Roasted Broccoli Soup with toasted walnuts

This is a great way to make a basic broccoli soup more exciting. Roasting the garlic and broccoli before combining to make the soup can add a nice bite to the flavour.

I began by preheating the oven to 200F and dicing up a head of broccoli and spreading out on a baking tray with three cloves of garlic and splashing with olive oil. Place this in the oven for 20 minutes until crisp. The garlic will roast and become soft once removed from their casings.

Once roasted, place into a large saucepan. Remove the garlic from their casings and smash with the edge of a kitchen knife to create a garlic paste, add to the saucepan. Dice up half a white onion and two sticks of celery - these will go in the saucepan too.

Add a stock cube to a pint of boiling water and allow to dissolve - once dissolved add slowly to the saucepan, allowing to mix with the vegetables. Now add in half a pint of milk (to make this soup vegan, add almond milk instead) - allow to simmer for 15/20 minutes until the flavours have all mixed together. Blend the mixture together until smooth.

Return to the heat and finish by adding some seasoning and top with toasted walnuts and a drizzle of chilli rapeseed oil for a kick.