Mathematics has always been something I’ve avoided. From mitching class in school to hang out in the fields to still using calculators to do basic sums. I avoid numbers as much as I can.
However, I won’t need a maths class or a calculator to understand I’ve put on weight lately.
I mean, I’m giving myself a break because we’re currently still in lockdown because of this virus and I’ll be damned if I wasted an hour of sunlight and fresh air on exercise. Pfft.
But alas, at some point, I need to take my face out of the bag of cheesy puffs and realise that at some point, my body will need some mercy. It is just begging for something green.
Weed jokes aside, green is what I gave it.
Ignore anyone that tells you soup isn’t a complete meal. Those that tell you that are souping wrong. They have and always will.
When done right, a soup can fill, nourish and make you feel like you should be sitting air-light in a temple somewhere, cradling a candle and doing all sorts of incantations.
Take this recipe with a pinch of salt (eyeroll blogger pun) because while I have laid out the steps required to get the exact bowl of soup that I did, you can absolutely use whatever you have to hand – we’re talking blitzing vegetables here – but if you want to maintain that Oz like emerald hue, keep your vegetables as green as you can.
In a big pan, heat up a little olive oil and fling in a chopped leek, some chopped celery and a whole garlic clove. Don’t be too militant about the chopping, it’s all getting blitz anyway.
Cook gently until they begin to soften before flinging in some broccoli heads. Continue cooking for about 10 or 15 minutes.
Pour in some vegetable stock. Mine is homemade (literally just by simmering the week’s leftover vegetables and storing it in empty, washed out milk cartons). But a cube and some boiling water would be fine.
You want to just about cover the vegetables with stock for now and keep some stock aside in case you need it later.
Now scatter in a few handfuls of frozen peas and stir everything around.
Bring the stock to a bubble and then drop it to a simmer, letting it blip away gently for like 15 or 20 minutes until you feel the broccoli softening slightly under the pressure of your spoon. It won’t take long if your broccoli is chopped smallish.
Now either transfer the pans contents to a blender or use a hand blender to blitz everything until it’s smooth. Use more stock if you need to thin it out a little.
Pour the soup in a bowl and poach your egg. You can find my egg poaching method by clicking here.
Top the soup with some crumbled feta, an extra drizzle of olive oil, some scattering of fresh parsley and the poached egg.
Serve everything with an egg. Start eating better. Never do maths.
That’s my motto.
MIKEY AND THE KITCHEN. 