Recipes

Sausage Casserole Recipe

- Alex 4 Comments

Hairy Bikers' Sausage and bean casserole

Another hearty dinner for you – one that’s perfect to make on the weekend and have stored up for a mid week dinner.

This recipe comes from the Hairy Bikers’ Mums Still Know Best – a book that’s choc full of very tasty looking, very British recipes.

This is a great recipe because you don’t need to worry too much about quantities. You’ll know if you love beans – and if you don’t, well then you should leave them out and, if you can be bothered, substitute with something else.

Begin by heating some oil in your favourite casserole dish. Chop the sausages into large chunks and fry until browned. Remove from the pan, and fry up some chopped bacon. When that begins to crisp up, remove that and set aside with the sausages.

In the pan (which by now should have a lovely fatty, meaty bottom), fry some finely sliced onion. As the onion softens, add garlic to taste and fry for a couple of minutes more. Now add in chilli powder (or smoked paprika) and cook for a few seconds longer to cook out the spice.

Now add in a tin of crushed tomatoes (note – try to buy Australian!), some chicken stock, tomato purée, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar and some dried oregano or thyme. If you’re cooking for two people, let’s say you’re using 6 sausages (you want to have leftovers, trust me), so use 300mL chicken stock, 2 tbsp tomato purée, 1 tbsp of Worcestershire sauce and sugar to taste (I always use far less than specified in recipes so let’s say 1 tsp).

Bring this mix to a simmer and add the sausages and bacon back into the pan. Add enough water (or a 50-50 water/white wine mix) to cover everything.

Partially cover the pan and simmer for at least 20 minutes. When you’re ready to eat, drain and rinse a can of butter beans or cannellini beans and add the beans to the stew. Cook for a further 10 minutes (minimum) and serve with plenty of piping hot, buttery mash.

The picture of this casserole in the book shows a very dry looking dish. Personally, I’m a big fan of plenty of sauce – if things are looking too dry for your tastes you can add passata or stock or more wine. However, if you want less sauce, then hold back on adding all the stock and only add as much liquid as you feel necessary.

This is one of those dishes that keeps and reheats well – there’ll be no problem making it on a Sunday and having it for Tuesday supper (not to mention left overs for lunch the next day).

As a bonus, it’s almost a one pot dish and it’s super easy. Well done, Dave and Si!

Fennel and Vegetable Soup Recipe

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IMG_2057

I’m not really sorry to be posting another soup recipe:  it is cold and this one is incredibly easy and quick.

There’s no blitzing and I reckon it was ready for the table in under half an hour. Plus, it makes use of a very seasonal (and that means CHEAP!) ingredient: fennel.

The original recipe is a fennel minestrone, by Arthur Potts Dawson, an eco friendly British chef.

I tweaked quantities quite a bit and also thought that it would be far easier to chop the vegetables, rather than grate them (grating creates washing up!). I was also concerned that if the vegetables were grated the finished product could look a bit … mushy.

To begin – heat some olive oil in your favourite soup making pan and gently sauté 1 finely chopped leek.

I had one giant fennel (bought for the princely sum of 98 cents!) so I cut that in half – which worked out at about 400g of fennel (yes, it was huge) – and roughly chopped it, and then added to the leek.

I then added two handfuls of risoni pasta (I have small hands). I happened to have risoni but you could use any shape or break up spaghetti or fettucine. Really – put in as much as you want but remember that it does expand when it cooks and it will thicken up the soup.

Finally, add stock (I used some chicken stock we had leftover!) and cook. You only need to cook until the pasta is done which is what makes this soup so quick.

Add a coarsely chopped courgette/zucchini about 5 minutes before you’re ready to serve – you don’t want that to turn to mush.

Dawson’s recipe uses a pangritata to finish the dish but I really couldn’t be bothered going outside. However, I did have a jar of pesto open in the fridge, so I stirred a generous teaspoon of that through my bowl.

Finally, a sprinkle of pepper and salt and you have a super healthy, super cheap and super tasty meal in under 30 minutes. No excuses for takeaway!

Pumpkin Soup Recipe

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Pumpkin Soup Pumpkin Soup

Before blitzing …                                                                                                                                                                          … and the finished product.

 

The weather is getting a little colder now (it’s officially winter here in Australia) and as far as I’m concerned this means it’s soup time because soup is easy, warming and comforting. There is nothing better than curling up on the sofa with a big bowl of piping hot soup and some toast.

We’d had some leftover pumpkin (actually a butternut squash) and I decided that I could easily turn this bit of vege into dinner.

This is my standard approach to soup and it works perfectly well for pretty much any left over vegetable. If the vegetable you’re using is particularly watery you should up the amount of potato you use – as potato is the magic thickener.

Begin by finely chopping half a large onion (or a whole medium sized one) and sauté it in some light olive oil or butter. With pumpkin soup you don’t have to worry about the onion taking on colour. When the onion starts to soften add 1 potato which you’ve peeled and chopped and then add your chopped pumpkin. For the two of us, and the above amounts of onion and potato I used a quarter of a butternut squash.

Give the vegetables a very quick sauté and then add enough stock to just cover them. You really need to use the best stock you can get your hands on and these days there’s no need to use stock cubes because there’s plenty of real stock options available. I usually use a stock jelly so I can just add that and top up with water. Give the mix a good stir and, if you have any fresh thyme to hand, add a sprig or two of that and bring the mix to the boil. Then reduce the heat and let it simmer until the vegetables are really well cooked.

Finish the soup by pulsing with a stab mixer (first take out the sprigs of thyme!) to make the mix as smooth as you want it. It may be super thick, in which case let it down with some water.

And if you have a bit more time to spare, you can always roast the pumpkin/squash. If you’re going to do this, it will be soft anyway, so cook the potato thoroughly before adding the pumpkin to the soup.

Serve piping hot, perhaps with a dollop of sour cream (or normal cream) as decoration. Just make sure you have plenty of hot, buttery toast on the side. Feeling like you need some protein with this? Top with some crispy, fried bacon!