Sea Glass & Tattoos

Flageolet bean soup

I make this from a Nigel Slater recipe. It has a lot of ingredients, so it isn’t cheap, but it is delicious. I usually freeze half of the soup for another day. On thawing, it goes slightly cloudy, but still tastes really good. Note that this is a clear soup with pieces of vegetables. Not a blended soup. (I suppose you could blend it if you like, but then it wouldn’t be the same). I generally serve it with some nice bread.

You will notice I say “up to” for some ingredients. This is because you might not have as much of an ingredient as is specified in Nigel’s recipe (e.g. your bunch of spring onions might only be 100g, or you might just have the end corner of a pack of frozen veg). Amounts aren’t critical here. Put in what you’ve got.

Ingredients:

Podded broad beans. (Up to 200g). Take the inner pods off,too. This takes ages , but is worth doing. Frozen broad beans are fine in this, but you still need to take the inner pods off, so let them thaw for a while before using them.

Leeks(200g). Small leaks are best. Cut into “coins”and wash well.

Spring onions (up to 200g), cut up small.

Courgettes (200g). Baby ones are best, cut into coins, but bigger ones would be fine too. Cut them up the way you like them.

Peas (up to 200g podded weight). Fresh peas are great in this, and so are frozen ones.

Flageolet beans (400g tin, well drained and rinsed. You don’t want the aquafaba). This is a quick recipe, so dried beans wouldn’t really work.

Vegetable stock (1 litre). I use a couple of Kallo cubes, but any vegetable stock would do. If you have home made stock, you are a better human than I am.

Olive oil (or other mild-flavoured oil).

Method

Fry the leeks and spring onions gently in s little oil until soft but not coloured. (This is important- you want your soup green, not brown). Once they are soft, add the courgettes and continue cooking for a few minutes.

Add the drained flageolet beans and the stock, and bring to the boil.

Add the broad beans and peas and simmer for about five minutes. Check that your peas are cooked if you used fresh ones.

Serve in bowls.

You can stir in chopped parsley at the end, but I always forget. Nigel has a nice wild garlic sauce that you can stir in as well, but again, I don’t bother.

Heliotrope. Billyverse readers will appreciate this. I love the way this artist picks out the colours from the plant

To the tune of “Let it snow”

To the tune of “I’m a lumberjack…”

Inktober day 1: Fish

This came up on my twitter feed today, and reminded me of a little fic I wrote a while ago. I wrote it before I saw this, but there is definitely a similarity, although mine isn’t completely suitable for children 😄