watercress and turnip soup

... a little radio silence this week due to the fact that we've been busy launching a brand new product for Benefit Cosmetics. Yesterday's event in London was the culmination of months of hard but hugely enjoyable work for a brilliant new client and the start of an amazing few more months full of all kinds of crazy events up and down the country for the brand - so once again I find myself apologising for a little sporadic posting from me over the coming weeks... I promise to keep you updated of what's happening and i'll try and keep it interesting and irreverent as always... and there will be some brilliant pictures from all the events over on The Persuaders website...

watercress and turnip soup
more soup for you today by way of my snazzy new hotpoint steam blender... this soup is pure comfort food for me, the aroma of it cooking is enough to take me back to childhood Sunday's at Grandma Sylvia's house. As a family we would converge en-masse to Chigwell in east London almost every Sunday throughout our formative years, all the cousins romping around their apartment whilst the parents did grown-up stuff and grandma worked tirelessly in the kitchen to prepare an incredible meal. Usually a roast of some kind, be it chicken or beef, always preceded by soup and there were a few variations from the carrot and orange to the mixed vegetable but a firm favourite and most common was the watercress and turnip... turnips really don't get used very much any more but they are an inexpensive and vercitile vegetable that soak up other flavours really well and blend to silky smooth consistency... grandma always told me not to make this soup as watercress was so expensive but with turnips so cheap and the final flavours so gorgeous it's a crying shame not to...

below are the instructions for using the steam blender but for the regular cooking method try this previous post from 2011

1 medium onion - peeled and diced
8 medium turnips - peeled and diced
200g bags of watercress
1 pint good quality vegetable stock
a little blue cheese and some fresh coriander to taste

put all the veg into the steam blender and place the lid on tightly

ensure the water reservoir is full and switch the blender on to steam for 10 minutes. After this time, pour in the stock using the little removable cap and then steam again for a further 6 minutes before blending into a thick luscious soup

crumble on some blue cheese and a little torn coriander to serve

this is my entry to the brilliant and long-running No Croutons Required bloggers challenge hosted by Jacqueline over at Tinned Tomatoes

eat and of course, enjoy!