E.ON Non Electric / Battery Challenge

Over the last week the boys and I have been taking part in a challenge. The challenge itself sounded quite easy - The boys couldn't play with any toys that were electric or battery powered.

I said I would join in with the challenge during the day and try not to use my mobile phone or the computer. As first I thought this would be simple but it proved harder than I thought as sometimes I had to nip on the computer or make a call so I couldn't carry out the challenge 100 percent.

Compared to when I was younger the boys have lots and lots more toys than I ever had, and it wasn't until I actually sat down and thought about what toys they wouldn't be able to play with all week that I realised just how many of their favorite toys were electrical or battery operated. The first toys that I remember being fond of were my little ponies, my favourite pony was a lovely light pink colour and she was my pride and joy. I also have happy memories of a Sega Mega Drive and a Nintendo SNES (showing my age here a little bit) that my brother, sister and I were bought to share one Christmas when we were younger. But looking back these were the only electrical toys we had. Nowadays you see children owning mobile phones, mp3 players, tablets, consoles and other electrical or battery operated toys and to be honest I find it quiet scary. Both Matthew and I are technology fans and do try to keep up with the latest gadgets but we are so glad that the boys are still little enough to enjoy playing with their toys and not want all the big electronics (although I'm sure this won't last too much longer now that they're starting to get that bit older every year) they do enjoy playing with the Wii and Xbox 360 but I have tried to keep their time to a minimum on them, the boys can only play on them on a weekend or school holidays.

We decided that our challenge would last a week starting Monday 24th July and ended yesterday (monday 30th July) Luckily for us Summer finally decided to show its face and more than half of the week we have had lovely weather, this made most of the challenge really easy as most of the week the boys have enjoyed playing in the garden and going for walks with our Boxer dogs.

James has also enjoyed his days by playing with his Thomas trains and hot wheel cars. Luckily we were also sent some new toys to review (the reviews will be us shortly for these) and luckily they didn't need batteries to work so both Callum and Nathan have had lots of fun trying these out.

Friday kept us busy baking some buns for our neighbour as it was his birthday on Saturday and we were invited to his birthday party, we decided to have Saturday off the challenge as at the party there was a bouncy castle and I didn't want to try and tell the boys they couldn't go on it like everyone else, plus it allowed me to have my phone on me so that I could keep up to date with my Olympics app and keep an eye on how well Team GB were doing on the first day! Sunday we were back on with the challenge and we spent a day painting and doing play doh! James loved this and enjoyed making a mess or should I say painting with his brothers.

Each night after tea when the boys would usually have half an hour playtime before baths we found ourselves reading together or doing some jigsaw puzzles or playing board games. Although we do enjoy doing these kind of activities they aren't something we do on a regular basis.

Looking back over the week I think we've been lucky to have the nice weather on our side because without I think the boys would have struggled to keep away from their favourite toys. Had we been doing the same challenge this week I think we would have been crawling the walls. One a good note it has meant we've been able to spend some quality time together doing things we wouldn't normally do and it has made us decide that we will definitely spend at least one afternoon a week where we do something together as a family, it is so easy to get caught up with things in general and just sitting watching a film or playing on a computer game. From a personal point of view it has made me see that I wasn't playing with my boys enough and that is one thing I intend to change.

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Average Betty was here!

Are you familiar with the American food blog called Average Betty? It's written by a lovely 30-something LA-based woman called Sara O'Donnell, who is even more known for her witty and catchy recipe channel Average Betty on YouTube. She was visiting Estonia last week and I had the chance to meet her and throw a party for her and her husband. It was supposed to be a garden party (my dear K. even managed to excuse himself from my aunt's husband's 65th birthday party as he had to mow the lawn and make sure the garden looks all nice and pretty when Sara and the guests arrive ;)), but alas, the weather wasn't on our side. Luckily we managed to fit all the 18 adults and numerous kids into our house as well.



While I regularly entertain rather big groups of people at our home, I decided to play it safe this time and organise a potluck party instead, asking each local guest to contribute a dish. We did agree beforehand that the dish has to be pretty Estonian and more or less summery, and we ended up with a rather lovely spread, if I may say so myself. I think Sara and Lee agree, and I saw them at least tasting each of the numerous dishes - quite an achievement considering that they came to the party straight from the meeting with a famous local chef Dmitri Demjanov, which included a full meal at one of his restaurants.

 
Sara and me checking out some of the delectable dishes available.

I had invited a group of local food bloggers to the party, as well as my favourite pastry chef and good friend Heidi Park (who just happens to be an American based in Tallinn) and another good Estonian friend who currently resides in Washington DC (but is visiting home for a few weeks). The local bloggers were a mix of good foodblogging friends and some rising local foodblogging stars, and based on the quality of the dishes they brought along, I just might invite them over again soon ;)

Here's the bi-lingual menu (ignore the bottom part of the blackboard. I told you the house was full of kids ;))

 

On the photo below you see a beetroot salad (thank you, Mann!), a salt pork and onion flatbread, specialty on our largest island, Saaremaa (baked by Kirsike). Fried Baltic herring and a sour cream dip was brought along by Vernanda, the barley soda bread by Tuuli (I've blogged about this delicious Estonian bread here). You can get a glimpse of various local charcuterie on the left and of local artisanal cheese at the bottom. Finally, there's a selection beautiful tomatoes from our greenhouse (various cherry tomatoes - mainly Suncherry and Sungold varieties - are in a beautiful white bowl designed by a young Israeli Tal Zur of Studio Trixie), large tomatoes are next to chopped green Siberian chives, all from our garden as well:


Here's Sara taking photos of our cute tomatoes (she's a foodblogger, after all):

See that pale blue enamel pot just behind the charcuterie selection on the photo below? The pot contains a huge pile of delicious breaded and fried turkey steaks in marinade. These were made and brought along by Ragne, and it's a lighter version of this popular Estonian pork dish.


Marinated saffron milkcaps, courtesy of my K's mum:

I baked one of my favourite chantarelle quiches, flavoured with tarragon and paprika (recipe in Estonian):


Other savoury dishes included a wonderful Estonian rye bread and herby home cheese (Tuuli) and a layered smoked ham, egg and cucumber salad (Kätrin).

Sara looks happy with a glass of Estonian bubbly (see note at the end of the post), and our son is helping himself to some of the dishes:


We obviously also had quite a few sweet dishes, though in the midst of the hustle and bustle we forgot to photograph them all :) Heidi, the Tallinn-based American pastry chef, brought along a  passionfruit cheesecake - a perfect balance of acidic fruit and sweet cheesecake. Kirsike made a batch of toffee-covered kama cereal balls (Estonian recipe here), and my friend Liis brought along a proper Estonian kringel (baked by her sweet diplomat husband Kristjan, who couldn't make it to the party himself), and Kätrin made a küpsisetort, a layered Estonian cookie cake (I've posted a recipe for my favourite version here).

Kaare, who drove to the party all the way from Tartu, brought along a very popular curd cheese cake - a shortcrust base, with a raisin and curd cheese topping:
 

Oh, and there was also a bowl of wonderful sweet-yet-tart yellow gooseberries that Triin brought along from Tartu.

Finally, I'd love to say a huge thank you to our drinks sponsors. Coffee was provided by Nami-Nami's long-time supporter Meira, who's also representing Segafredo Zanetti coffees in Estonia. Meira kindly gave us a Segafredo capsule coffee machine for the party (a huge thank you also to our barista Natalie :))

A le Coq sent us a selection of juices (plum nectar, banana-pear nectar and orange juice) and their Organic Beer (the first locally produced organic beer in Estonia)! By the way, the banana-pear nectar has two of Nami-Nami's recipes printed on each carton :):



There was another first-and-only at the party. We enjoyed chilled FEST - the first Estonian sparkling fruit wine, made from local apples. This semisweet apple wine is definitely very squaffable, if you ask me :) A huge thank goes to the producer, Põltsamaa FELIX. Another local drink company - Värska Vesi - had just re-introduced their mineral waters and still and sparkling drinking waters in beautiful glass bottles, and they kindly sent us a box of each.

 

All in all, I hope that Sara and her husband had great time in Estonia and that we managed to make them feel very welcome here.

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Cardamom and red currant cake

The red currants are all ripe and ready now in our garden, and we're using them a lot for making different cakes and desserts. Here's the most recent one - a simple red currant cake, served with homemade and freshly churned red summer berry and mascarpone ice cream.  So simple and so delicious. The original recipe from a Swedish food magazine glazed the cake with a toffee-cream cheese topping, but we never got around to making the glaze - the cake was lovely the way it is presented here:



I must admit that not many of these berries make it to the kitchen, as both our kids love eating fresh berries straight off the red currant bush (the same fate falls upon black currants, raspberries, garden strawberries and small Alpine strawberries - and any other edible berries in our garden):
 
Aksel, 1 y 6 m (July 2012)

Here's our daughter (now 3 y 5 m) doing exactly the same thing last year:
Nora, 2 y 5 m (July 2011)

Cardamom works really well with red currants. If you're making this cake in Estonia or Finland and not podding and crushing your own cardamom pods, I suggest using Meira's ground cardamom - it's much more flavoursome than the other readily available competing brands, mainly because Meira's cardamom is not ground to a fine dust but left rather coarse.

Cardamom and red currant cake
Adapted from the Swedish Allt om Mat magazine (original recipe)
Makes 20-24 cake slices

 

150 g butter, melted
50 ml (3 Tbsp + 1 tsp) milk
3 large eggs
250 g caster sugar (about 300 ml)
275 g all-purpose/plain flour
1 Tbsp vanilla sugar or 2 tsp good-quality vanilla extract
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cardamom
300 ml (a heaped cup) of red currants

Pre-heat the oven to 175 C/350 F. 

Whisk eggs and sugar until pale, thick and fluffy in a big bowl.
Mix melted butter and milk until combined. 
Mix dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, vanilla sugar and cardamom) in a medium bowl, then gently fold into the egg mixture, alternating with the butter and milk mixture.
Line a 25x35 cm cake tin with a parchment paper, spoon the batter into the cake tin.
Scatter the red currants on top.

Bake the cake in the middle of a preheated oven for about 25-30 minutes, until light golden brown on top. Remove from the oven and let cool either lightly or completely before cutting into squares and serving.

More excellent recipes using redcurrants:
Red currant meringue pie (Nami-Nami)
Simple and versatile redcurrant jelly (Nami-Nami)
Red currant jam (David Lebovitz)
Red currant tart  (Delicious Days)
Red currant mini cakes (La Tartine Gourmande)
Red currant sorbet  (Delicious Days)
Peach redcurrant crumble (Mowielicious)

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Pepper's Pawtions Trial

Over the last month Pepper has been trialing Pawtions. Pawtions is "the world's first bespoke, calorie controlled diet for dogs". 

It can be both hard  and daunting when you get a new pet, sometimes you are bombarded with so many contradictory opinions and when it comes to feeding, breeders have their own opinions of foods to feed your new pet and should always provide you with some food that your pet has been feeding on, once you take your pet to the vet for the first time they will also ask you about the food your feeding and if they feel it isn't right will tell you and may sometimes want you to purchase some food from them in their puppy packs. When I first got my own dog I found it all very confusing and very conflicting. What food is best?, how much should I be feeding?, how often?, the list of questions is endless. Thankfully with Pawtions it is made simple, when you sign up you enter details specific to your dog for example their weight, age, sex and the amount of exercise that they currently undertake and any health concerns that they may have. Once Pawtion's have these details they create a personalised meal plan that is perfect for your dog. 

Since having the pups in March, Pepper has done nothing but eat - this is obviously a good thing during pregnancy and after whilst nursing her pups but once the pups stopped feeding from her we had to reduce her food back to the original amount she used to eat before. When I saw the portion size sent from Pawtions I was slightly concerned that it wouldn't be enough for Pepper but having said that I knew that Pawtions take into consideration your dogs current diet and health issues when deciding which diet is right for your dog. Not only this but I was a bit worried about changing pepper's diet as a change in food can lead to stomach upset however Pawtions have advice on their website which explains how to change the diet in a control manner and reduce the chance of causing stomach upset.

The package is delievered straight to your door so there is no need to browse online or go from shop to shop looking for the right food. So what exactly is included in the package?

• What's in the box?
• 56 bespoke portions of food
• A supply of poop bags
• A pack of tasty treats
• Wormer tablets*
• Flea treatment*
• What does it cost?

                                   The price of the package depends on the size of your dog. 

A food portion, dog treats and poo bags

Each day pepper would be fed 2 portions of food, we gave her one in the morning and then one around our tea time, shes never been a greedy dog so we've always just measured out what food sh needs for a day and let her help herself, however having the two portions a day has made it easier for us as they are already measure out ready to be used.

Pepper loved the Pawtions food and treats. I'm 99.9% sure that if she could talk she would recommend them to all her four legged friends.

Also coming soon is the Pawtoins community where you can keep up to date with the latest news and talk to other Pawton dog lovers too. You can submit your details now and be the first to know when the community page goes live! Head on over to the Pawton community page now to submit your details.

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A simple marzipan and gooseberry cake recipe

The gooseberry season has begun and here's one of my favourite cakes for using up those gooseberries (you'll find more delicious ways of using gooseberries at the end of this post). It's a simple sponge cake, made special by the generous amount of sour gooseberries and tiny chewy bits of cooked marzipan.

You'll need a small sheet pan for this cake, about 25x35 cm (10 inch x 14 inch) in size.

Trivia: Did you know that the French call gooseberries the "mackerel berries" (groseille a macqueraux)? Neither did I...

Marzipan and gooseberry cake 
(Tikri-martsipanikook)
Serves about 20

4 large free-range eggs
250 g caster sugar (about 300 ml)
150-200 g marzipan
250 g all-purpose/plain flour (about 400 ml)
a pinch of salt

Topping:
500 ml gooseberries, rinsed, topped and tailed (2 cups)
50 g cold butter (about 2 Tbsp)
demerara brown sugar or pearl sugar

To serve:
icing sugar/confectioner's sugar
vanilla custard/creme anglaise (optional)

 

Whisk the eggs and sugar until pale, thick and fluffy.
Grate the marzipan coarsely (you can put the marzipan into freezer for half an hour to make grating easier), or simply cut or crumble into small chunks. Fold into the egg and sugar mixture.
Fold in the flour and salt, stir gently until combined.
Line a Swiss roll tin (ca 25x35 cm) with a parchment paper or butter generously and dust with flour or semolina.
Spoon the batter into the prepared cake tin. Scatter the gooseberries on top, then sprinkle with sugar and dot with small pieces of butter (feel free to use your grater here again).
That's how it will look:

 

Bake in a pre-heated 200C/390 F oven for about 35-45 minutes, until the cake is golden brown.

Let cool a little, then cut into squares and dust generously with an icing sugar.

Other gooseberry recipes:
Gooseberry tart with a sweetened condensed milk topping
Gooseberry fruit soup aka gooseberry kissel
Carrot and gooseberry jam
Gooseberry chutney
Red gooseberry sorbet
Coconut gooseberry clafoutis @ The Kitchn

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Competition to Win Qsilica REMOVE ‘Make up & Grime’ Remover

Qsilica REMOVE Make up and Grime Cleansing Gel is a foaming cleansing gel with natural sugar and coconut extracts and jojoba seed oil which removes impurities and excess oils to balance the skin’s natural oil production and leaves skin fresh and ready for moisturisation.

Qsilica REMOVE gained a Gold accolade in the ‘Face care products’ category.

The Qsilica skin care range promotes beauty from the inside out and includes eight products that use potent natural nutrients – not synthetic cocktails. All the Qsilica Skin Care products are infused with colloidal silica to visibly fight the signs of ageing and give that outer glow. It is based on the principle that the secret to glowing and youthful skin, hair and nails lies in supporting the body’s internal healthy cell renewal processes, by protecting and gently treating the skin with powerful natural ingredients.

Qsilica products are gentle on the skin and provide immediate relief from skin complaints such as tightness and dryness. The Qsilica range contains skin care products to cleanse, exfoliate, moisturise, replenish, and treat the face, hands, and body. Qsilica is an affordable range that provides women with skin care products that are able to naturally protect and treat the skin and improve complexion. 


Qsilica REMOVE ‘Make up & Grime’ Remover has won overall ‘Best Skincare Product’ and ‘Best Face Care Product’ in the 2012 FreeFrom Skincare Awards. The FreeFrom Skin Care Awards, newly launched this year, to complement the established FreeFrom Food Awards, were held in association with The Green Beauty Bible and the Allergy and FreeFrom Show on 18^th May at Olympia, London.

The product is free of chemicals, parabens, sulphates, petrochemicals, Phthalates, Propylene glycol, alcohol,and synthetic additives or fragrances. It is not tested on animals.

If you would like to get your hands on some Qsilica REMOVE ‘Make up & Grime’ Remover worth £15.00 enter the competition below using the rafflecopter form. 

A winner will be chosen at random on 11th August an contacted within 7 days of the competition ending, UK entrants only please, one enter per person 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Recipe for an ice-cold wild strawberry coulis with warm marzipan cheesecake

We've had better summers than the current one. It's been raining a lot, the temperatures are a few degrees below the usual over-20C, and the sunshine has been limited. Quite sad, actually, but apparently that's the case with most central and northern European countries this year.

However, on Saturday morning the rain had stopped, the skies had cleared and the sun was out, so we packed our little family into the car, picked up one of the grandmothers and drove out of town to forage for wild strawberries. Couple of hours and a healthy dose of fresh country air later we returned home with just about a kilogram (over 2 pounds) of the precious berries. (Note that I'm talking about the real wild berries, Fragaria vesca, not the oblong cultivated Alpine strawberries, Fragaria vesca var. semperflorens).

 
Wild strawberries, picked in June 2007 

Usually I make wild strawberry fridge jam, but I had done that on Friday night with 2,5 kilos of wild strawberries we had bought at a market. The next usual step would be to mix the berries with a sprinkling of sugar and some grass-fed milk, but I had done that already, too. We also had friends coming over for dinner on Saturday night, so I wanted to do something special and different this time.

Remembering that the Swedes love their smultron a lot as well, I turned to their popular Allt om Mat recipe site, and came across this wonderful recipe for an ice-cold/semi-frozen wild strawberry soup with warm marzipan cheesecake.

Warm marzipan cheesecake with cold wild strawberry coulis 
(Jäine metsmaasikasupp sooja martsipani-toorjuustukoogiga)
Serves 6


Cold strawberry coulis:
200 ml water
125 g caster sugar (150 ml)
500 ml wild strawberries (2 cups)
0.5 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

Warm marzipan cheesecake:
100 g marzipan
200 g cream cheese (Philadelphia or such like)
2 free-range eggs
2 Tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

To serve:
wild strawberries 

First prepare the ice-cold wild strawberry soup/couilis. 
Bring water and sugar into a boil in a small saucepan. Boil for a minute, then remove from the heat and stir in the wild strawberries:

 

Using an immersion blender/hand-held blender, process the berries and the syrup until smooth (if you dislike tiny seeds, you can press the whole thing through a fine sieve, but I found it totally unnecessary).
Season to taste with vanilla and lemon juice, then place into the freezer for a few hours.
Give the mixture a stir every now and then.

About 45 minutes before you intend to serve the dessert, make the marzipan cheesecake. 
Preheat the oven to 175 C/350 F.
Grate the marzipan coarsely or simply use your fingers to divide it into small crumbs. Mix with the rest of the ingredients and process until smooth (again, I was using my immersion blender).
Divide the mixture between six buttered small ramekins or silicone muffin/friand tins.
Bake in the middle of the pre-heated oven for about 25 minutes, until the cheesecakes look cooked and are light golden brown.
Remove the marzipan cheesecakes from the oven and let cool for 10-15 minutes.

To plate and serve:
Remove the cheesecakes carefully from the tins and place on six dessert plates. Pour the ice-cold wild strawberry coulis around the warm cheesecakes.
Garnish with wild strawberries - ideally on straw, to bring back those innocent childhood memories :)

More posts about wild strawberries:
Wild strawberry fridge jam
Picking wild strawberries in 2006
Wild strawberries and cream
Fraises des bois  @ David Lebovitz
Wild strawberries from the garden @ Chocolate & Zucchini
Maapealne paradiis ehk seitse liitrit metsmaasikaid  @ Koopatibi küpsetab (in Estonian)

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Announcement: Passion, Purpose and Pleasure Wellness Retreat in Estonia in mid-August

MarikaBlossfeldt’s  Passion, Purpose and Pleasure Wellness Retreat takes place August 12 – 18 at Polli Talu Arts Center in Western Estonia – a week of relaxation, awareness and awakening your taste buds – yoga, cooking classes, breath walks, massages, meditations and more … 

Find details here.

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Ravensburger Alphabet Jigsaw Puzzle

Recently we recieved the lastest puzzle for us to review from Ravensburger. This month we were asked to review the Alphabet Jigsaw Puzzle.

The puzzle is aimed at children aged 3 + so perfect for both Nathan and James. The puzzle is priced around £5 and is available to buy from all good game retailers. Each piece of the puzzle is of a reasonable size so handy for small hands. 

The puzzle consists of 30 pieces so long enough to challenge a child to think for themselves but no too long as to make the puzzle to difficult or boring that they lose interest easily. Nathan said the puzzle was fun to do. - even when James was trying to help him too.

James is starting nursery from September and Nathan starts full time school then too. I'm hoping that by playing with this puzzle and others that are similar we can make learning fun for both of them.

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Pom Bears Smoky Bacon & Prawn Cocktail Snacks

                                             

The boys were asked if we would like to review the new prawn cocktail Pom-Bears and smoky bacon Pom-Bears and of course they jumped at the chance.

They loved the fact that each crisp is shaped like a teddy bear this definitely makes them fun and a first choice for many children and adults too.

These lovely teddy bears are gluten free and contain no artificial flavourings or colours so us mums can rest easy too.  They are also suitable for vegetarians.

They have a lot of flavour which is great as there's nothing worse than buying a packet of flavoured crisps to find they taste like ready salted. They give a light crunch and then dissolve in your mouth so perfect for all ages.

There are only 98 calories per bag too which I think is good as many crisps are over 100 calories. I also find you get a lot in a bag which is a change as usually when I pick up crisps most of the bag is full of air.

Pom-Bears can be bought from most leading supermarkets and are priced at £1.39 for a packet of 6

We give the new flavours a big thumbs up!

Guideline Daily Amount Summary

Product properties

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Déjà vu: Estonian tomato and smoked cheese soup recipe

On Monday morning I opened my mailbox and saw this:

Hello from London

Love the blog.  I had a wonderful tomato and smoked cheese soup in Tallinn and wondered if this was a traditional Estonian soup and whether you had a recipe for this?

Thanks and best wishes
Chris B.

Why déjà vu? You see, it's not the first time I get a recipe request for an "Estonian cheese soup" - I even posted a recipe for an "Estonian" courgette/zucchini and cheese soup last Spring, when a reader was inquiring about a soup he heard about on an American radio station. I wasn't really aware that there's such a thing as a typical Estonian cheese soup, but then realised that something called juustusupp (cheese soup) is served in most pubs, and I did have several soups in my regular recipe repertoire that relied on being thickened with either smoked cheese (suitsujuust) or melted cheese (sulatatud juust) or flavoured or unflavoured cream cheese (toorjuust).


Some cherry tomatoes from picked from our greenhouse this weekend. The varieties are Sungold and Suncherry. 

Here are some of the soup recipes here on Nami-Nami foodblog that contain cheese:
Estonian courgette/zucchini and smoked cheese soup
Goat cheese and beetroot/beet soup
Creamy fish soup

But back to the tomato and cheese soup that Chris was inquiring about. Here's a version I made for lunch today, and my family loved it. I used tomato passata or sieved pureéd tomatoes. You can use canned chopped tomatoes (just process them smooth first) or even chopped fresh tomatoes from your garden (chop, cook with a bit of salt, pureé and press through a sieve to remove the skin).

The smoked cheese that's most popular here in Estonia is this "log" - currently produced by Tere (but this has been around - looking exactly the same - since the Soviet time), weighs 280 grams. After you remove the wrapping and the skin and nibble a slice or two, you're left with about 200 grams of cheese:

I might try this spreadable smoke-flavoured cheese by E-Piim next time (180 g) - would be probably so much more convenient to use in a soup:
If you cannot get hold of either one of those, then Kitchen Ninja helpfully left a comment after the courgette and smoked cheese soup recipe that smoked Gouda worked brilliantly, so try to locate some of that Dutch cheese, or look for a Räucherkäse, geräucherter Käse, копчёный сыр or such like in your local international food isle. 

Tomato and Smoked Cheese Soup 
(Tomati-suitsujuustusupp)
Serves 4

400 g canned chopped tomatoes or tomato passata
400 ml water
200 g smoked cheese, finely chopped
200 ml single cream/pouring cream
salt, to taste
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
sugar, to taste
fresh parsley, to garnish

Mix tomatoes and water in a medium saucepan. Bring into a slow boil, then add the smoked cheese and cream and heat, stirring constantly, until the cheese has melted.
Season the soup with salt, pepper and sugar.
Garnish with some finely chopped parsley and serve. A good crusty bread would be a nice companion.

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