Tomato and Cumin soup

You have been working late but have finally arrived home. Tired and hungry you gaze hopefully into the fridge, but there is nothing that interesting there . . . so what do you do?

Open a tin? Of course you do, but not of some preprepared foodstuff that probably tastes like every other ready food out there. No you are a creative individual and so open a can of the best invention ever . . . tinned tomatoes. 

- Peel and chop half an onion and a big clove of garlic and fry slowly in some olive oil.
- Add in a small potato, peeled and diced, and continue to cook slowly until the onion is translucent - ten minutes or so.
- Pour in a tin of tomatoes, half a pint of half strength vegetable stock from a powder and a handfull of chopped fresh parsley in you have some.
- Bring to a gentle boil and continue to cook for another ten minutes until the potato is soft.
- Meanwhile pop a dry frying pan on to heat. Put a teaspoonful of cumin seeds and let them toast for a few minutes. Watch carefully in case they burn removing the seeds from the heat just as they turn a darker brown and smell lovely.
- Once the soup is cooked mash up the potato, onion and tomatoes with a potato masher, leaving it all a bit chunky.
- Check and add salt if neccesary and reheat.
- Ladle into a bowl and sprinkle over some of the cumin seeds along with anything you may have found in the fridge - I had sour cream but feta would have been nice as well ( don’t add salt to your soup before tasting it with the feta, as feta can be pretty salty)



 This is a very simplified version of Tomato and Rosemary soup with Cumin instead of Rosemary. Cumin seems to be my favourite spice at the moment, especially with tomatoes - the lemonyness of the Cumin complimenting the tomatoes beautifully. Just be carefull not to add too much as it can easily overpower everything else, a teaspoonful between two people seems about right to me, but taste it and see . . .