Soup? In the summer? Are you mad?

Well no – but whilst looking through the fridge for left over ingredients from last week’s book, I saw that I had some leeks and a whole celeriac.

Denis Cotter has a recipe for Celeriac Soup in his book ‘For the Love of Food’ and it is pretty simple. I had all the ingredients – so why not ! All I lacked was the white wine – which I again ‘borrowed’ from Freya’s mum.

This soup also has a goat’s cheese cream and a green pepper and walnut salsa. Without it I’d have said this would have been bland. But these two additions really make the dish special.

For the soup, you fry some leeks and some garlic until soft, add a whole celeriac (diced) and a potato (also diced), and start the boil with 100ml of white wine.

Once that’s absorbed, add some vegetable stock and cook until the vegetables are tender. Took 30 minutes for me.

Blitz the soup in your favourite blitzer. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg and serve. Easy!

The best bit though is the toppings:

For the cream, mash some goats cheese with some double cream. Simple

For the salsa, chop a green pepper really small, do the same with walnuts, and add in some olive oil and parsley. Just as simple.

We loved this. We ate it whilst watching ‘The Darjeeling Limited’, feeling we had earned a deserved rest after packing up all our stuff for the boat.

We ate the leftovers the next day cold – and to be honest it was just as nice cold. Soup’s don’t have to be hot you know.

Tonight we unofficially move onto the boat. Officially that will be at the weekend!