A simple soup (serves four, or dinner for one for a few days) 

Ingredients

• Olive oil
• 1 large onion
• A bay leaf
• 1 leek
• 2 carrots
• 2 stick of celery
• 1 kohlrabi
• 3 cloves of garlic
• Water
• 2 handfuls of red lentils
• Cream (100ml) or coconut milk (150 – 200ml)
• Lemon or lime
• Fresh parsley
• Salt and pepper

Method

Start by roughly slicing the onion – or finely chop, if that pleases you, but it’s unnecessary if you’re short of time or patience. Pour a good glug of olive oil (2 tbs) into a large lidded pan and turn on to a medium heat. After a few moments, add the onions and bay leaf, cover with the lid, and sweat for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally to stop any sticking.

Prepare the remaining vegetables whilst the onions soften, and add them to the pan as you go along. Start by slicing the carrots, then celery and then leek. Next, peel and dice the kohlrabi. My only instruction here is to be sure to generously peel the kohlrabi, taking off all the hard green exterior – it makes for an unpleasant texture otherwise. But it’s really up to you how small you chop. I like soup chunky; you may not. Finally, add in two of your three garlic cloves, roughly chopped or sliced (they’ll burn if you make them too small).

Give the all the vegetables a quick stir, and cover again with the lid. Leave to cook for another five minutes or so, during which time you can give the red lentils a good rinse in a sieve under cold running water. Add a mugful of hot water to your soup and your red lentils at the same time. Leave to simmer for fifteen minutes. If the soup looks too dry, add a touch more water.

Use this time to make a very simple ‘pistou’ (in layman’s terms herb and garlic oil and lemon juice mixture) which you’ll add to the soup just before serving. First grate or crush your final clove of garlic and put it in a small water glass. Add a tablespoon of olive oil to the glass and the juice of half a lemon (or lime, if you fancy the idea of coconut milk instead of diary). Use the kitchen scissors to finely chop lots of fresh parsley into the glass, add salt and pepper and then give the mixture a good whisk using a fork. Set aside.

Remove the bay leaf from the pan and add your cream or coconut milk (the lighter option and delicious with lime). Season with salt (a little) and pepper (a lot), and briefly heat until simmering again. On serving, add a generous swirl your herby ‘pistou’ to each bowl. Any remains can be easily frozen, or kept in the fridge for another day.

If chunky soup doesn’t appeal at all, make smooth using a handheld blender before adding the cream or coconut milk. Of course, all sorts of other vegetables work well too. Lentils can be replaced with canned chickpeas – or indeed kohlrabi with broccoli, cauliflower or courgettes. Fresh spinach added just before the cream or coconut milk is another lovely addition.