Scottish Highlands

We’ve just come back from what was my first visit to the Scottish Highlands, flying from Bristol to Edinburgh and then a series of trips by rail and coach. It’s hard to believe that this beautiful country is at the ‘top end’ of the UK. The weather was anything but perfect and the top of the Cairn Gorm was totally enveloped in low cloud, the view from the top is reputed to be awesome! However the Ptarmigan Restaurant there provided a little consolation with a dish of salmon in a creamy leek sauce, even if we didn't see it's namesake.

I came back with a very nasty cold and to cheer myself up made a lovely spicy tomato soup on the day after we got back, just what the doctor ordered, eaten with Scottish Oatcakes.

I used a can of tomatoes, a squirt of Heinz tomato ketchup, a red chilli from the greenhouse, 3 cloves of garlic, and a spoonful of Maggi dried coconut powder,( I recently discovered this very useful product). I first cooked the garlic and chilli, with most of it’s seeds in a little olive oil, added the canned tomatoes with a good squirt of ketchup then whizzed it up with enough water to make it souplike, adding a tablespoon of dried coconut powder.

The big white mug came with a bottle of whisky last Christmas, but ‘Famous Grouse’ was a pretty good description of me until I began to feel better!