I have just gotten back from a trip to London.  I was only over for a couple of days but it was enough to leave me craving fruit and veg.  On the whole I love London for the sheer variety of food/cuisines you can choose from.  However, like most people who are madly dashing around trying to pack in as much as possible in a very short time frame, I fell into the trap of buying food that was convenient (and cheap) to eat on the move and subsequently found myself grabbing a sandwich for lunch.  So when I arrived home last night to find, four large boxes of tomatoes, one large box of courgettes and 2 cantaloupe melons sitting on the kitchen table (a gift from our neighbours because they have too many to know what to do with) I felt somewhat relieved.  Knowing that we are likely to be eating courgettes and tomatoes in some shape, form or another over the course of the next 2-3 weeks I thought I’d ease myself in gently…  So after having a quick look in the freezer I settled on the idea of a green vegetable soup, which was quick and easy to make and tasted fresh.

However, I feel that I am not doing my trip to London justice in terms of food… On Thursday I attended a celebratory meal which was held at a brilliant little restaurant near to London Bridge called Champor Champor.  The restaurant serves Malay food with a slight Thai twist and was found one of my friends via a Google search (what would we do without the internet?!).  Having never tried Malay food before I was interested to see what it was like.  The food I tried was packed with flavour, leaving you with a slight zing on your palate.  The dishes were not dissimilar to some I sampled when backpacking through south-east Asia – however I will definitely be heading back to that restaurant in the not too distant future and am definitely going to try and re-create some of the dishes over the next couple of months!

A Very Green Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 courgette (chopped in to small pieces)
• 300g broad beans
• 300g peas
• Handful fresh spinach (washed)
• 1 medium onion (diced)
• 2 garlic cloves (finely chopped)
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 3 sprigs of mint
• 2 stock cubes dissolved in 750ml boiling water
•  (either chicken or vegetable)
• Seasoning
• Crème fraiche (for serving)

Steps:

• On a low heat, warm the oil in a large saucepan.  Add the onions and garlic, cover with a lid and leave to sweat until the onion is soft.
• Add the courgette to the pan and season well.  Stir occasionally until the courgettes begins to soften.
• Add the peas, broad beans, mint and stock, bring the mix up to the boil and cook for 5 minutes.
• Remove the mint from the pan.  Then add the spinach and cook for a further 3 minutes.

• Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly before blending the soup using either a handheld blender or a liquidiser.
• Serve the soup warm with crème fraiche.