Simple celery soup, adapted for Thermione

At school on Tuesday we did an investigation into what happens to the water when plants drink and we used celery ribs.  Because I wanted to use the ribs with leaves, the outer ribs were cut off and I brought home.  Today I found a recipe for celery soup on http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/celerysoup_85016

I adapted it for Thermione and it was very tasty.  Not a thick soup but it has a lovely fresh celery flavour with not a lot else going on to complicate it - which was just what I wanted.  It has made enough for two portions, not huge but quite enough for me.

1 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, peeled
one smallish onion, peeled and halved
150g celery - outer ribs have more flavour - cut into chunks
Put all of the above into the tmx and zizz for about 10 seconds on 6.
Saute on 100 for 5 minutes, speed 4


1 medium potato, peeled and cut into small chunks
300g water
1 tsp vegetable stock paste (or other stock)
Add the chopped potato, the water and the stock paste and cook on 100, 12 minutes, speed 2

Check that the potato is cooked. If it isn't, give it a little longer.

Blend for around 10 seconds, speed 7 to 8.  Check seasonings and adjust if necessary.  I didn't add any more because the stock paste is salty enough
I like very smooth soups so I pushed it through a fine sieve and discarded what remained in the sieve.

Because I made it early morning, I let it cool.  At lunch time, I added about 100 mls semi skimmed milk and heated it to just under boiling, stirring from time to time.  If eating it straight away, after sieving  return it to the thermomix, add the milk and reheat to 90 at around speed 2 or 3, I should think.  If I had had the inner ribs, I'd have finely chopped some leaves and sprinkled them over to garnish but I didn't so I couldn't!

Costing it out is complicated.  I've calculated the following based on Sainsbury's proces today but it's very rough
Celery 30p
Garlic 2p
Onion 3p
Potato - around 10p
Veg stock paste: also absolutely no idea but again not much as it was home made and the original ingredients weren't all that much.  Say 3p
Milk:  5p
So that makes it around 27p a portion.  Not bad at all.