Carrot, Mint and Yoghurt soup

Sunday 1.20pm

I love carrots, I always have. They are so easy going and adaptable. Put them with just about any other other ingredient to make all sorts of dishes from salads and soups (of course) to a pudding. And they are available all year round, in our house even if the fridge is pretty well bare there is usually a carrot in there somewhere. But more than anything else I think it is the colour that I like. Orange. So orange that even in the depths of a dark Scottish winter you cannot help but be cheered up by a bowl of carrot soup. My favourite colour is green, the colour of nature, healing and growth, but I often sway to orange, the colour of enthusiasim, happiness and creativity (and independance I think). My youngest's favourite colour is orange and he is all of those things.

In a soup carrot has a lovely texture, not smooth but slightly rough, sort of porridgy perhaps. This soup is oniony with a hint of mint in the background from cooking the mint in from the beginning. You could get a fresher flavour by cooking the soup and adding the mint leaves just before serving.

- Slowly cook an onion and a couple of cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced, in enough olive oil to cover the bottom of your saucepan.
- Leave to cook slowly while you peel and chop the carrots, go out to the garden for some mint, slice the mint, and then what else? Oh yes wash up all the dishes left by the sink by my two teenagers who it seems don't "do" washing up. They'll learn ;-)
- Once the onions are translucent and turning gently honey coloured add in a couple of large carrots peeled and roughly chopped and a small handfull of mint leaves sliced up, I used about twelve.
- Bring up the heat and a.dd in a pint and a quarter of vegetable stock.
- Turn the heat down to a gentle boil and cook until the carrots are just soft enough to squash against the side of the pan with a wooden spoon.
- Allow to cool for a minute or two and then blend until smoothish.
- Pour back into the now washed out pan, adding a dessertspoonful of greek yoghurt and a little salt if you think it needs it.
- Reheat gently, trying not to let it boil in case the yoghurt curdles. I struggle with this, but always eat it anyway curdled or not !

Serve with another big splodge of creamy greek yoghurt.