Step 1

Continuing the great feed-myself-properly plan, it was time today to turn to another home-made soup: tomato, this time.

All these cook books and cokkery programmes on TV do tend to gloss over the amount of time that preparation takes up. This is a classic case in point, to my mind. Having peeled and chopped shallots and garlic and sweated that little lot in a pan, it was time to tackle the leading actors in this little soup drama. Those same cook books and cookery programmes all talk about the easy-peasy technique for skinning the tomatoes, and I made the tactical error of following their advice. So the unsuspecting tomatoes found themselves immersed in boiling water and were supposed to go nicely wrinkly and open up bits of their skin for easy peeling access.

All very fine in theory. Even after two sessions in a nicely hot bath most of them stubbornly refused to offer up their skins for easy peeling and had to be helped along. Those that cooperated were great, but the others turned out to be very fiddly. And, adding insult to injury, (a) my delicate hands didn't much care for the heat they were exposed to during the peeling process, and (b) the largest of my mixing bowls, one that's been in the house for ages and ages and ages and was my mother's favourite didn't survive the experience at all - I knew that cracking noise wasn't good, and sure enough a terminal crack has now appeared in the bowl and it will be making its way to the rubbish dump.

Hoepfully the soup will be worth the effort and the sacrifice.