Spicy chorizo and tomato soup

So, in the end the chorizo and tomato soup was made, and at the request of Merisi, I hereby divulge the recipe - for that particular day's soup anyway - I make things up as I go along, so things change, especially as I don't measure. But this time, and with Merisi in mind, I made notes. It makes a lot of soup, enough for four probably but we are greedy. This soup was prepared about 4 hours before eating, but it would have been better made the day before.Things usually are.

I got together all these -

Which are - 2x 400gms/14oz tins of cheap chopped tomatoes, 1x 500g/18oz box passata, 1x 225gm/8oz whole chorizo (or chunk of salami) one medium-large onion, 1x sweet red pepper (not shown), tomato puree, extra virgin olive oil, fresh or dried savoury herbs, two decent sized cloves of garlic, a chicken stock cube, sweet chilli sauce, HP/Brown sauce, paprika, chutney (optional).

IMPORTANT NOTE - you can't really go wrong with this. The measurements can be adjusted to taste, and the world won't stop turning if you use slightly different sized food containers, the ones I have here are standard for the UK. (Just make sure you use a decent olive oil, that's all).

Chop your onion how you like it.

Ditto the red pepper. Gently heat the olive oil (about two tablespoons or your own personal glug) until you can smell it, then add the onion and one teaspoon of paprika. Saute quietly until translucent, then add the pepper. While that is doing, take the skin off your salami if necessary - here I have scoured the casing vertically all the way along and peeled it back...

and then chopped into generous slices. Pop it in with the pepper and onion, and leave it to sweat its smoky, fatty goodness out, until it is moist and glistening.

Add the two tins of tomatoes and the passata, then your flavourings. Usually I just wallop them in, but this time I measured properly. And I put in - 2x teaspoons sweet chilli sauce, 1x teaspoon HP sauce, 2x crushed cloves garlic, 1x tablespoon tomato puree and about one heaped tablespoon savory herbs. And the stock cube. My herbs were from my pots, rosemary, hyssop, marjoram, lavender and a bay leaf. Dried would do fine. (Obviously, don't chop the bay leaf, leave it to marinade). Oh yes, I added a very generous teaspoon of my own peach chutney, but this is discretionary.

By now the soup was more like a thick pasta sauce, indeed it could be used for that very purpose if you simmered it down a bit more. But for soup, I added water - and see how much I love you all - I used American cup sizes. But I seem to have made a bit mess of my conversion, as I used what I thought were 3 cups, which is about 600 ml, but that converts to over a pint and I didn't think I added that much...so, about 600 ml, or, just make it more liquid with how ever much cold water you want. Let judgement and common sense prevail. You are going to leave it on a very low setting, (not even simmering) to quietly richen and thicken again. While you go off and do something else - drink gin/watch TV/have a bubble bath. I made bread, because sometimes my goodness knows no bounds.