Recipe - Broccoli and blue cheese soup

There has been a chill in the air during the last few weeks. What better way to deal with it but to curl up inside with a bowl of soup! This one is packed with nutrients and is bursting with flavour. The beauty of blue cheese, is that it packs a whole lot of punch with flavour - meaning you don't need that much!

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 1 onion (thinly sliced)
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 4 cups salt-reduced chicken stock 
• 1 head of broccoli
• 400g orange fleshed kumara or sweet potato
• Handful of spinach leaves (optional)
• 100g blue cheese 
• Cracked pepper to taste

Method

1. In a large saucepan, sauté onion in olive oil until soft and clear.
2. Add chicken stock and bring to the boil
3. While stock is heating wash and chop broccoli and kumara into small pieces.
4. Add broccoli and kumara to the stock and bring back to the boil.
5. Reduce the heat and simmer for around 10 minutes, or until veges are tender. Remove saucepan from heat.
6. Add the fresh spinach and blend soup to a smooth consistency using a hand-held blender or large food processor.
7. Crumble the cheese and add to the saucepan. Blend again.
8. Garnish with lashings of cracked pepper. 
9. Serve with toasted whole grain bread.

Tip: Blue cheese is quite salty so you probably won't need to season with any salt.