It’s amazing how good food can put you into a really good mood! Or does that only happen with me? If you haven’t noticed by now, I LOVE food! I love thinking about it, talking about it, making it and more importantly, eating it! Growing up, my dad used to joke that the three words he would hear the most from me was: “Daddy – I’m hungry!”

Even poor C has learnt that my mood directly correlates with my hunger – unfortunately he has learnt the hard way. I like to think of my self as pretty even-tempered, I don’t get angry often, however when I am hungry and there is no food in sight it is almost a guarantee that you will see a really unpleasant side of me!

Anyway, back to the reason for this post. Tomato Soup with Chevre! 

Last night, I must admit that I was in a pretty foul mood – nothing to do with hunger I must add. I had just sat my  last Spanish test for Basico Uno and it definitely did not go as well as I had planned. While I was walking home, mentally exhausted, irritated with myself about the test I started thinking what I had at home to eat for supper….not alot! Again C was out of town for work so I really hadn’t prepared anything. However, as always I had my trusty tin of  tomatoes! Right – tomato soup with toast – it is!

One of my all time favourite blogs, and in fact the only blog that I read regularly is The Wednesday Chef. Luise is fantastic blogger and a few months back she had a good recipe for a cold tomato soup, with a bit of a Moroccan twist to it! Over the last few weeks I have adapted it slightly to suite my taste and it has fast become another go-too dish when I am lacking in inspiration. But yesterday – i found some additional ingrediance in my fridge which i had forgotten about – goats cheese and black olives. Suddenly my everyday soup became an exceptional soup, so exceptional I just had to share it with you all.

Now before we start – I’m not going to give you an exact recipe. This is a dish that can be thrown together with more or less what ever you have at home, and depends on what kind of mood you are in! This was what I had last night:

• olive oil
• cummin powder
• chile powder
• garlic, diced
• onion, diced
• tinned tomatoes (I actually prefer to use fresh tomatoes…but had none at home!)
• tomato puree
• stock-cube (I use vegetable)
• fresh basil
• vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper to season
• Roughly chopped black olives
• Chevre – notice these guys aren’t in the picture…I found them toward the end of making my soup!

Pour a good lug of olive oil in to a pot. At this point I always put in the cummin and chile powder (I like my soup quite spicy so I’m quite heavy handed with both those spices) mix  the powder into the oil and let it heat.

Once the oil is hot, throw in your garlic and onions and stir them until they are all coated with those lovely spices. Honestly, at this point your kitchen is going to smell fantastic!!

When the garlic and onion are soft, pour in the tinned tomatoes (or chopped-up fresh tomatoes). Crumble in half a stock-cube, a little bit of puree and add a bit more water.  Now let the soup simmer gently for about 10 mins or until it has reached the consistency that you like.

OK, when it comes to the seasoning – this is entirely up to you! As you may know, tomatoes vary incredibly from season to season, country to country and tins to tins! Have a taste and decide what you need – more salt? a little sugar? a splash of vinegar? all of these ingredients really help to bring out a lovely rounded flavour to the tomatoes – and don’t be scared of using them! Especially the sugar it can do wonders to any dish!

This is when I’m usually done making my soup. I toast some bread-ends until they are really dry and toasted, and then nestle in front of the telly with my hot spicy soup on my lap and start to dip and slurp. Honestly its a very good soup just like this!

However, as mentioned yesterday I deviated away from my usual soup as I discovered the goats cheese and olives in my fridge – and feeling slightly inspired I roughly chopped up the olives and threw them into the soup for a minute or two just so they would heat through! I then poured a very GENEROUS amount of soup into my bowl (see picture) and crumbled the goat cheese on top – it was fantastic. The cheese melted slowly and gave such an incredible rich flavour to the soup and worked amazingly with the cumin.

Serve it with toast, eat immediately and enjoy!