Cauliflower & Olive Soup

Here's another yummy soup as it's slowly getting Autumny here. This one comes from Paul Gayler's Little Book of Soups. It doesn't look too flash in the picture - not just because it's not in a nice dark coloured bowl -we oughta get some of those one day :), but also because the photo was taken by my flatmate on her phone - but the fact she wanted to record it shows that this soup was destined for great things - like your kitchen!

Ingredients:
1 medium cauliflower, cut into florets
3 T virgin olive oil (the tasty stuff)
10g unsalted butter
1 onion, chopped
1 small leek, white part only (in second photo I made a soup using both so it looks greenish), chopped
750ml vegetable stock
150ml full-fat milk
85ml double cream (I'm pretty sure I used single and it was fine)
6 black olives, stoned, rinsed, dried and finely chopped (I did no such thing; I used our leftover mixed green and black marinated, pitted olives from the supermarket, chopped roughly. Olives with the stones in DO have better flavour but it's more work to cut out the stones. Up to you depending on the time you have and how much of a purist you feel like being).
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 T chopped chives


Method:

Blanch the cauliflower florets in a pan of boiling salted water for 2 minutes, then drain well.

In a large pan, heat 1 T of the oil with the butter, add the onion and leek and sweat until tender. Pour in the stock and milk and bring to the boil. Add the cauliflower, then reduce the heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes until the cauliflower is almost pureed. Place in a blender or food processor and blitz until smooth. Return to the pan, add the double cream and olives and lightly season to taste - remember the olives are already salty.

To serve, pour into soup bowls, drizzle over the remaining olive oil and sprinkle over the chives (you can also add a little chopped olive for colour)

I served this with crusty homemade garlic bread - after all, I live with Frenchies!