Wet Friday in the kitchen

My first Friday without chemo for a month has arrived with a thoroughly autumnal start. It's steely grey and tipping down out there so no outside pottering for us today. Instead, a bit of kitchen time. The weather demands something warm, filling and hopefully tasty for lunch so bring on our Runner bean chilli.

Dried runner beans

Runner beans grow to be big, chunky and prettily speckled purple beans that, when left to form in their pods and dried, make a great base for burgers, bakes and other other tasty dishes as they take on herby and spicy flavours well.

Veggies in

This recipe not only uses our homegrown beans it is also great way of using up any veggies lurking in the fridge or drawer that might be a bit past their best so as usual play with whatever combination you have to hand if you haven't got something on my list. 

If you don't have dried beans any 400g tin of beans will be fine.

How and what - Makes at least 6 portions.

Soak 200g dried runner beans overnight and then cook them for about an hour until tender. Throw away the cooking water for these as you would for kidney beans.

Chop and lightly fry a medium onion plus c.150g mushrooms and a large courgette. Added crushed garlic or garlic powder to taste.

Add a washed and chopped medium carrot or two and a small splash of water if it looks in danger of sticking. Cover and simmer for about 10 minutes

Add about 500ml of passata or a 400g can of tomatoes. Then stir in a tablespoon of vegetarian or vegan pesto plus about 2 tablespoons mixed herbs, chilli powder, pepper and salt to taste. Bring to bubble, stirring to mix all the flavours and then add the cooked beans. Cover and simmer for about 40 -45 minutes until everything tender and the flavours have had a chance to mingle.

If you have time it's worth leaving the cooked dish to stand for awhile to let the flavours develop and then bring back to bubbling before serving with wraps, tortillas or rice.

Bubbling away nicely

I quite like a bit of grated strong cheddar on my tortilla too but this is usually flavourful enough not to need it if you prefer to keep it Vegan. 

This is one of those things that works well made in a big batch and portioned out for freezing and using another day. This pot gave us lunch for two today and at least four more portions for the freezer. As with most chilli related things if you can make it the day before you want to eat it then the flavour will be even better. 

I've also made a variation in the slow cooker but you will have to play around a bit with quantities and liquid levels to suit your crockpot.