Two relatively light Jane Grigson soups from our snowed-in kitchen.

The first is a fennel, celery and dill soup that I made “myself” (having already on hand a good chicken stock) thickened with a small quantity of flour added to the vegetable sauté and another small quantity of heavy cream.

In the second, we started by cooking in butter frozen peas, romaine, onion, and (secret ingredient) half a cucumber, withheld some peas while puréeing all the rest in the blender, readded the peas and finished with a generous amount of chopped parsley. It’s a taste to hurry along the Spring.