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Step the first: be born to a mother who loves to garden. Wait for a year where one poor tomato plant decides that this is THE YEAR that it will produce ALL THE TOMATOES EVER, so that Mum is pulling out her hair trying to figure out what to do with nearly three hundred tomatoes (yes really!), offer to take them all off her hands.

Haul a chilly bin and freezer bag of tomatoes home from her place. Apply to chest freezer until inspiration strikes.

Step the second: decide tomato soup is the way to go.

Make tomato soup the proper way, with stock and carrot and celery and onion and long slow cooking and blending and sieving out the solids. Eat the soup. Put the pulp in the freezer until a bright idea presents itself.

Step the third: a kilo of ground beef, half a kilo of pork sausage, the tomato soup pulp, bread crumbs, flour, kneading, and baking.

For bonus points, drizzle the top of the loaf with previously home-made tomato bbq sauce, for a glazy spicy loveliness.

Feel proud, as your first ever meatloaf is a resounding success.