I like to leave the fridge free from any perishable goods when the house is going to be empty for a while. I’ll admit I don’t recall ever testing what it feels like to come home from holiday and find some half rotten tomatoes at the bottom of the salad drawer but I assume it would be a miserable end to a holiday and therefore must be avoided at all costs.

One such occasion was a cold January lunch time when not only was I hungry and in search of a quick lunch but I had just two hours before leaving the house for a week and the other essential tasks of bin emptying, dishwasher emptying & wash basket clearing to do. Not to mention packing.

On beginning the fridge sweep I was only to discover virtually a whole head of celery staring at me from the infamous ‘salad drawer’. While a whole head of celery could count as a material volume of food for a lunch, it was hardly likely to prove a satisfying meal by any other criteria and especially not in January.

With no option to freeze the potential threat to my happy arrival home in a week’s time, I decided to push my time boundaries and make a soup.

I’d recently made a tasty celery soup from a French food magazine but I could only half remember it and of what I could remember, I knew it needed a decent portion of fresh parsley. My December purchase of potted parsley was predictably on its last legs and would barely yield a semi-decent portion and so I cast my eyes around the fridge to find something to spin out the flavour of the celery. Given I was pushed for time, sweating onions or carrots was a no go.

I felt like I had won fridge-clearing bingo when I found the last of the Christmas-gift pecorino. A strong, salty, dry cheese was perfect for the job.

I used some stale bread cubes I had in the freezer to thicken it – you could boil some floury potatoes instead if time was not of the essence. Or equally use up left over roasties or even mash.

I gave it a bit more oomph with a teaspoon or two of Dijon mustard and could have stopped there. Slightly worried that it might be a little bland, I took the opportunity to keep up the momentum of using up my airport-purchased caper leaves. At the current rate of consumption I think I’ll finish them in about 18 months’ time, I’ve already had them over a year. Luckily I’m not paying storage costs. They do need to be crispy though to work as a garnish & so into a hot pan they went for just a few minutes.

Making soup two hours before going on holiday may seem like madness but when working from first principles rather than trying to read a recipe, combing a few ingredients in a decent blender can be pretty quick. Not to mention the washing up a blender time saving trick.

And if I had missed my flight, at least I wouldn’t have spent all week thinking about the head of celery slowly wilting in the salad drawer.

Read the recipe here or watch the highlights below.