Loafing about

The best thing about 'working' from home, other than getting to watch period dramas all day, is being able to cook and bake inbetween updating my CV.

I only started baking my own bread a few months ago, and to be honest, despite in public being rather evangelic about how easy it is, my loaves have been a bit hit or miss.

The last couple have come on with a hole in the middle and a mushroom like top that just crumbled upon contact with the bread knife.

But I wasn't quite ready to go back to Kingsmill. On Friday, I rustled up one of my finest loaf of breads to date and enjoyed it with a freshly made soup for lunch. I certainly never got that when I was office based.

The soup I cooked was what I call, rather unsnappishly, the 'soup that's not a soup'. It gained notoriety at university amongst some of my friends as it was all I ever seemed to cook.

Is it a stew? Is it a soup? I say it's a soup with substance and soul. Its official name is chickpea and tomato and it's simply leeks, chickpeas, garlic, spinach, courgette and a tin of tomatoes and it's divine. Especially when teamed with a still warm piece of bread.