Autumn has arrived in England and soup is back on the menu. My mother wasn’t big on prepared or convenience food when we were young. One thing that slipped through her objections was Campbells Bean & Bacon soup. It was my favourite. Time to re-create Bean & Bacon as part of my project to reclaim convenience foods.

I use dried beans in my cooking, they are easier to store than canned beans and last more or less forever. Covid lockdowns made me a bit of a hoarder and some of my dried beans are from 2020. Still good. The other reason to use dried beans is that you can use the ‘hot soak’ method to soften them. Hot soak method reduces the amount of gas that bean dishes produce in humans. Nothing eliminates the consequences of bean consumption but hot soak, in my experience, reduces it significantly.

The recipe below includes instructions for using dried beans and canned beans. The only difference is cooking time. A mini-chopper is very useful for the vegetables and a stick blender great to puree some soup to thicken.

Let’s cook.

Recipe

Ingredients

380 grams (2 cups by volume) dried white beans (navy beans) OR 2 x 425 gram (15 ounce) cans of beans

8 strips of smoked streaky bacon, cut into small pieces

Lard or butter to sauté bacon and vegetables

1 medium onion, finely diced

3 medium carrots, diced

3 stalks of celery, diced

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

110 grams (4 tablespoons) tomato paste

500 mls (2 cups) of pork or ham stock

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons of brandy or cognac

Method

1. If using dried beans, follow instructions here for soaking methods. Otherwise, open your tins of beans.
2. Preheat the oven to 180C (350F).
3. Sautè the bacon until crisp in the lard or butter in a large deep oven proof casserole (Dutch oven) or a skillet. Your le Creuset or similar is perfect. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon to drain on kitchen towel.
4. Add the onions to the pan and cook over medium high heat until transparent. Pour the brandy over the onions and turn up to high to cook off the alcohol.
5. Return heat to medium, add the carrots and the celery and cook until they start to soften – 5 minutes or so.
6. Add the spices and the tomato paste, stir to coat the vegetables well. Add the stock and the beans and bring to a simmer. Stir in the bacon.
7. Put the cover on the pot and transfer to the oven. Check once an hour or so, stir and add more water if necessary. Canned beans – may be ready in 90 minutes, if you started with dried beans the soup may take 2 1/2 or 3 hours for the beans to reach the desired softness.
8. Remove from the oven; transfer one or two ladles of beans to your blender or liquidiser. Blend and return to the soup to thicken it.
9. Garnish with additional crispy bacon or slices of sausage if desired, serve warm with crusty bread.
   

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We have a weekly delivery of box of organic vegetables. It’s a self imposed challenge to use up whatever they send. I’ve got 3 choices for ‘do not send’ – these are currently occupied by beetroot (beets you Americans), Brussell sprouts and avocado. It’s not just organic – they work hard on reducing the travel miles on the vegetables. Hence, the humble swede appears frequently in the box.

Why is it called rutabaga in America? And what is a turnip if its not a baby swede? Who knows, the weird and wonderful names of vegetables are beyond my expertise.

When a boring root vegetable appears – soup is the answer. Oven roasting does wonders for root vegetables going into soup, really adds a layer of taste. It’s worth the extra prep time and clean up. I like to really scorch the swede just to the edge of burnt. I did it by accident – oh the dangers of multi tasking a well known recipe – and now it’s required by the Davinator.

Handy tools for this recipe: parchment paper for roasting, a mandolin for slicing in the vegetables, a stick blender to puree the soup at the end. Or a good sized blender. Can also be done in a food processor but both of those alternatives add messy clean up steps.

I add croutons and sautéed chorizo to make the soup a meal. If you’re feeling a need for more vegetables, a green salad on the side would be lovely.

Make this recipe vegan by omitting the butter and avoiding cream or chorizo.

Let’s get cooking.

Ingredients

The recipe proportions are for 450 grams of swede. Adjust if your swede is larger or smaller. Usually larger, in my experience.

• 1 swede, peeled and cut into 2 cm (1 inch) cubes
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 1 onion (mandolin into the soup or chop well)
• 2 tablespoons of brandy (trust me)
• 2 medium carrots (mandolin into the soup or chop well)
• 2 stalks of celery (mandolin into the soup or chop well)
• 1 tablespoon dried thyme
• 1.25 litres vegetable stock
• Optional garnish: cream, croutons, fried chorizo
• Plain bread croutons – 6 to 8 generous sized croutons per bowl of soup
• 50 grams of chorizo per bowl of soup

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 180C(fan)200C(nonfan)/400F
2. Peel the swede and cut into 2 cm (1 inch) cubes
3. Put some olive, salt and pepper in a bowl, add the cubes of swede and toss
4. Line baking trays with parchment paper and put the well coated swede in a single layer on the baking trays. Don’t crowd the cubes together because then it steams more than roasts.
5. Roast for 20 mins, remove, turn thoroughly with a spatula, return to the oven for another 20 minutes. Keep an eye on the swede, you want to caramelise not burn but the more brown the better.
6. Meanwhile, heat another tablespoon of olive oil and a similar amount of butter in a large deep saucepan. Add the onions – either pre-chopped or mandolin. Cook over medium heat until well translucent. Pour the brandy or cognac over the onions and turn up the heat to burn off the alcohol. (Sniff the vapours, you’ll know when the alcohol is gone).
7. Return pan heat to medium, add the carrots, celery and thyme. Cook for another five minutes, add the stock and the roasted swede.
8. Bring to a gentle boil, cover and cook for 25-30 minutes. Turn the heat down once you’ve covered the mixture so it’s just ticking over.
9. Purée the soup by your chosen method – if you tneed the exercise, you can put the soup through a ricer or a potato press as an alternative. Return the soup to the pan and cover while you prepare the garnish.
10. If you’re adding chorizo, slice into diagonal rounds and add to a warm skillet, sauté to release the oil and throw the croutons in. The chorizo will shrink and look a bit dry but it makes the flavour more concentrated and the fried croutons are little flavour bombs.
11. Serve in pre-warmed bowls, with a swirl of cream if you want and your choice of garnish.

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Five ingredient omelette.

I have a friend who loves food and hates to cook. By special request, I’m going to establish a special category of recipes on the website – known as the Love Food Hate Cooking recipes. Scrambled eggs on toast was the traditional default dinner of a busy single woman. My omelette recipe takes only a bit more time and effort but is extremely versatile.

The trick to the easy perfect omelette is to start it on the stove top, finish it under the grill and never ever flip it. All you need is butter, eggs, filling(s) and an oven proof skillet. The omelette above is made using crab, parmesan cheese and chives. It is infinitely flexible on ingredients and combination – any kind of cheese, protein that’s precooked (ham, smoked, salmon, thinly sliced sausage, cooked chicken, etc), vegetables that have been properly prepared. Both the recipe and method are straightforward.

I use a le Creuset skillet – they are expensive but stand the test of time. My youngest son is 25 years old and I have le Creuset cookware that predates him. There are other brands of enamelled cast iron cookware that will work well – the heavy bottom pan makes a difference.

Let’s get cooking.

Recipe

Ingredients – two servings

Butter, plenty of it

4 eggs

Tablespoon of dairy – milk, yogurt, cream – any unsweetened dairy (optional)

150 grams of crab meat

40 grams of finely grated parmesan cheese

Handful of chives

Method

1. Beat the eggs with the spoonful of dairy. Including dairy makes the omelette a bit fluffy, it’s optional though.
2. Melt butter in the oven proof skillet – plenty of butter to coat the bottom and sides of the skillet. Don’t let the butter brown.
3. Turn the heat down to medium-low and add the eggs to the skillet. Cooking the omelette a bit more slowly at a lower heat keeps the eggs from turning tough or rubbery.
4. Preheat your grill at this point.
5. Cook until the edges and bottom of the egg mixture are starting to firm up. You should be able to run a rubber spatula around the edge. Carefully add the crab meat, then the cheese and herbs.
6. Place under the grill and cook until lightly browned and fluffy. Depending on the heat of your grill – this is likely to be 5 to 10 minutes.

The omelette just before it goes under the grill.

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This recipe makes beautiful slow cooked stew to serve over noodles or potatoes or even better filling for beef pies. I’ve taken my classic slow cooked beef stew recipe and added a Julia Child twist to it. One thing that makes Julia’s recipes taste fantastic is the separate cooking of key elements that are then combined at the end for maximum flavour. The recipe has 3 key processes: cook the beef, cook the onions and cook the mushrooms. These 3 elements are combined to make either fab stew or even better pie filling. I used my slow cooker for the beef but you could easily put it in the oven on a low heat. I do it in this in order: beef, onions, mushrooms.

Let’s get straight to the cooking.

Recipe

Ingredients – Main recipe

• 1.25-1.5 kilos of stewing beef
• flour for dusting, ground black pepper to taste
• olive oil
• 125 grams of lardons or chopped bacon
• 1 large onion, halved and sliced
• 3 tablespoons (45 ml) of brandy or cognac (I do use VSOP)
• 2 bay leaves
• a dozen whole black peppercorns
• 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary or 1 tsp of dried rosemary
• 250 mls concentrated beef stock
• 750 mls good red wine

Instructions – main recipe

1. Put slow cooker on high.
2. Dust the beef with flour and black pepper (use a ziplock bag or a shallow plate) and place in the slow cooker.
3. Heat the olive oil in a large flat bottomed skillet over medium to high heat. Add the lardons and brown slightly.
4. Halve the onion and mandolin into thin slices directly into the skillet. Soften until translucent.
5. Pour in the brandy, turn the heat to high and cook off the alcohol. When you can’t smell the alcohol, add the red wine and the beef stock. Again burn off the alcohol.
6. Prepare a bouquet garni with the bay leaves, peppercorns and rosemary. Add to the sauce.
7. Pour the sauce over the beef in the slow cooker. Cook on low/medium for 6 hours.
8. The sauce should be quite thick by the end of the cooking time. If not, drain off the sauce and thicken on the stove top with a beurre manie (you know that thing that shouldn’t work but does).
9. Combine the sauce, beef, onions and mushrooms (including cooking juices from both). Serve up over mashed potatoes or noodles. Or top with puff pastry and cook as pie.

Brown braised onions

Brown braised miniature onions

18-24 miniature onions

30 – 50 grams of butter, a shot of olive oil

125 mls of beef stock and red wine

A bouquet garni

1. Peel the onions.  This is annoying so use this blog, it works great. https://www.finedininglovers.com/article/how-to-peel-pearl-onions
2. Bring the butter and oil up to temperate in a skillet, add the onions and brown. 
3. You will need to roll them around in the butter and keep them moving.  They won’t be perfectly even in colour.
4. Add the liquid, salt and pepper to taste and the bouquet garni.  Simmer for 40/50 minutes.
5. Put to one side with their cooking liquid ready to combine in your beef stew.

Sauteed mushrooms

250 grams of quality small mushrooms (double this recipe if you have mushrooms lovers in your house)

30-40 grams of butter

Splash of olive oil

2 tablespoons of finely chopped shallots (optional)

1. Prep the mushrooms to a nice eating size, if small just remove stems, otherwise half or quarter.
2. Heat the butter and oil.
3. Add the mushrooms and shallots if using,
4. Sauté for 2-3 minutes until browned but don’t overcook. 
5. Put to one side ready to include in your beef stew.

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This recipe is adapted from Julia Child’s classic recipe in ‘Master the Art of French Cooking’. You might want to read this blog also: The 10 Commandments of Coq au Vin but not until after you’ve made the recipe(s) below. There are three: the main coq au vin, the onions and the mushrooms. There is no ‘one pot’ short cuts here. Settle in and cook.

Ingredients – Main Recipe

4. ounces unsmoked bacon lardons

Butter

3 pounds of jointed chicken – legs & thighs with the bone in are best

Salt & pepper

½ cup of cognac

2 cups of decent red wine

2 cups of chicken stock (approximate)

1 tablespoon of tomato paste

1 clove of mashed garlic

1 bay leaf, 1 sprig of thyme

1 ounce of flour

1 ounce of very soft butter

Instructions – main recipe

1. Cook the bacon in the butter in a deep cast iron stock pot, remove with a slotted spoon when crisp.
2. Dry the chicken thoroughly, season with salt and pepper then brown the chicken quickly in small batches. 
3. Heat the cognac in the microwave and return to the pot with the chicken and the bacon, VERY CAREFULLY flame the cognac.
4. Turn the heat to low, pour in the red wine, enough chicken stock to cover the chicken, the tomato paste, garlic, bay leaf and thyme.
5. Simmer slowly for 30 minutes or so until the chicken is cooked.
6. Remove the chicken from the cooking liquid, cover and keep warm.
7. Boil the cooking liquid down so there are about 2 cups left, remove the bay leaf and thyme.
8. Make a beurre manie (combine the butter and flour) and whisk into the cooking liquid to thicken and make gravy.  It’s going to be a purple brown colour depending on your red wine. This is the thing that you think won’t work, but it does. 
9. Return the chicken to the pot, add the mushrooms and the onions (see following recipes).  Bring up to heat and serve.

Ingredients – brown braised miniature onions

18-24 miniature onions

2-4 tablespoons of butter, a shot of olive oil

½ cup of chicken stock or red wine (or a combination of the two

A bouquet garni

1. Peel the onions.  This is annoying so use this blog, it works great. https://www.finedininglovers.com/article/how-to-peel-pearl-onions
2. Bring the butter and oil up to temperate in a skillet, add the onions and brown. 
3. You will need to roll them around in the butter and keep them moving.  They won’t be perfectly even in colour.
4. Add the liquid, salt and pepper to taste and the bouquet garni.  Simmer for 40/50 minutes.
5. Put to one side ready to combine in your coq au vin.

Ingredients – sauteed mushrooms

½ pound of quality small mushrooms (double this recipe if you have mushrooms lovers in your house)

2 tablespoons of butter

Splash of olive oil

2 tablespoons of finely chopped shallots (optional)

1. Prep the mushrooms to a nice eating size, if small just remove stems, otherwise half or quarter.
2. Heat the butter and oil.
3. Add the mushrooms and shallots if using,
4. Sauté for 2-3 minutes until browned but don’t overcook. 
5. Put to one side ready to include in your coq au vin

Autumn has well and truly arrived; 3C here this morning. Time to get out the slow cooker and make some hearty food. I have a great butcher, Hatto & Son, specialising in meat from British farms. Some times I go with a list and some times I go in and see what looks interesting. One day there was goat meat, prepped for stewing. Of course I bought it. Oh happy accident that has resulted in one of our favourite recipes; slow cooked goat curry Jamaican style. If you can’t get goat or mutton, then stewing lamb is a good substitute.

The Davinator accompanied me on a business trip to Jamaica and we stayed in a quirky little place. The evening menu was soup, plus a choice of three main dishes. If there was goat curry, the Davinator chose it every time. There was a great cook in that kitchen – cooking her authentic heart out every night. This is my homage to her great cooking.

I put mine in the slow cooker but you can also use an oven proof stock pot and put it in a low oven. I make this recipe for 8 people and start it about 10 am for dinner at 6 pm. Let’s get cooking.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 large onion
• 15 cloves of garlic (you can omit)
• 200 grams of ginger (I used pre-chopped from a jar, but fresh is amazing if you can get it)
• 200 mls olive oil
• 4-5 scotch bonnet chillies (see photo below) or equivalent heat
• 1 tablespoon of dried curry leaves (worth finding and buying)
• 6 thyme sprigs (or 1 tablespoon dried)
• 8 tablespoons mild curry powder
• 1.5 kilos goat or mutton diced
• All purpose flour for dredging the meat
• 2 cans (400 grams) chopped tomato
• 500 mls lamb or beef stock (recommend lamb stock cubes if you can find them)
• 2 cans of beans; pinto, kidney or black eye peas as you prefer
• Lemon juice
• Fresh cilantro (coriander)

Instructions

1. Get your slow cooker out. Dredge the meat in flour and place in the dry bowl of the slow cooker or your casserole dish. Turn it to high while you prep the remainder of the ingredients. If using the oven, say 150C or 300F.
2. Put the onion, ginger, chillies and garlic (if using) in your food processor or chopper and blend to a paste. As always, be very careful when working with fresh chillies. Use gloves or oil your hands beforehand and wash them thoroughly after. Do not touch your face!
3. Heat the oil in a deep fry pan. Add the onion mixture and cook until softened: 5 to 10 minutes.
4. Add the curry leaves, thyme, curry powder and salt (say 2 teaspoons). Cook for 5 minutes.
5. Add the tomatoes and the stock. Bring to a boil, back down to a simmer and reduce for 10 minutes.
6. Carefully pour the sauce over the meat and stir gently to combine.
7. I cooked mine for 6 hours on ‘low’ heat, you know your slow cooker, adjust the time accordingly. For oven cooking – probably 3 to 4 hours.
8. About an hour before the end of the cooking time, drain the beans and stir in. I remove the lid at this point to thicken up the sauce. Taste and see if you want more chilli and adjust accordingly.
9. Add the lemon juice and coriander just before serving.

I serve with flatbread and rice; it’s tasty and rich. If you’ve gone a little overboard with the chilli, serve with a big scoop of Greek yoghurt to cool it down.

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I came across a version of this recipe in the Silver Palate ‘New Basics’ Cookbook. The Silver Palate was a gourmet take out food store on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, opened in 1977 by two women, Julee Rosso & Sheila Lukins. It was a novel concept for its time and they eventually wrote 3 cookbooks. They are all good cookbooks and mine have fallen apart over the years from usage. Their ethos; great ingredients cooked with care make good food. Good food shared with friends makes great meals.

I’ve adapted this recipe over time, eliminating garlic, adding more vegetables and a mustard coating for the lamb. This is a great meal, with reasonably quick prep and not much fuss. One big dish to wash up. Eight generous servings. It’s a family style food with gourmet level taste. I recently cooked this dish in a self catering holiday let – notoriously short on speciality cooking implements. The only thing I really missed was my handheld mandolin but I had a great sous chef in my friend Lisa. She’s an artist (see her work here) and her nimble fingers made short work of the repeated ‘slice thin’ instructions below. Sharp knives and a sous chef or a mandolin highly recommended. You’ll also need a little rack or some skewers to hold the lamb slightly above the level of the vegetable gratin.

Time to get cooking.

Ingredients

• 1 kilo of good quality potatoes, well scrubbed, thinly sliced
• salt and pepper
• 2 large onions thinly sliced
• 2 medium courgettes, thinly sliced
• 5 medium tomatoes cored and thinly sliced
• 100 mls dry white wine
• 100 mls olive oil
• 1 leg of lamb, with bone in (approximately 2 – 3 kilos)
• 3 tablespoons of grainy mustard
• Several sprigs of fresh rosemary

Method

• Strip the leaves of the rosemary and chop small. Reserve half for the mustard coating.
• Preheat oven to 200°C (180C if fan)
• Pour a slug of olive oil in a gratin pan or roasting tin.
• Arrange potato slices in bottom of pan.
• Season with salt, pepper, some of the rosemary.
• Add a layer of courgettes and seasoning.
• Add a layer of onions and seasoning.
• Add a layer of tomatoes and seasoning on top.
• Drizzle with wine and oil.
• Trim the thicker portions of fat from the leg of lamb.
• Mix the remaining rosemary with the mustard and just enough olive oil to make a thick paste.
• Cut several shallow cuts in the lamb fat.
• Place lamb on a sturdy rack directly on top of gratin pan so the lovely fat and juices run into the vegetables.
• Season the lamb with salt & pepper, then cover well with mustard paste.
• Roast, uncovered, for about 1 hour and 15 minutes for rare lamb (1 hour and 45 minutes for well-done); no need to turn the lamb or baste.
• Remove from oven and allow to sit for 20 minutes before carving.

If you’re feeling the need, you can include a green vegetable or a salad with the lamb and gratin. (We didn’t). The Davinator suggests a Grignan-Les Adehemar as the perfect wine accompaniment. Or, another mid-Rhone syrah based red wine.

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Toasted cheese sandwiches are part of our traditional Christmas Eve supper. Kids love them and served warm, adults can’t say no either. Two secrets to these world famous (just kidding) sandwiches; butter both sides of the bread and use a flat crepe pan or griddle for cooking.

Ingredients for this recipe are fairly obvious – bread, butter and sliced cheese. I serve these with soup and one sandwich each seems to be enough.

It’s okay to use good quality store bought white bread for this recipe. Might seem like heresy from someone who makes all her own bread but home made bread is denser and it’s difficult to get even slices. You want good quality white bread because it needs to carry a fair amount of butter without tearing.

Put good quality salted butter out to soften well before you’re planning to make the sandwiches. It’s Christmas so I like to use butter from Normandy ‘Isigny Ste Mere’; but any good quality salted makes a difference. Do not use margarine or ‘spread’. It’s a crime against sandwiches and you’re reading the wrong blog if you’re afraid of butter.

The eternal question for toasted cheese sandwiches: what type of cheese? If you’re feeding a crowd, then I recommend aged medium cheddar but most cheeses will do. If you’re feeding a few close friends (grown ups) it might be worth investing in some Comté or Jarlsberg. You can use hard or crumbly cheese if you want; grate it in advance and apply to the bottom half of the sandwiches once they’re on the pan.

Ingredients: sliced white bread, sliced or grated cheese of your choice and room temperature butter.

1. Put your pan on the heat to warm up. No need to apply butter or oil.
2. Put your oven on to warm, say 100C, prep an oven proof plate with a clean tea towel.
3. Butter both sides of each piece of bread. It’s a bit messy but absolutely worth it.
4. When the pan is hot, carefully place pre-buttered bread slices on the griddle and apply cheese to each slice. Place another pre-buttered bread slice on top of each. When the bottom is golden brown and toasted (3 to 4 minutes), flip each sandwich. The second side takes about half the time so keep an eye on it. The cheese might not be completely melted but don’t worry.
5. Transfer the sandwiches to the plate in the oven and cover them with the tea towel and leave them in gentle oven. They’ll be perfect by the time you’ve finished making all the sandwiches and are ready to serve up.

Get busy toasting! Thank you for reading the blog, cooking the recipes, sharing and commenting. Tag me @mamadolson on Instagram and Twitter if you’re posting photos.

Merry Christmas.

This is one of our favourite winter soups; traditionally we have this on Christmas Eve with the world’s greatest toasted cheese sandwiches. This recipe is based on one from the original Silver Palate cookbook. I’ve adjusted the seasoning and changed how the cheese is incorporated. The soup keeps much better when the cheese is added as a topping when serving it. Also – cheese can curdle unpredictably. Nothing like making a big vat of soup and then ruining it at the list minute.

Making this soup is easy, especially if you have a quality stick blender. I have a commercial standard one that could double as an outboard motor – if I could only find someplace to plug it in.

Another useful gadget is a handheld mandolin slicer; I slice the onions and the carrots straight into the pot with mine. Be careful – until you get used to the mandolin, you may lose the skin on the ends of your fingers. Several times in my case.

Easy to make a vegan version of this soup – substitute a light vegetable or nut oil for the butter and be careful with your vegetable stock. Remember that many commercial stock cubes are not vegan or even vegetarian (even vegetable stock).

Let’s get straight to the recipe.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 85 grams unsalted butter
• 150 grams chopped or sliced onions
• 350 grams chopped or sliced carrots
• 2 teaspoons dried parsley
• 2 litres vegetable stock, divided
• 900 grams of potatoes, peeled and chopped into cubes
• salt and pepper to taste
• Cheddar cheese for grating to serve.

Instructions

1. Melt the butter in a deep stock pot.
2. Add the onions and the carrots, cook over a low heat until these are tender and lightly coloured, about 20 minutes. Keep an eye on the pot so it doesn’t scorch on the bottom.
3. Add the parsley, 1.5 litres of the stock and the potatoes. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until potatoes are very tender, about 20 minutes.
4. Puree the soup; easiest in the pot using a stick blender. Also can be done in a blender or a food processor. Separate the stock and the vegetables, retaining the stock. Put the softened vegetables in the blender or food processor, add enough stock to moisten (300 mls) and puree. Return the pureed soup to the pot.
5. Adjust the consistency using the extra stock if necessary. It will thicken as it cools. Taste for salt and pepper and season as necessary.
6. The soup will keep at this point for 3 days in the refrigerator; remove and heat up to serve.
7. Grate enough cheddar cheese to allow for a generous topping for everyone’s soup.
   
   

I’m trying to post all of my festive period menus and recipes. More coming soon.