On a soup roll...

Blogger has been messing me about in the last few days and if it doesn't behave I will jump ship to Wordpress... Anyway, I managed to get to the point of being able to type today, so all seems to be looking better.

 The children have gone back to school now, which is good for them and a relief for me.  We always seem to struggle with the post-Christmas part of the Christmas holidays, perhaps it's the dark mornings and dark nights, or the bad weather preventing us get out as much as usual, or the late nights which seem inevitable after all the excitement of New Year.

Either way, I'm glad to have normal life resumed and our routines are back to normal.

I've kept my running promises to myself so far... yesterday was the 7 January and marked the end of the first week of the year.  I've planned to run 60 miles this month which is a huge step up from last month, so I was looking for 15 miles per week which was a big goal after very little running in December.  But last night I did my second 5 miler of the week and reached 14.46 miles for the month so far, so I'd consider myself to be on target!  My pace is still slower than usual and I have a few aches and stiff muscles this morning, making me think I need to take it easier in the second week.

And my January Soup Month is still going well!  This week I used up the last of the Christmas cheese and made broccoli and Stilton soups which is one of my favourite Covent Garden flavours.  I've never made a soup with cheese before, so instead of winging it, I used a BBC Good Food recipe (with a few tweaks of course!)

Both Dylan and I thought it was the best broccoli and Stilton soup we've ever tasted - and because of the extra fat from the cheese, there's no real need to eat bread with it, which is ideal for my goal of shifting my festive weight build-up (I'll aiming for less carbs, more fat - not as easy as it sounds with a vegetarian diet!)

Broccoli and Stilton Soup (Original recipe can be viewed  here)

1 onion, chopped
2 sticks of celery, chopped
1 leek, chopped
1 potato, peeled and chopped
knob of butter
1.5 litres of stock (I use Marigold)
1 large head of broccoli chopped and stalk removed
200g blue Stilton, crumbled

Cook the onion, celery, leek and potato in butter for ten minutes.  Add the stock and cook for 10 minutes with the lid on until the veg are nearly cooked.  Add the broccoli and cook for a further 5 minutes.  Blend the soup until smooth.  Add the Stilton and whisk until smooth.  Season with care - Stilton is quite a salty cheese and I didn't think it needed further seasoning, just a grinding of pepper. 

And spell check has just pointed out to me that despite writing 'broccoli' for a record number of times within a few minutes, I STILL don't know how to spell this word.  I do however now know for sure, it's two Cs and one L.  It looks really odd though!

In book news, I've started to read Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood on the back of how much The Handmaid's Tale moved me.  I'll be back to review and it's another absolute masterpiece.