Put him in the curry

With the Dr away in the Darkest North at the moment – apparently teasing her Dad about his becoming a Writer – I made tea for a few chums last night.

I learnt my famous curry recipe while in Spain in 1996 visiting my senior brother. I assumed he was working to some carefully ordained plan, but apparently he'd just made it up there and then. I took careful note and when I got to home to Preston (where I was a student) tried to recreate it.

However, there's a translation error in the raw equipment. Preston's fine supermarkets didn't seem to do certain basic Spanish fare such as tins of tomato frito – now so beloved of Delia. So I improvised. And as a result found a magic ingredient.

No, it's not cough syrup ( a clever reference to the Simpsons).

Last night's pore-opening extravaganza also needed to be without meat or mushrooms if it were going to please my guests. So it consisted of: an onion; a small potato; an aubergine (cut up, salted, washed); two courgettes; red pepper; green pepper; broccoli; one tin of kidney beans; one tin of plum tomatoes; garlic; a dash of chilli; garam masala...

And a large tin of Heinz Cream of Tomato Soup. Yes, that's what gives the thing its sumptuous, plush delight. Bwah ha ha, etc.

I was also much complimented on my fluffy rice. The trick is to let it have loads of time, and lots and lots of water. In fact, I have a full kettle on standby to keep topping it up.

M. also brought pudding so we didn't even touch the ice cream. I am now off to hit the machines to work off some of this feasting.