John's Recipe of the Month

Chilled Cucumber Soup

This is a great tasty summer soup, quick and easy to make. Makes a great lunchtime snack or a flavoursome starter for the evening barbeque. Suitable for coeliacs and vegetarians.

For 6 - 8 you will need :

• 3 medium sized fresh cucumbers
• 300 g Greek yoghurt
• 100 ml crème fraîche
• 2 tsp fresh mint – finely chopped. Keep some leaves for decoration
• 1 lemon – zested and juiced
• Pinch of freshly ground sea salt and black pepper

1Using a vegetable peeler, peel the cucumbers thinly, don’t peel the same area twice leave some green to add colour to the soup. Thinly slice a few pieces to decorate the finished soup. Cut the remaining cucumbers into chunks.

2Put the cucumber, Greek yoghurt, crème fraîche and salt and pepper into your liquidiser and blend on full speed until smooth. Add the lemon juice and blend on slow speed for a few seconds.

3Pour the soup from the liquidiser into a fridge container, stir in the chopped mint and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.

4When ready to serve ladle the soup into bowls, decorate with the thinly sliced cucumber, one mint leaf and top with the lemon zest.