Hearty Bean Stew

This is a favourite of mine in the winter - it's filling, yummy and it's a one pot wonder! I make it if I know I've got a busy few days because you can make a pot and eat it in portions. It's basically just vegetables and beans, so it's all super healthy and CHEAP. It's great if you want a healthy meal on a low budget. It's bulked out with vegetables and I eat it with wholegrain pasta to stretch it further and give me some long-lasting energy. And of course, the beans provide that all important protein!

Ingredients:

This is recipe is so flexible and ideal for using cheaper seasonal veg. It also makes use of the pot-planted herbs we've mentioned in previous posts. As it's summer at the moment, in the pictures in this post I've used summer vegetables, but in winter I use sweet potato and parsnip (very much down to personal taste) as well as other veg I can pick up.

The quantities are changeable according to what you've got, you can't really go wrong as long as you've got plenty of nice vegetables to add flavour and variation! So this is very approximate.

• 1/2 an onion (this is pretty important for flavour)
• 1/2 a pepper (or a whole one if you've got one that needs eating)
• 1/2 - a whole peeled sweet potato (optional/seasonal)
• 1 parsnip (optional/seasonal - see the stuffed peppers for how to cut it up)
• 2 sticks of celery sliced (if you don't like this, it's not essential, but it's such a good flavour giver! Give it a go)
• 2 carrots, sliced into circles
• A few cherry tomatoes if you have them
• 3-4 mushrooms
• Courgette (this is one I always buy - it adds some green)
• French beans, if they're not too expensive - at their best round about now (late July)
• A tin of chopped tomatoes
• Half a chicken or vegetable stock cube.
• A tin of beans - I prefer cannellini beans in this one 

Recipe (serves 4 or lasts 4 days, roughly):

• Start by chopping up all the vegetables - the onion into small chunks, pepper, sweet potato if you're using it etc.
• Depending on the cooking time, it might be an idea to put a bit of wholegrain pasta on to cook whilst you're making it - not much though because this is filling!
• Put a dash of olive oil (or whatever oil you have) in a large-ish casserole dish or saucepan, and begin to fry the onions until softened, then add the pepper and hard root vegetables (parsnip and sweet potato).
• Once they've been frying for a few minutes, add the mushrooms.
• Then add a can of chopped tomatoes, and a stock cube dissolved in a bit of boiling water - this depends on how many veg you have. You want to cover them in liquid, plus a little bit as it boils down.
• At this point, also add the celery, carrot, courgette etc. (any reasonably soft veg that normally takes about 8-10 minutes to boil)

• Season it with about a tbsp of tomato ketchup (magic ingredient this), salt, pepper, herbs (basil is especially nice here), dried herbs, black pepper - whack it all in!
• Allow it to simmer for about 10 minutes, and meanwhile, rinse the beans well (believe me, this bit is worth it...) under running water.
• Add the beans and peas if you fancy it. Taste, check the seasoning and simmer for 5 more minutes - until the vegetables are soft - then you're done!

How easy was that!? It's one to do when you can't be bothered to think. Hardly any washing up either! This can also be frozen in portions in the freezer.

Tip of the day: Try and go for seasonal veg when you're shopping - it's often cheaper, local, and more tasty!

Tune of the day: Hozier - From Eden

Enjoy!

---K