Words and photos by Susie Sandford Smith

I think it must be the onset of the colder weather but I just had such a hankering for cream of tomato soup with cheese scones - easy, gentle, comfort food. A tin of Heinz Cream of tomato soup would have been perfecto but, seeing as I can’t eat garlic and not much onion, that was out of the question. So I made my own version, creamy and gently spiced, sweet but still fresh and very tomatoey - it was perfect and just the ticket.

The dish just called for cheese scones, light and buttery and very very cheesy, the perfect foil to that intense tomato.

I’d said to Horatio the night before that I was going to make tomato soup and cheese scones for lunch the next day and he was doubtful - I’ve often got five million things on on any given day and getting a cooked lunch ready for when he comes home from work does sometimes evade me. But I was determined! Luckily he came home a little late! Because it was a race to get the food to the table I forgot but, I would suggest that you drizzle a little cream onto the soup before serving to finish everything off beautifully.

Cream of tomato soup

Ingredients

(serves 2 to 3)

Olive oil and a knob of butter

1 medium carrot very finely diced

1/2 red pepper very finely diced

2 tomatoes cubed

1 tin plum tomatoes (I used whole but chopped is fine)

150 ml double cream

A dash of stock or white wine

Squeeze of lemon

1tsp chilli flakes

1 tsp dried oregano

Pinch of sugar (optional)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

• Put a medium saucepan on to heat over a medium flame. Add in a good splosh of olive oil and the knob of butter.

• Add the carrots, reduce the heat slightly, cover and leave to cook gently, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes.

• Add in the red peppers, stir and cover again, leaving to cook for another 5 minutes. Check after a couple of minutes that nothing is sticking or catching.

• Add in the tomatoes, stir and cover as before. Allow to cook for 5 minutes.

• Add in the oregano, chilli flakes, and a good pinch of salt. Stir.

• If you’re using wine, turn the heat back up to medium and add a splosh of it in now and allow to cook, uncovered, for a minute or two. Then continue as below.

• If you’re not using wine, add in the tin of tomatoes. Turn up the heat to medium and cook, uncovered, for 20 minutes. After a few minutes start to break up the tomatoes. The soup should be simmering, with small bubbles at the edges of the pan, any more than this and you should turn the heat down.

• After 20 minutes add in the cream, allow to heat through and then blitz everything with a stick blender or in a blender.

• Put back into the pan over a gentle heat and taste. Add a pinch of sugar and/or a squeeze of lemon.

• The soup will probably be quite thick so let down with a glug or two of stock or water.

• Serve with a drizzle of cream and some black pepper.

Additional notes

If you want to use onions in this, finely chop as with the other veg and add at the beginning with the carrots.

This soup would make a lovely starter for a dinner party, in that case I would push the soup through a sieve after blitzing to remove any bits and be left with a perfectly smooth soup. But I wanted to keep all that fibre as it was a main meal, and I wanted something a bit less refined and more rustic.

Cheese Scones

(Makes 6 using a 7cm cutter)

Ingredients

225g self-raising flour

80g fridge cold butter

120g cold extra mature cheddar cheese (grated) - save about 20g to top the scones with before baking

80mls milk

1 egg

1tsp dried mustard

1/2tsp cayenne pepper

Salt and freshly ground black or white pepper

Method

• Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 7.

• Whisk the egg into the milk with a fork.

• Sift the flour, mustard, cayenne and a pinch of salt into a big bowl.

• Cut the butter into small cubes (about 1cm). Do this quickly so you don’t warm the butter up too much.

• Add the butter to the flour and rub together using just your fingertips. I like to raise my fingers up higher than the bowl as I do this to incorporate as much air as possible into the mixture. The main thing is to work quickly and to handle the mixture as little as possible.

• Once all the butter has been incorporated into the flour and there are no buttery lumps left, add in most of the cheese and mix together with a spoon.

• Add in enough of the liquid to just bring the dough together, you won’t need it all. Bring everything together with your fingers working lightly and quickly. The dough should be soft and not too wet or dry.

• Very lightly flour your work surface and gently press the dough out (or roll) until the dough is around 1.5cms thick. Using a cutter cut out as many scones as you can. We’ll reuse the dough, lightly pushing the scraps together and then pressing out gently again for cutting. But the scones get tougher the more the dough has been worked so aim for as many as possible in the first cut.

• Place on a baking sheet, leaving a little space between each of them. Brush lightly with the milk and egg mixture, top with cheese.

• Bake in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes until well risen and golden.

• Allow to cool for 5 minutes before serving.