It All Begins With A Chopped Onion

Hello, thank you for dropping in here, you are very welcome.  Thank you to all of you who left such encouraging comments about my WIPs on my last post - I had hoped to have finished them all off by now but I have been a tad distracted, so I can't do any showing-and-telling yet, but it won't be long.

In the meantime, I'd like to show you a frugal dinner which we have just about once a week.  It's cheap, nutritious, tasty, quick to knock up and versatile, which all adds up to it being a Very Useful Recipe.  I know that lot's of people have recipes like this so here's my version.

Here are the ingredients -

1 onion, peeled and chopped quite finely
1 clove of garlic, peeled and crushed (or very finely chopped)
smoked bacon lardons (entirely optional: if I don't have them, I leave them out)
1 tin of mixed beans in water
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
dried green herbs
black pepper
 
This is what I do -
 
1. Heat a lug of oil in a pan until it's medium hot, tip in the onions, garlic and bacon lardons if
    you are using them, turn the heat right down and gently cook until the onion is soft and
    translucent.  This will take about 15 minutes.

2  Empty the tin of beans into a colander and rinse all the gloop off under running water 
    before you add the beans to the pan. 
3  Add the tomatoes and herbs - I used oregano but rosemary, thyme or mixed herbs are 
    also good.  I also add a splash of alcohol (cooking sherry) if I have it, then grind in the
    pepper and give it all a good stir.
4. Increase the heat under the pan, bring it up to a simmer, put the lid on and let it gently
    putter away unattended for about 10 minutes.  It's all cooked, you are simply trying to
    meld it all together.

That's it!  I serve it with rice.  This quantity serves two hungry adults but if there are three of us, I use a larger tin of beans and a bit more liquid - plain water is fine; four of us and it's two tins of beans, etc.  If I'm not using the bacon, I add a very small amount of salt.  If you make it in the morning, let it cool and then reheat it in the evening, it tastes even better.

 

 

I hope to see you again soon.

 

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x