This week I decided to knock up a batch of tomato soup.

It’s been a while since I fell off the new-year-eating-what’s-good-for-you-wagon. My typical lunch now consists of mass produced sandwiches, a packet of salt & vinegar crisps and chocolate that bears no resemblance to anything that ever came from a cocoa pod. But as the evenings get lighter and summer is on the way I’ve realised that it’s time for urgent action to get back into bikini shape.

The first lifestyle change I've decided to make is to improve what I eat when I get home late at night. According to my not-so-scientific brain, this is the meal that's most likely to get converted to an extra inch on the hips - afterall, all you do is lie down for eight hours afterwards. Based on this I concluded that more soup is the answer. It’s easy to make, you can control what’s in it and even the human body can’t convert almost-liquid foods into solid fat (see previous comment about lack of scientific logic).

For inspiration, I googled “best tomato soup recipes” and was surprised to find two popping up repeatedly in reviews from like-minded bloggers. The Nordstrom Café recipe, which controversially uses tinned rather than fresh tomatoes, and Marcus Wareing’s effort using Worcestershire sauce and balsamic vinegar to add some zing.

I have to say that my experience of fresh tomatoes in the UK is variable and so I begrudgingly admit that the tinned approach gives more consistently flavourful results (although I take this a step further by adding passata and a spoonful or two of tomato puree). I also find Marcus Wareing’s offering a little overpowering, more “balsamic vinegar with tomato” soup than the other way round, so decide to tone this down and add a little sugar to counteract the sharpness.

My version went down well with the ultra harsh food critics at home, but the new-new-years-resolution was watered down slightly by the fact that it was served with two slices of cheese on toast made with a particularly mature cheddar I found in the back of the fridge. Mmmmm…

Click here for my roasted garlic, basil and tomato soup recipe.