A long time ago, my lovely friend Carolyn suggested I start a food blog. I love to eat (naming this blog was ridiculously easy) and I, like everyone over 15 and under 55, have an instagram page full of food photos, so it seemed like a good idea. However, I'm also easily distracted and promptly forgot about her suggestion. Well, it's a new year and I'm making a concerted effort to cook my way through my cookbooks and thought I could track my efforts here. This isn't a Julie and Julia type project; I'm not aiming to cook every recipe in my cookbooks, just cook more than the handful of tried and true recipes I'm already in love with.
First up is a stocking stuffer from this Christmas, Jamie Magazine's Recipe Yearbook 2012/13. The book is full of colour photos and is separated by season. I have long been a fan of Jamie Oliver's cooking style. I own Jamie at Home and have several issues of the magazine. He cooks simple, rustic food that always appeals to me.
Recipe #1, Chilled Avocado Soup, comes from the summer section of the book. It may be January but it's disturbingly warm out for this winter girl so I went with a cold soup (I also have a few ripe avocados in the fridge and I'm sick of guacamole).
This soup was delicious. I've made a few different avocado soups and this is the lightest and brightest tasting one I've ever made. It's also really easy to make - you just need a food processor or a blender.
Chilled Avocado Soup
adapted from Jamie Magazine's Recipe Yearbook 2012/13
Ingredients *
250ml chilled vegetable stock
200ml plain yogurt
1 large ripe avocado, chopped
1 cucumber, deseeded and chopped (they suggest peeling it. I'm lazy ,so I didn't)
approx 10 chives roughly chopped
3 tbsp roughly chopped cilantro
juice of 1 lime
Sriracha (or any hot sauce of your choice), to taste
Salt. to taste
Chili flakes (optional)
Instructions
1. Put all the ingredients in a food processor or blender and blend to desired consistency.
2. Chill soup.
3. Eat soup. (Didn't I say it was really easy to make? I meant it.)
* The original recipe contains garlic chives and spring onions but as I don't eat raw garlic and onions, I omitted them. I expect they'd be delicious in this recipe so you should probably use them. No pressure though.
