Cabbage Soup Diet: Thai cabbage and onion soup with coconut, lime and coriander

No new recipes for the last couple of weeks, because we've been away, and now we're back inspiration is still in short supply. This evening I was stumped by the assortment of green leafy things in the vegbox (two Savoy cabbages, and spring greens) until I remembered Denis Cotter's Paradiso Seasons. This is easily my favourite vegetarian cookbook; it may well be my favourite cookbook overall. It's certainly the best one to go to when trying to think of interesting and different things to cook from the vegbox; the recipes are grouped by season and main ingredient, and give seasonal Irish ingredients an interesting twist - lots of Eastern and Middle Eastern influence.

Today I spotted a recipe for Thai cabbage and onion soup which seemed like the ideal way to use one of the Savoy cabbages. Like most of the recipes in the book, it was fairly straightforward to cook, and the result was extremely good - simultaneously soothing and reviving. I threw in some rice noodles to bulk it out a bit, and if I was making it again I might add a splash of fish sauce to add some depth to the stock, but generally a very nice dinner, and a pleasant change from the tried-and-tested recipes we've been having recently.