a blender or a food processor.

5) Add the broccoli, and let this steam in the soup until you get your desired cook on it, I suggest for it to be falling apart so you get little florets and green specs throughout the soup.

6) Finally add the blue cheese and the cream, and season once again. Stir in a knob of butter at the end for some richness. Allow the blue cheese to melt, but not so much that you lose the chunks.

7) Serve with some more cream and olive oil on top of the soup for garnish. Enjoy with bread!