Carrot, Fennel, Chob and Rocket Soup

As the UK (and much of the rest of Europe and Spain) experiences a Scandinavian-style winter, Barcelona is having a British winter: rainy, overcast with the fleeting respite of a couple of sunny days, now and again. So, lots of cups of teas and hearty soups to shake off that all too familiar bone-chilling, depressing dampness!

With a pressure cooker, who needs ready meals or take-aways? Soups are so. wonderfully. simple. Roughly chopped onions fried for a bit, roughly chopped whatever you want to chuck in, a good pinch of salt, herbs or spices to season and water - as much as you fancy - transparent and brothy or chunky and stew-like. It goes without saying that fresher ingredients are better, but soups don´t suffer greatly from throwing in whatever non-descript left-overs you find gazing forlornly out of the fridge at you.

So, here I chopped up and finished off an older bunch of carrots, a cauliflower chob (what´s left after you cut of the florets!), some fennel stems (the bulbs are too fresh and crunchy to be pulped to death now!) and what was left of a packet of rocket - lush! 5-10 minutes in a high pressure sauna, a quick whizz with a hand blender, fennel fronds piled on top, homemade bread crusts chopped into croutons and yum yum - rain? what rain!

I´ll never buy a packet or tinned vegetable soup again - it´s a crime against the palate!