Bacon, lettuce and cannellini stew

A few months ago, I found a really lovely blog that's become really quite famous, Loveaudrey. With hindsight, finding it in the middle of exams was perhaps not the best as it meant that when I really should've been revising the history of the French language, I was reading back through her posts and feeling... Well, feeling like a massive underachiever, if truth be told.

I'm pretty sure that Loveaudrey is actually a superhero in disguise. She managed to juggle two degrees, with all the stress and essays they entail, with being a wife and a mother to two kids - and she always leaves the house with really lovely lipstick on. To say she's become something of an idol to me is putting it mildly.

As I read through her posts, I realised that I really don't have the excuse of being too busy to make a decent meal every day. If she can do it, then I definitely can.

I'd copied down one of her recipes because it had really appealed to me, and last night, with the house (read: the kitchen) to myself, I decided to give it a bash.

Here's the recipe as written up on Loveaudrey's blog:

6 rashers of bacon (or a generous handful of chopped black olives if you're craving something vegetarian)

2cloves of garlic

4 tbsp olive oil

1/4 tsp fennel seeds

1 x 400g tin of chopped tomatoes

200ml chicken stock

1 x 400g tin of canellini beans (I also used a small tin of pinto beans and a drop more stock)

150g lettuce (the recipe calls for cos but I used 2 little gems)

salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Chop the bacon and garlic. Heat the oil in a pan and add the bacon. Cook for a few minutes, then add the garlic and fennel seeds.

2.Pour in the tinned tomatoes and cook on a high heat for 5 minutes.

3. Add the stock and the drained beans, and cook for a further 5 minutes.

4. Season well, add the chopped lettuce, and allow to wilt before serving.

5. Drizzle with a little olive oil and sprinkle with lots of black pepper.

I made a couple of adjustments - firstly I halved(ish) the quantities as I was only making it for me and I still had some left over for lunch the next day. I also added a spring onion as we had a few that were languishing in the vegetable drawer of the fridge, looking very sad indeed. We didn't have any tinned chopped tomatoes either, so instead I just cut up a big beef tomato and added some water. The final change I made was to throw in a glug of white wine.

I've really become a convert to adding lettuce to hot dishes and just letting it wilt down, but I think the trick is to pick a variety that won't just go totally soggy. Cos lettuce or baby gems have quite a rigid 'spine' (anybody know what that thing is actually called??), which means that the leafy bits go soft but there's still enough crunch for it not to just turn into mush.

It was really delicious and felt very virtuous - the fact that there was plenty left over for lunch the next day is always a bonus; and it's the kind of dish that would be perfect in the middle of winter when you're really craving something warming. It was still delicious even at the height (ha!) of summer because it's not too heavy. I cooked the sauce down so it was quite thick and resembled a stew, but it'd be easy to let it stay quite clear so it's more like a soup.

I can highly recommend giving Loveaudrey's blog a look - as long as you've got plenty of time to waste going back through all of her posts! 

Loveaudrey| loveaudrey-loveaudrey.blogspot.co.uk

Good things come to those who wait...

... Or so goes the adage. Well, let me say, that is totally and utterly true. You may remember my stumbling upon a recipe for a chorizo and bean soup over on the BBC Food website and mentally filing it away to make this week. I made it tonight and my goodness was it good. The recipe calls it a soup but mine turned out as more of a stew - a 'stoup', if you like - which I think was from using a tin of chopped tomatoes rather than cutting fresh tomatoes into quarters and putting that in. It's the longest I've waited for a meal to cook since I got here but it was well worth the wait. It was also a good way of finding out that the hobs in my kitchen switch off after being on for an hour - luckily this particular discovery was made just as I was coming in to collect it after leaving it to simmer for 45 minutes.

The joy of this recipe is that once everything is cooked through, which doesn't really take that long, it's up to you how much longer you leave it before digging in. I used normal, rather than cooking, chorizo which means you don't have to wait for it to cook through. Plus, I tend to find that this kind of chorizo tends to have a more intense flavour than the uncooked ones, which means that the spicy paprika from the sausage really flavours the rest of the 'stoup'.

This was definitely the perfect meal for a day like today when you want something that'll keep you full for a while. I had it at dinner with a slice of bread and butter because I didn't surface early enough to have a 'proper' breakfast; but it could easily be had as a late-ish lunch so you'd just need a bit of bread and cheese for your dinner. Even better, I've got some batter left from the cinnamon cake pops I made earlier in the week so I think I'll be making some of those for eating as I sob into my jumper during the "Sherlock" finale. It's funny how on days when I can't summon up the energy just to make a sandwich I can still find the motivation to make teeny tiny little cakes, dipped in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar while still piping hot. Scrumptious.

New Year's resolutions

I’m not usually one for New Years’ resolutions, but this year I’ve broken the habit and have made a promise to myself to start eating properly. And by properly, I mean making a real effort to have one filling yet healthy meal a day. To be honest, I don’t really have much excuse not to. I enjoy cooking, I can cook, and I’m well past that childish attitude of “ugh, vegetables”. It’s incredible how easy it is to eat healthily and inexpensively.

This bright Saturday morning, as I had no real plans until the evening,  I was enjoying a good lie-in, watching cooking programmes on the iPlayer and drinking a cup of real coffee – none of the instant stuff that I rely on to get myself moving in the morning. In “Nigel Slater’s Simple Suppers”, he made a sausage and bean soup. It really couldn’t have been simpler. Onion, garlic, celery, carrot, tomato, cannellini beans, chorizo sausage and some herbs (if you’re feeling fancy). None of that needs to be particularly expensive, but it’s a full, flavoursome meal that is actually quite good for you. Plus, it’s just as easy to make enough for four meals as it is to make enough for one, so it’s easily frozen and then just needs to be warmed the next time you fancy some and bingo – instant meal.

However, I had a meal plan and I fully intended to use it, so this recipe was set aside for next week as today was down for “cassoulesque” – which seems appropriate as cassoulet is a mainstay of the cuisine down here in the Languedoc. My student budget-friendly version is one of those dinners that feels so much more luxurious than it actually is. I cut two sausages into rounds and threw that into a saucepan with a diced chicken breast, some bacon lardons, about half a red pepper and a bit of butter. I cooked that for about 5 minutes, then added some (store bought, the horror!) tomato sauce and left that to simmer for another 5 minutes. Then, I added around about half a tin of drained and rinsed cannellini beans (saving the rest for a meal I’ve got planned later) and left that to simmer for around about five minutes with a lid covering it. I came back in and turned the heat up, gave it a final two minutes then took it back to my room, lid still on so that it could continue cooking a bit and keep warm. Finally I added a teaspoon of Boursin, gave it one last stir for luck, plated up half and put the other half into a container and into the freezer to prevent myself from snacking on it. I’m sure there’s a healthier way of thickening an overly-runny tomato sauce but I’m not particularly fussed about finding it!

Simple, filling and tasty – plus I now have a bonus meal for a day when I can’t be bothered to cook something from scratch. Perfect!

Forward planning

This is my last week in Montpellier before I make my triumphant (and long-awaited) return to good old Blighty. With that in mind, a bit of forward planning with regards to dinner has been needed - the last thing I want is to come back to a fridge full of food that's gone off. I've got a meal plan until Thursday - and Monday night was sausage casserole night.

It's amazingly simple and quick to make and is lovely and filling. All you do is cut sausages into small rounds and cook them with a tiny bit of butter in a pan. Once they're cooked, add a drained and rinsed tin of cannellini beans (which, in case you're interested, are haricots blancs in France), and then as much sauce as you fancy. Cook on a low heat until everything's warm through, then serve. That's literally it. And I made enough for two evening's worth, so after I return from my final exam on Wednesday I won't have to think about cooking anything as it'll be there already. I will admit to being a little bit naughty and eating some from the portion I set aside for dinner another night - so I might have to add something to supplement it then - but it was too delicious to resist.

Wednesday essay writing

It's the final countdown. 46 hours and 17 minutes until my two assessed essays are due. Fortunately, this being the final week of term and lecturers being fully aware that students will have left it until the last minute, the English department cancel all lectures and seminars for second years in week 10, so we have time to write the essays we've had about a month to do. This also meant that I was able to get a Sainsbury's order delivered - a bonus to the week I hadn't been expecting! My cupboards, fridge, and freezer are all looking a lot more cheerful now, and I'm already planning some slightly more adventurous dinners for next week.

As I've got something on this evening, I thought I'd go for a main meal at lunchtime again today, and for preference one I could leave bubbling on the hob while I get back to writing about realism in the nineteenth-century novel. Using those cannellini beans from yesterday was another important part, as was finding something that wouldn't be too strong, as the sudden end of term panic has made my tummy quite grumpy!

With a fresh stock of chopped tomatoes and some diced chicken back in my arsenal, I decided to be a bit creative for lunch today. The end result was pretty delicious, if I say so myself...

Firstly, I heated some vegetable oil with a chopped up clove of garlic (having first removed the green shoot that causes the feared Garlic Breath) and some dried rosemary. Once the garlic was lightly toasted and the oil good and hot, I added the diced chicken breast and a bit of salt, and gave it all a quick stir. I didn't want the chicken to go too golden, but I did want it to have a headstart on being cooked before I added anything more.

After that, I tipped in about half of a tin of chopped tomatoes (around 200g at a rough estimate), a pinch of sugar and a splash of water, got it up to a simmer, then popped my makeshift lid of the dinner plate over the top, turned the heat down and left it to cook for about 20 minutes.

(I'd like to pretend that the 20 minutes where my dinner was cooking were productive, but I shouldn't lie...)

Then, about 15 minutes into this, I got my bowl of cannellini beans from yesterday out of the fridge, drained, rinsed, and left them for the remaining five minutes before I removed the plate/lid (now nicely warm for putting my meal on), tipped them all in, stirred until the beans were all cooked, and served it up.

Very, very pleased with the results. It was warm and comforting, just what I need when I'm brewing a cold. The garlic, I'm told, will be good for sorting out my cold, so that's always a plus, and cooking the chicken in the tomato sauce meant that it was beautifully tender and not as tough as it can be when you just fry it. As with the casserole from yesterday, another plus was that there's only one dirty pot to clean - and with having bought already-diced chicken, there's not even a knife or a chopping board to clean, either. A variation on this would be to omit the cannellini beans and instead serve this with a generous helping of my dad's indulgently creamy mashed potatoes, which would be a good way of mopping up the delicious sauce!

Now, I'm stuck with the eternal dilemma of a student: put off getting back to this essay by doing my washing up, or put off doing the washing up by getting back to the essay? Difficult. Very difficult...

Tuesday rush

It strikes me that there will be one day every week where you struggle to find time to fit in dinner. For me, this is Tuesday. It's not that I'm particularly busy, it's that working at an awkward time makes it difficult to know what and when to cook. Today, I plumped for cooking the main meal at lunch so all I need is to pick up (or make, if I had anything in my fridge) a sandwich to eat during my break at work, and then indulge in some marmite on toast when I come home - alternatively, I might be very naughty and call into Tesco's on the way back and pick up a little something as a reward!

I'd had in my head the idea of making a different version of the sausage casserole I always do. I tend to make a very improvised casserole and have it with mashed potato or rice - a couple of sausages, a tin of chopped tomatoes and some tomato purée, garlic, onion and chopped peppers, all into the oven for about 45 minutes. But I've had a tin of cannellini beans lurking about in the back of my cupboard since I moved into the house in September, and I really fancied using them in something so I wouldn't need to wait for the rice or potatoes to boil. So this morning, when I really should've been doing something more about my essays, I trawled the internet looking for a good casserole recipe that wouldn't require putting anything into the oven. Unable to find anything that didn't require an oven or lentils (seeing as I'd used the last tin of green lentils on Sunday) online, I turned to one of the M&S recipe books my parents bought me last year for Christmas.

Amazingly, there was something in there that was exactly what I was after: a sausage and bean casserole that only needed one pot and could be done just on the hob in about 20-30 minutes. Even better, I had all of the ingredients apart from the tin of chopped tomatoes, but I did have a ramekin full of tomato purée that needed using up, so I thought I could improvise. In the future, I'll definitely leave this one for when I've got some chopped tomatoes (which will be after tomorrow when my shopping arrives) because the purée was just a bit too rich, and even with adding a fair amount of water, the sauce was still quite thick. I think having the chopped tomatoes would sweeten the meal a little bit and also then, you've got the lovely chunks of tomato in addition to the green pepper, onion, garlic, sausages and beans.

The cannellini beans make this really filling and means that you don't have to get another saucepan messy by having to cook rice or any potato - I didn't even need any bread to bulk up the dinner, although I think that if you did have the chopped tomatoes in there, even with using some tomato purée to thicken everything, you might want something to mop up the sauce afterwards!

Another success, although definitely one to save for when you've got all the necessary ingredients. Now, to try and find something I can make tomorrow with the cannellini beans that are left - and the new additions to the kitchen with my Sainsbury's order...