Recipe: Celery and mushroom soup

A friend recently gave me a bunch of celery, which reminded me that I'd seen a recipe for celery soup floating around and that it sounded delicious. Of course, I couldn't find that recipe again but I thought gosh, how hard could it be to wing a soup creation? So I did, and now I'm sharing it with you all.

Ingredients:

1 bunch of celery chopped, leaves removed (save those leaves to use for making stock if you're keen).
2 large onions, diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 large potato, peeled and cut into chunks
200g button mushrooms, sliced
6 cups of good vegetable stock
Salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil

Method:

1. Start with some olive oil in your soup pot. Add the garlic and onion and sauté until fragrant. 
2. Add the celery, potato and mushrooms and stir for another 2 minutes or so.

   
   
   
   
3. Add the stock and simmer for about 15 minutes.
4. Take the soup off the heat and blend, either using a stick blender, or in batches in a regular blender. 
5. Return to the stove for a further 5-10 minutes to allow the starch in the potato to thicken then season to taste. 

This was delicious served with a drizzle of truffle oil over the top. So yummy, and also toddler approved! Yes, thanks to the mushrooms it isn't the prettiest colour, but the taste more than makes up for it I promise.

Serves 4 generously, with leftovers.

Variations:

• To make it extra fancy, you could add some white wine to deglaze the pot after sautéing the onion and garlic - just saute a little longer to burn off the alcohol.
• Mr Fork actually tried this and said it was tasty, but added some dukkah to the top of his instead of the truffle oil. Hey, if the man eats vegetables it's a win!
• Celery and apples are also a nice combination. You could sub out the mushrooms and add two green apples which have been peeled, cored and chopped for a different flavour variant.

Have you made any soup lately? Please share if you have, it's perfect for the chilly nights we've been having lately!