Leslie's Recipes: Leek-and-Potato Soup

My family are convinced that I am a budding young chef. They refuse to accept the fact that the only time I ever cook things is when I'm hungry, and even then it's just mixing varying amounts of milk, flour, and eggs together, tipping the mixture into a frying pan, and hoping some kind of pancake-like product comes out at the end. And so, when my mother suggested to me that I could cook leek-and-potato soup for dinner, I was less than enthusiastic. I think I would have objected had I not been watching an episode of 'Whose Line Is It Anyway' (the British version, obviously) at the time. I was distracted, and my will power was minimal. And so, here is my own, personalised, recipe for leek-and-potato soup. Do not try this at home.

1. Find 2 leeks. Notice that the recipe calls for 6 leeks. Decide it probably doesn't matter, as they are big leeks. Try to wash leeks. Get bored. Leave leeks in a bowl of water to wash themselves.

2. Find some potatoes. Spend 10 minutes looking for potato peeler. Find peeler. Peel potatoes.

3. Try to measure out 30g of butter. Get frustrated with butter. Put a medium sized lump that looks like it weighs about 30g in the pot. Then put another one in, because I like butter.

4. Viciously hack the tops and bottoms off the leeks. Chop leeks. Have leeks inspected by nearby adult, who pronounces them 'not clean enough'. Put bits of leek in a different bowl of water to wash themselves properly.

5. Find onion. Decide cannot be bothered to chop whole onion. Chop onion in half instead. While doing this, let the knife slip, leaving a painful cut across two fingers. Chop onion half into pieces as quickly as possibly, then throw pieces into the pot and slam the lid in, to prevent them from making your eyes red. It is very important that you drop quite a lot of onion while doing this.

6. Find 2 cloves of garlic. Throw away one when you find a weird black spot on it (the plague?). Chop remaining piece and put in the pot with the rest of the stuff.

7. Rescue leeks from water. Put them in pot. Turn stove on and put the lid on the pot.

8. Look in fridge. Find some leftover chocolate icing remaining from the Ringo cake. Eat icing. Forget to stir pot.

9. After 10 minutes, remember to stir pot. Hope family aren't that sensitive to burnt food.

10. Put water in pot. Discover that recipe says to 'add one fresh bayleaf'. Cannot find fresh bayleaf. Put two dried bayleaves in to make up for it. This is what they call creative cooking.

11. Leave soup to boil. Go and watch television. Return to kitchen when sister complains soup is making 'weird noises'.

12. Discover 'weird noises' are made by soup trying to boil over. Turn heat down. Go back to watch television. Turn television off when cooking show comes on.

13. Soup has finished boiling. Now for the fun bit: to blend the soup. Search kitchen and discover family is too cheap to own a blender. Find a stab mixer instead.

14. Stab mix the soup. Lack of prior experience with said instrument means both kitchen and you are liberally spattered in green mush. Looks like you've been sneezed on by a giant.

15. Realise you forgot to remove the bayleaves before starting the blending. Decide it is probably too late, as little bits of bayleaf are now scattered all through the soup. Hope people don't notice the dark green, leafy specks.

16. Serve soup to family. Realise have forgotten to put seasoning in. Are basically serving bland green mush.

17. Warm up bread rolls to have with soup.

18. Eat soup. Receive assurances from family that bread was 'very nice indeed'.