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Cheddar and Chive Soup

Cheddar and Chive Soup

The recipe for today's soup is by Carolyn Humphries, who suggests that you serve the soup with "plenty of warm, crusty bread." Cheddar and chive soup is the last of four from the cheese section of The Soup Book and calls for celeriac, onion, carrots, potato, vegetable or chicken stock, bay leaf, chive, milk, Cheddar soup, and creme fraiche. I have plenty of chives in my back garden: they seed themselves, seem to grow easily and I don't often use them. The flowers are quite pretty and are attractive to bees so I let them be.  The only ingredient I didn't have was celeriac so I had to pop down to Young Stephen's to buy one.

Back at home I prepped the vegetables and got on with the first stage of the soup. This involved frying the root vegetables, adding the stock and bay leaf, simmering the mixture, and pureeing (yes, I had to get out the food processor). In the second stage you add the finely snipped chives, milk, cheese and creme fraiche. The finished soup was delicious - rich, creamy and cheesy. The spouse, older offspring and I enjoyed it very much. The younger offspring had his later when he got back from a camping trip and was in need of something that wasn't a burger.

Cheddar and chive soup

Bee Buzz

The spouse was in Paris earlier in the week and came across a bee box in a park. He kindly photographed it for me. I've just made a quick search of the internet and found several references to projects concerned with promoting bees in the city.You might be interested in this article about bees in Paris that I found on the Liverpool Beekeepers website
Bee box in a Parisian park.
I'm keeping my blog short today as I'm exhausted from shopping. Too many bargains, too little time and too little energy. A bientot!

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