Not your usual party preparations...

We've having a party tomorrow.

Not a dinner party, not a soiree, just a good old-fashioned booze-up.

The homebrew has been brewing for a few weeks now (it's nice, I promise), a big grocery delivery made up of mostly bottles came this morning, and do you know what I did on my lunchbreak today? I made soup.

Soup. Not very rock and roll, is it? Not exactly debauched. It doesn't scream "P-A-R-T....Y? Cos I gotta"

There's no excuse for that picture, it's just that I've been told some people hate blogs without pictures, and I wanted to illustrate the quote. I used to really like Ace Ventura when I was younger. Then I grew up. Now I only like Jim Carrey when he's not being Jim Carrey (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is great).

In fact, I'm so grownup that I make soup when planning a party. It stems from university days, eating in halls and encouraging friends to load up with carbs and stodge to avoid "throwing plums" later. (I may tell you that story another time). So now when we have large drinking planned, and friends visiting from afar who will arrive early, I make soup.

Here is my soup. It's very simple.

Roughly cut up some leeks and some garlic, fry in a bit of oil. No onion. If you add onion it will taste of onion and not leek, and since leeks are more expensive than onions if you have bothered buying them you should really try to be able to taste them in the end product.

This looks ok.

Then you add one big potato chopped up roughly, some water or stock (or water with a stock cube in like a normal person), a parmesan rind if you have one kicking about, and boil it for a bit.

This is less attractive.

When everything's soft you do the blendy thing. I prefer to let it cool for a bit (less chance of boiling-hot spatter) and whizz it up with a hand blender. Mine was about £6 for Argos. It's not important.

 Now this looks more like soup.

Add salt/pepper/some cream or something. I had creme fraiche in the fridge so stuck in some of that.

Eat with bread/cheese/ham and be pleased that your stomach is now lined and you can embark on the drinking.

I would have laid out the cheese/ham/bread/soup all nicely, but we're not eating it til tomorrow so instead here is a picture showing you that the loaf of bread is bigger than my computer.