Celery and cashew soup

Celery and cashew soup
Originally uploaded by framboise.

No prizes for guessing where this recipe comes from. It's been a soup-tastic week. We had celeriac soup on Thursday out of a thermos flask on Yellowcraigs beach. And last night, P cooked us some onion soup, recipe courtesy of Nigel Slater on the OFM calender. It's not that the weather is cold or anything, we just fancied soup this week. As one-pot cooking, it can't be beat. Plus, we get more onions in our veg box than we can use in a week. It builds up until we decide to do something about it. I didn't take any photos of the celeriac or onion soup, but here's today's celery and cashew nut soup recipe (from the NCGSC's Book of Soups), modified for two big eaters. The end result is a smooth, creamy concoction, that doesn't sit in the stomach heavily. It's also great for the lactose intolerant, as are chinese dessert soups that use ground cashew/almond/peanut/seasame for their creamy texture.

Ingredients:

• a small knob of butter (10-15g)
• 1 head of celery, roughly chopped
• 2-3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 100g unsalted cashew nuts (raw nuts can be obtained from either a health food store or an asian supermarket)
• 1 litre vegetable stock
• And a handful (50g) of cashew nuts for garnishing

Method:

1. Gently cook (without colouring) the celery and garlic in the butter for 10 minutes in a covered pot.
2. Grind 100g of cashew nuts until fine. Add to the pot along with the veg stock. Cover, bring to the boil, then simmer for about 20-30 min (until the celery is soft).
3. While the soup is cooking, fry the cashew nuts until brown (no oil needed, just high heat) and set aside.
4. Allow the soup to cool a little before liquidising. If you don't want bits of celery fibre to stick between your teeth, pass the soup through a sieve. We're too lazy.
5. Reheat the soup, and serve garnished with the toasted cashew nuts.

We're cat-sitting again this weekend. The poor dear was in considerable pain the last time she visited. Towards the end of her one week visit, we realised she had blood in her urine, a sign that her bladder stones were back. Her parents took her straight to the vet on their return, and poor Muran had an operation to remove an embedded bladder stone. She seems to be recovering well, and is due to have her stitches out tomorrow. So as a small treat, we thought she would enjoy some soup too, garnished with some cat treats. She's had a lick so far, then gone away to sulk again. Not sure what that says about our cooking...

Scruffy and Elegant	Our new taste tester	Cat's celery and cashew soup

Update: Muran finished the soup, leaving the cat treats behind. Again, not sure what that says about our cooking.

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