Chilled avocado soup

This is quite rich but is perfect as a shot of something delicious, and ideal if you don’t want to have a starter but still want something to take the edge off everyone’s hunger.  It also looks incredibly pretty when served in a glass. 

Feeds 4-6

Garnish

4 tomatoes, finely chopped

1 red onion, peeled and very finely diced

3 pieces celery, very finely sliced

Splash olive oil

Squeeze lime juice

Salt & pepper

Mix together and chill until ready to serve.

Soup

4 very ripe avocadoes

300 ml cold vegetable stock

500 g plain yoghurt

Few shakes Tabasco

Juice of 4 limes

4 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

Blend in a blender or food processor until silky smooth.  Season and chill until ready to serve in glasses or bowls with some of the garnish sprinkled on top.

Chilled avocado soup [Flickr/Tasty Yummies]

Cucumber gazpacho 

This cucumber gazpacho is a cool and rich soup, which is best slurped cold from the fridge.  It’s a great way to gently crush appetites and good to ladle into glasses, cups or small bowls and served with toasts or an extra drizzle of good olive oil. 

After all the sieving and straining – don’t let this put you off – I ended up with approximately one litre of liquid and I reckon you’d only consume 150 ml of it (which is about a small cup’s worth). Anything more than this and you’ll get a bit fed up with it.  It’s nice but in moderate doses, like most cold soups.  

Feeds 6-8

2 cucumbers

2 heaped dessertspoons horseradish sauce

600 ml cold vegetable stock

Approx 250 g Greek yoghurt

Salt & pepper

2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

100 ml olive oil

Big bunch dill

Roughly chop the cucumbers, but leave the skin on. Mix in a blender with the horseradish sauce, veg stock and yoghurt.  You may have to do this gradually as my blender nearly died with everything added in all at once.  Whizz until super smooth and then strain into a clean bowl.  Help this along with a wooden spoon and discard the cucumber mulch. 

You should have approximately 1 litre of cucumber soup.  Put this back the blender and add the garlic, olive oil and dill, which you could roughly chop before throwing in. Taste and adjust the seasoning.  Make sure it’s robust enough as when it chills down, it will become a little blander – so err on the side of over-seasoning.  Chill until ready to serve.  Edible flowers (from my exploding and going-to-seed rocket and mizuna) and olive oil or chive flowers and slices of radish make it look a bit fancier.