Spicy Tomato Soup

Try my delicious recipe for #tomatosoup. It’s quite spicy but you can choose how much chilli or cayenne to add.

Fill a large pan with tomatoes and just cover them with water - I use a 7 litre pan for my soup. I always cut the tops and bottoms off the tomatoes and then score the remaining skin top to bottom. You’ll see why later!

Cook the tomatoes until when stirred the skins have become detached and start to separate from the flesh, then you can just fish out the skins with tongs and discard them. Let the pan cool a bit and then put the whole lot through a sieve to get rid of the pips (taking the skins out first makes this part a whole lot easier!).

While this cooking is going on you can set off another pan with your flavourings:

3 or 4 onions

1 to 4 chillies chopped finely (depending on size and the heat you want)

5 or so garlic cloves crushed

1 or 2 small/medium carrots chopped finely

Cook all these through with a glug of olive oil till they are soft, then whiz them up in a blender with a couple of ladles of the soup base.

Now put everything back to the pan, warm it through and add some seasoning:

3 or 4 stock cubes/bouillon equivalent

2 teaspoons of brown sugar if things taste a bit sharp

2 or 3 tablespoons of oregano

Perfect for a warming lunch or supper with chunks of crusty bread!

Learnings:

* Wise words from Mother-in-Law “a soup boiled is a soup spoiled” – don’t boil out all the taste and goodness!

* Make sure you have enough freezer boxes before you start