I’ve started making a very basic soup using the multi-cooker. They are quite nice for a lunchtime meal (our main meal is tea time) on some of these miserable winter days.

Put 500ml water and 2 crumbled veg stock cubes in the bowl. Add peeled and chopped veg (so far, various mixes of carrot, parsnip, celery, onion and calabrese have been used), enough to sort of come over the water level a bit. Set on “soup/stew” for 15 minutes and forget about it – the machine will enter “keep warm” when done.

Later, put contents of pot in blender and give a whirl. The soup should be pretty thick. Add salt, pepper, cream, milk… if/as needed/desired and give another mix. Have with some thickly sliced buttered toast.