Tomato soup

Serve with a sprig of basil
or a swirl of cream

You must use ripe fruit and of course the soup will be more flavoursome if you use tomatoes bursting with flavour themselves.

This recipe is equally good cold or hot, so ideal for your picnic, whatever the weather.

• 700 grams of ripe, but still firm, tomatoes
• a medium onion, diced
• a medium potato, diced
• two cloves of garlic, minced (or less depending on your liking!)
• half a teaspoon of sugar
• 275 ml vegetable stock
• a couple of tablespoons of olive oil (or basil-infused oil if you have it)
• salt and pepper

Heat the oil in a saucepan and add the onion, garlic and potato. Soften on a low heat for about 15 minutes. Don’t allow to brown.

Skin the tomatoes by immersing in a bowl of boiling water for a minute or two. The skins should slip off easily when you take them out – use a fork.

Chop them roughly and add to the potato and onion mixture. Then add the stock, sugar and salt & pepper to taste. Give it all a good stir.

Put the lid on the saucepan and simmer for about half an hour. Cool and then put through a sieve to remove pips or liquidize in a processor to make it smoother.

Re-heat and pour into flask for hot soup or chill before pouring into the flask, on top of a few ice cubes, for cold.