I have a yen for soup at the moment, which must be a symptom of these dark, chilly, wind-battered days. Happily there is a plethora of delicious vegetables, fruits and nuts in season that can be cooked in a trice to create a rich, warming one-dish meal.

Soup is so easy to make that it barely requires any effort. It is sustaining without leaving you full, giving all the energy needed from a meal while still letting you leave the table feeling sprightly and not overfed.

After more than a month of eating far too much delicious food in Spain (where I was filming a second series of my TV show The Wild Gourmets), I am going to make a concerted effort not to eat too much over the next few weeks. Perhaps then, when Christmas arrives, it will be fun to let eating take over for a week rather than feeling sick at the thought of more food.

It will also be fun to be able to fit into a few party dresses that have been buried in my cupboard all year. So for the next few weeks I am going to cook some wintry, exciting, seasonal soups to tickle the tastebuds and satiate the appetite. I will start with this celeriac and cobnut recipe.

I have been told that this year’s crop of cobnuts is a bumper one thanks to our weirdly hot and cold and damp weather. I have yet to discover why our miserable, grey climate has such a positive effect on the growth of cobnuts, but I am thrilled by the consequences.

Cobnuts have always appealed to me, not just for their deliciously sweet, nutty flavour but also because they are a quintessentially British crop. Despite my love of travel and exotic flavours, I will always be a mad keen fan of British ingredients.

Cobnuts are a variety of the hazelnut. The Italians seem to have cornered the market on hazelnuts and make glorious concoctions with them, both sweet and savoury. Gianduja, a delicious sweet made with nuts and cocoa butter, is the finest example of their skills, but I am also a sucker for their hazelnut tortes and chocolate turrón.

In Northern Italy, rabbit and partridge dishes are studded with the toasted nuts – the sweet flavour of the nut seems to match the flavour of poultry and game beautifully.

The nut’s flavour is also perfectly paired with celeriac as it seems to tone down the celery notes in the vegetable and brings out its rich rounded flavour. Do try this recipe and get excited by how easy and how good homemade soup is, whether for a cosy supper, an elegant starter, or a warming lunch (take leftovers into the office). If you can’t find cobnuts, use hazelnuts.

As is always the case with soup, homemade stock will make the end result infinitely better.

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