Celeriac soup

My Mother came to visit a couple of days ago, proudly held out a carrier bag and announced "I've got you a pressie".

"Oooooo", I thought to myself, "what can it be?"

A celeriac (organic, she announced proudly)

(Also known as a turnip-rooted celery or a knob celery - I think I prefer the name 'Knob Celery')

What on earth will I do with THIS?  I did wonder.  I must tell you at this point that I HATE celery, "This better not taste like celery" I told her ungratefully.

I turned to my friend, Google.  It seemed it was a choice between it being mashed, or souped.

So, of course, I turned to my favourite kitchen gadget, my soup machine.

I found a recipe on BBC FOOD, but adapted it quite heavily, as I do.  So here is my version.

You need:

• 1 celeriac
• 2 medium potatoes
• 2 generous pinches of dried sage
• Vegetable stock
• Onion
• Olive Oil

What you do:

Peel and chop the celeraic..... hang on, PEEL?  How on earth do you peel this?

Let's change that to 'hack'. So, hack and chop the celeriac.  (Uewww, it smells like celery!!)

And the potatoes.

Meanwhile, sauté some chopped onions in a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan, or as I do, in my trusty Soup Maker.

Add the chopped veg, the sage and enough vegetable stock to cover, a little seasoning and simmer for 20 mins until the veggies are soft.

Blitz until smooth, or of you like chunky soup, remove about a quarter, blitz the rest, and mix the chunky bits back in.

This was a HUGE winner in my house - it made a gorgeously smooth, almost creamy soup. Shona loved it, Adam (who was visiting) loved it, I loved it. (it tastes nothing like celery). I took a little bit up to the parents, well she might as well try it since she bought it.  Then it was gone!

Slurp.

Oh, guinea pigs are pretty partial to the trimming too - happy squeaks all round.

ps: The Amazon links are affiliated  if you click and buy I might get a few pennies.  Just so you know :)