chilled pea, avocado and mint soup recipe {vegan} + cookbook giveaway winners…

First of all I’d just like to say thanks so much to all of you who entered the cookbook giveaway on my last post! I see the stats every week and know there are loads of you out there reading, but wow it’s nice to hear from a few of you. I won’t muck around and leave you hanging until the end of the post… I know you would have all scrolled past my rambling anyways…

The winners were selected via Random.org and I’m pleased to announce that the hardcopy goes to Hannah, and the five digital copies go to KC, CSU, Andreia, Hema and Melissa.
Hannah can you email me your postal address and everyone else email me too, so I have your details for the publisher to email out the digital copies to; emma(at)mydarlinglemonthyme(dot)(com). Congrats and enjoy the books 🙂

Right, back to the food. I actually feel a little bit silly posting this recipe today. When I made this chilled soup last week it was one of those beautiful spring days that had us all outside in our tee-shirts and shorts, today however is meh. Cold, raining and windy. Do me a favour will you? If it’s cold where ever you are reading this today, bookmark this recipe to try later when it’s warmed up. It’s so worth it. Fresh, creamy, minty bowls of goodness.

Lastly one teeny tiny little bit of info for those of you who follow my updates on Facebook. As usual things have all been changed around again and if you want my posts to show up in your news feed you need to hover over the ‘liked’ button and make sure you check the ‘show in news feed’ button. Cheers xx

chilled pea, avocado and mint soup
The original recipe used stock cubes, but I like to make my own vege stock from scratch. For this recipe I made stock like in the link below, but rather than browning all the veges first I just bunged them all into the pot with the water and herbs and cooked for about 45-60 minutes before straining. I always make a big batch and then freeze it into 500ml containers, ready for the next time I may need some.You can use fresh peas if you are lucky enough to have that many available! However if like me you’d rather just eat fresh peas straight-up rather than cooking with them, just use thawed frozen peas like I did. Lastly, as always make sure you check the ingredients list on your coconut milk, it should read coconut and water. That’s it.
Serves 4-6


3 1/4 cups (350g) podded peas, fresh or frozen (defrosted if frozen)
2 1/2 cups (625ml) chilled vegetable stock (find my recipe at the bottom of this post)
1 large avocado, halved, stone removed and flesh scraped out
1/3 cup (80ml) coconut milk + more for garnish
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1/2 cup firmly packed mint leaves + more for garnish
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Buttered gluten-free toast, to serve, optional

Place peas, stock, avocado, coconut milk, garlic and mint leaves into a blender and blend on high until smooth. Stir in lemon juice and season to taste with sea salt and black pepper. If your peas and stock were cold to begin with the soup will be good to serve immediately, or if preferred can be chilled in the fridge for a further 1-2 hours before serving.

To serve transfer to bowls, drizzle with a little extra coconut milk, scatter with mint leaves and serve with buttered gluten-free toast.

Adapted to be dairy-free from a recipe by Valli Little in the latest issue of delicious magazine.