Carrot and Walnut soup

Autumn is officially here in the southern hemisphere so what better way to celebrate than with a soup that includes a real autumn ingredient - nuts. Walnuts in this case. Nuts add texture and flavour and of course don't require cooking, just grinding up and softening a little by soaking in some stock - lovely!

- Slowly fry a small onion (peeled and roughly chopped) in some olive oil and a piece of butter until soft and pale brown.
- Meanwhile grind up about two ounces of walnuts. I do this by putting them in a little ziplock bag and bashing them with a rolling pin.
- Pop the walnuts into a bowl and pour over enough vegetable stock to cover them.
- Peel and chop two or three carrots and add them to the onions.
- Pour in a pint and a quarter of vegetable stock, bring to the boil then turn down the heat to a gentle bubble and leave until the carrots are soft.
- Blend the soup along with the reserved walnuts and their stock until all is as smooth as you want.
- Pour back into the saucepan and reheat adding no more than half a teaspoon of ground cardammon seeds. Go carefully here as the aim is just to get a hint of cardammon and they are quite strong.

I had mine with a big splodge of Yoghurt and some more black pepper along with some flatbread with a few curry leaves on top.