ramtops

This is another ridiculously quick and easy supper, and pretty cheap too (depending where you shop) – certainly well under £1 per serving. Works well with runner beans as well.

serves 2:

1 pack green beans (89p from Aldi, I think)
125g of pasta (fusilli, quills, whatever – Aldi fusilli is 49p for 500g, so that’s (counts on fingers) 12.5p)
1 chopped onion (20p)
1 dessert spoon (ish) of olive oil
lemon juice – a bottle is easier, and cheaper, than fresh
black pepper
about 25g grated parmesan (35p?)

Top and tail the beans, while you put a decent amount of water on to boil. When it has, put in the pasta and set a timer (mental, if necessary) for 10 minutes. I put the beans in that pot when there was eight minutes left, which left a nice crunch to them.

While the beans and pasta are cooking, cook the onion off in the olive oil. Add to the drained pasta/bean mix, stir in a good slug of lemon juice, the parmesan, and some freshly ground black pepper.

Light, quick, simple, healthy, cheap. Vegetarian, and vegan if you leave out the cheese.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

Pete brought home a small bag of trimmed green beans from Morrisons last Sunday. We wouldn’t normally buy trimmed veg, but these were 50p. And I always feel guilty about the food miles with Kenyan beans, but it’s very efficient (the Food Programme told me so), and Kenyan farmers are entitled to a living.

Anyhow, we needed to be fed and out quickly last night, so here’s a 15 minute meal start to finish.

Put a pot of salted water on to boil for the pasta
Chop one onion, and a couple of cloves of garlic (or more – entirely up to you)
Make sure the beans are in fact trimmed – sometimes packets lie (snarl)
Weigh 125g of pasta quills (that’s what we have for two of us)
Heat some olive oil in a frying pan, and put the onions and garlic in to cook gently
When pasta water is boiling, add pasta *and* beans (thus saving time and washing up). Set timer for 10 minutes
Realise that the small packet of beans is really quite small, and add some pancetta cubes to the pan
(Ideally get husband to) grate lots of parmesan
When timer goes, drain pasta and beans, add to frying pan, add parmesan, stir around, eat, run.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

Still more green beans to eat …

Topped and tailed them, chopped into 2cm chunks (this is starting to sound like a repeat :). Simmered for 6/7 minutes. Drained and rinsed in cold water.

Chopped an onion and some garlic, oh and some fresh ginger. Heated groundnut oil in the wok, added about a dessertspoon of mustard seeds and waited for them to pop. Then hurled in onion, garlic and ginger and cooked until soft, splattering self in hot oil in the process.

Added the beans and some five spice powder, stirred about for a couple of minutes, added a good splash of tamari, cooked for about 2 minutes.

I used too much oil, but it worked really well. We had it with basmati rice, which had the juice of half a lemon added to it, which is really nice.

And now the green beans are all gone - hurrah! But another veg box arrives tomorrow …

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

I reviewed the contents of the veg drawer last night - to my shame, there were two small turnips going mouldy, so they had to go. A wide assortment of carrots was hurled into the slow cooker for carrot and coriander soup for lunch today. And there were a lot of green beans.

We like green beans, but we tend to do the same sort of stuff with them every time, and I wanted to try something different, so this is what I did. It was lovely - perfect summer food.

Topped and tailed the beans, and then cut them into chunks of about 2cm. Set them to simmer for about seven minutes, I guess.

Put on some pasta quills to boil.

Got Pete to grate a lot of parmesan, rummaged for the tired half lemon in the fridge, and went and cut some fennel fronds from the garden, which I chopped up small.

Combined beans, pasta, parmesan, black pepper, lemon juice, fennel and some cream, and scoffed from bowls.

Followed it with local strawberries and a home made brownie. Lovely.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

Pete likes a kabanos sossidge with his lunch, and for years we bought packs of long ones (fnaar) from Costco. Of late, sadly, they have only had the shorter kabanos in stock, which simply aren’t the same, and thus they don’t get eaten.

I opened the box in the fridge a few days ago, because I fancied a kabanos for my lunch, and horror - they were developing a bloom which looked very like mould.

So I chopped them up, discarding the suspect bits, and put them in the slow cooker. Added 3-4 carrots, diced small, a chopped onion, the last of the mushrooms (which were a bit wizened) and a sliced yellow pepper. And a tin of tomatoes, and a sloosh of red wine, and some savory from the garden. No seasoning, as I though the kabanos would do that themselves.

And they did - cooked it all day on Monday, and drove ourselves wild with the smell, ate it with mashed potatoes and steamed green beans. It made a tub for the freezer too.

At some point, we’re going to have to eat some of this stuff in the freezer, you know …