Pea shoots, pea and leek soup for Bonfire Night

Tomorrow is the Bonfire Night. Weather permitting, many families will be holding garden parties with bonfires and big bangs. I'm not a fan of fireworks, when they are conducted in private gardens. They are beautiful but also quite a menace for many reasons. And the local dimwits start the big bangs days before the Bonfire Night and continue many days later.
Comfort food and cosy warm clothes are a must if you're out in the garden on a frosty November evening.
Soup in mugs is always a crowd pleaser on the Bonfire Night. What could be better than a mug of hot steaming soup to keep you warm and toasty, when you are out in the cold.

I loved the look of Pea & watercress soup found on Rachel's Organic site. The plan was to follow their recipe, but as it often happens, I ended up using whatever I had in the kitchen, so the recipe has got diverted from the original recipe.

Pea shoots, pea and leek soup
Ingredients:
2tbsp (flavoured) butter
5-6 baby leeks
2 stalks of celery
100g fresh peas
75g sweet pea shoots
1 medium potato
200ml chicken stock
plain yogurt (to serve with)

I used Lurpak Infusions Chilli & Lime flavoured butter in this recipe, as it needs to be finished asap, but any butter will work here, then you just a bit of spices if you use plain butter. Melt 2 heaped tbsp of butter in a medium frying pan, and sweat finely chopped baby leeks for about 5-7 minutes, together with chopped celery. Make sure you check that the dirt is removed from inside of the green leeks. Gritty leeks are not very tasty.
Peel and cube a potato, put it in a medium sized cooking pan, add the leeks and celery, peas and pea shoots, chicken stock and about the same amount of water. Bring to boil, then simmer for about 15 minutes until the potato is cooked. Add more water if needed. Season with sea salt.
Blitz to creamy consistency with a hand blender.
Serve hot, with a dollop of plain yogurt.
I used Rachel's Organic yogurt, but any good quality yogurt will do.
You can substitute pea shoots for watercress for the more peppery taste, or use spinach. For a vegetarian version, use a vegetable stock.

What will you be serving tomorrow for the Bonfire Night?

Adding this recipe to #KitchenClearout linky run by Cheryl at Madhouse Family Reviews, as I used the butter spread and the remains of the chicken stock which needed to be used asap.