White bean soup with pesto dumplings

November 5, 2022

   

We've been home-cooking plenty in the past few months - it's just been focused on tried and true recipes more than anything new. But I was moved to browse my soup-tagged bookmarks this week when Michael came down with a cold, and he picked out this Heidi Swanson recipe for white bean soup with pesto dumplings.

Dumplings sound comforting but also like a lot of effort; I'm happy to report that only the first point is true in this recipe! They're just a simple floury batter that's dropped directly into the soup one big spoonful at a time, with no fiddly rolling or folding in their construction. An egg (and possibly the pesto available to you) get in the way of this being vegan, but I agree with Swanson that the egg could simply be substituted with a bit of extra liquid as it's not supplying crucial binding here. 

The soup itself is a simple mixture dotted with onion, carrots and white beans, thickened with a lot of flour. The flavour is really governed by your choice of herbs and pesto. I reckon that a bit of lemon rind, parmesan or nooch in the dumpling batter would brighten up the dish; I notice that Swanson included lemongrass in her herb mix and that probably served a similar purpose. In the bowl, the soft scone-like dumplings dominate the broth - they're perfect sick-time food and something we'll enjoy while well in winter too.

White bean soup with pesto herb dumplings

(a recipe from 101 Cookbooks)

soup

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, diced finely

2 carrots, diced

1 teaspoon caraway seeds

1/2 cup wholemeal flour

5 cups water or vegetable stock

salt, to taste

1 x 400g can cannellini beans, drained

dumplings

1 egg

2 tablespoons pesto

1 cup milk (Swanson used almond; I used soy)

1 cup chopped herbs, plus more for garnish (I used chives, parsley and dill)

1 1/2 cups wholemeal flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Heat up the oil in a very large saucepan and sauté the onions and carrots until tender, about 5-7 minutes. Stir in the caraway seeds and flour and continue stirring for a couple of minutes to gently toast the flour. Add the water/stock and salt and bring it all to a gentle simmer, stirring regularly until thickened. Add the beans and continue to gently simmer and occasionally stir the soup while you prepare the dumplings.

In a small-medium bowl, whisk together the egg, pesto and milk until well mixed. Fold in the herbs. In a separate medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt. Pour in the egg-herb liquid and mix until just combined. Drop generous tablespoonfuls of the dumpling mixture into the soup. (Swanson warns us several times not to be tempted to go larger! And she's right, they do expand.) Cover the saucepan and simmer the dumplings for around 7 minutes; gently flip them over in the soup and give them another 7 minutes of covered cooking. Serve garnished with the extra chopped herbs.

Tempeh taco salad

November 13, 2017

This is a rare, valued thing - a new recipe to bring into our weeknight dinner rotation! It's a tempeh taco salad, published earlier this year on one of my favourite long-running food blogs, 101 Cookbooks. 

It starts with tempeh and black beans in taco spices, then there's lots of lettuce and fresh coriander to assert that it's a salad, and a handful of corn chips to bring the taco shell crunch. The salad dressing starts with ketchup, not something I thought I'd see on such a wholefoods-focused blog, but it's filled out with lots of tangy apple cider vinegar. Swanson encourages adding your own extras, too - for me that meant avocado chunks, fresh cherry tomatoes and a wedge of lime.

I'd recommend heading over to the source and checking out the different photos there - Swanson's version is richly coloured with roasted tomatoes and her corn chips are sparse and stirred through the salad. I was eating this over several days, so I separated out the chips to keep their crispness, and added in the avocado at the last minute. Avocado management aside, this was as good a packed lunch as it was a worknight dinner. It'll be back in our kitchen several more times before this summer is done.

Tempeh taco salad
(slightly adapted from 101 Cookbooks)

225g packet tempeh
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 tablespoon taco seasoning
1/3 cup ketchup
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons golden syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/3 cup sunflower oil
400g can black beans
2 medium heads of cos lettuce
1 cup coriander
1 avocado
250g punnet cherry tomatoes
2 cups plain corn chips
1 lime

Slice the tempeh into cubes. Pour the olive oil into a frypan and set it over medium-high heat. Saute the tempeh in the oil until browned, then turn off the heat and transfer the tempeh to a bowl. Stir the taco seasoning through the tempeh.

Make the dressing in a lidded glass jar. Pour in the ketchup, vinegar, golden syrup, salt, paprika, onion power and sunflower. Screw on the lid and shake until the dressing is emulsified.

Drain and rinse the black beans, and stir them into the cooled spiced tempeh; stir in a tablespoon or so of the dressing too.

Roughly chop the lettuce and coriander; slice the avocado and cherry tomatoes. Gently toss together the salad or layer it up on a platter: lettuce, tomato, tempeh/beans, avocado, corn chips, coriander, then the dressing. Slice the lime into wedges and serve it on the side.

Thanksgiving green bean salad

November 29, 2015

We were lucky enough to be invited to a friend's big Thanksgiving shindig on Sunday. She's an expat American and goes all out each year, with a massive meal and loads of lovely guests. To make catering for twenty-something people possible, Thanksgiving was potluck-style, with everyone chipping in side dishes, booze, sweets etc. Cindy claimed a dessert slot (post coming soon), so I settled for something savoury.

Cindy pointed me in the direction of Heidi Swanson's veggie thanksgiving roundup and I picked out this super simple green bean salad. It's stupidly easy to make - five ingredients (including salt and oil!), a bit of chopping and 5-10 minutes of cooking and you're done. The recipe below is what you'd do if you were going to serve it up straight away. Because we were cooking it earlier and taking it to lunch, I didn't put the beans in the frying pan, but blanched them separately for a minute and then cooled them down, before combining them with the dill and leek later to avoid over-cooking.

It was an excellent addition to the heaving table of food at the shindig - the dill is the most powerful flavour, with the caramelised leek and crispy beans combining perfectly. A scoop of these alongside a plateful of Tofurkey, mashed potatoes, peas, roast veggies, pasta salad and tamales completely converted me to a Thanksgiving traditionalist.

Green bean salad
(adapted from a recipe on 101 Cookbooks)

4 leeks, white parts, washed and sliced finely

1 small bunch of dill

400g green beans, trimmed and sliced into 3cm pieces

Olive oil

Salt

Heat a decent splash of olive oil in a frying pan and stir in the leeks, cooking for 10 minutes until they've browned up a bit and softened. Stir them regularly, but not constantly.

Throw in the dill and the beans and cook for another two minutes. If you're not serving the salad straight away, then don't throw the beans in the frying pan - instead blanch them in boiling water for a minute, drain them and run them under cold water so that they keep their snap. You can combine them with the leek and dill later.

Season generously with salt and serve immediately.

Pineapple fried rice

May 31, 2015

Michael's away for his usual mid-winter conference. It's a good time to make recipes that he wouldn't like. This one, for example, is a savoury dish with pineapple in it - a complete dealbreaker for the other half of where's the beef?. 

I actually had some organic tinned pineapple in the fridge, having resolutely bought it for my half of a pizza night. (Incidentally, I can definitely recommend the fancy organic tinned pineapple - it's much tangier and toothier than the usual supermarket stuff.) In fact, I had everything I wanted to adapt Heidi Swanson's pineapple rice recipe right at home.

And it's definitely an adaptation. I wanted my pineapple chunky, not blended into the dressing, and I fried my garlic instead of leaving it raw. I'm no fan of raw onions either, and elected to replace the green onions and shallots with a sprinkling of fried shallots. All up, my recipe's more a fried rice than rice salad and that's the way I like it - hearty brown rice dressed with tamari and a little sesame oil, studded with browned seitan pieces and juicy pinapple, topped with crunchy cashews and fried shallots. I could almost be back at the Japanese-Hawai'ian Olu'Olu Cafe with a bowl like this.

Pineapple fried rice
(adapted from a recipe on 101 Cookbooks)

1 cup brown rice
2 cups water
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1/2 cup pineapple juice
pinch of chilli flakes
2 tablespoons tamari
2 tablespoons sunflower oil
2/3 cup seitan, roughly chopped
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup pineapple pieces
1 cup baby spinach leaves
1 cup roasted cashews
1/4 cup fried shallots

Place the rice and water in a small saucepan, cover with a lid and set them over high heat. When the rice begins to boil, turn down the heat to the lowest setting and cook until the rice is tender and the water is absorbed, about 40 minutes. Bring the rice to room temperature - I refrigerated mine overnight and then set it on the bench about an hour before I wanted to eat.

In a small jar or bowl, whisk together the sesame oil, pineapple juice, chilli flakes and tamari. Set them aside.

Set a large frypan or wok over high heat and add the sunflower oil. When the oil is hot, add the seitan and stir-fry it until it's beginning to brown. Add the ginger and garlic and stir-fry for another 30-60 seconds. Add the pineapple pieces and let them sear a little before stirring them around. Add the rice, using your spatula to break down any big clumps, and stir-fry it. In the minute before you're ready to serve the rice, stir in the spinach leaves and the cashews, allowing the spinach to wilt a little. Serve the rice sprinkled with fried shallots.

Kale & coconut salad

 August 26, 2014

Our veggie box dictates a lot of our cooking these days, and with just half a bunch of kale to finish off before the new box arrived we went scouring our cookbooks for a solution. This salad from Heidi Swanson's book fit the bill nicely - it was easy enough for a work night dinner, didn't require any shopping and held out the promise of delicious toasted coconut.

I didn't do a great job on it - I'm still mastering our rice cooker, and the brown rice wound up being a bit undercooked, while my faffing about with it meant that the kale/coconut mix was slightly overcooked. It was a masterful display. Still, the recipe is pretty forgiving - the kale crisped up almost to kale chip texture, while the extra dressing helped to soften the rice out and the sweet, crispy coconut flakes made everything better. We served it up with maple-miso tofu (another recipe that I messed up but got away with anyway).

Kale and coconut salad
(very slightly adapted from Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Every Day)

80mL olive oil
1-2 teaspoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce
100g of kale
85g flaked coconut
250g cooked brown rice (the original recipe uses farro, any grain will do)

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Cut the stems off the kale, remove the biggest stalky ribs and then roughly chop the leaves.

Combine the olive oil, soy sauce and sesame oil in a small jar and shake well to combine.

Combine the kale and the coconut flakes in a large bowl with 3/4 of the dressing and stir well to coat.

Spread the kale and coconut mix in a large baking tray (or two if you need 'em) and bake for about 15 minutes, until the coconut is golden brown - keep an eye on it every 5 minutes or so and stir things around a bit.

Put the kale and coconut mix, the rice and the last drizzle of the dressing into a bowl and toss well.

Serve as a side dish for four (we paired it with maple-miso tofu) or a main for two.

Broccoli gribiche

January 5, 2014

We had a rare non-vegan (but still gluten-free!) potluck on the last day of our summer holiday and a balcony garden sprouting both tarragon and chives. We trawled our recipe books for some sort of sharable salad and Cindy spotted a recipe for broccoli gribiche in Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Every Day that used up our herbs and looked delicious. It's a bit of a fancied up potato salad - the broccoli provides some vegetable variation and the very French dressing adds something new.

Making it is pretty simple really, although a bit time-consuming. The dressing process was a bit frustrating - as hard as I whisked I couldn't really make the egg yolk and oil emulsify. I may have over boiled my eggs slightly - the hard yolk didn't mash into a very smooth paste. It didn't seem to make much difference, the dressing was still delicious - tangy from the vinegar, rich from the egg and oil and bursting with the flavour of the fresh herbs. 

It's probably not something we'd make just for the two of us to eat, but it's a brilliant addition to a potluck lunch (which featured wonderful white bean soup, a haloumi and vegetable medley, patatas bravas, homemade baba ganoush, zucchini fritters, coconut icecream and on and on and on - it was a lazy five hour lunch).

Broccoli gribiche
(very slightly adapted from Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Every Day)

700g small potatoes, scrubbed and chopped into large but bite-sized chunks

350g broccoli florets

3 hard boiled eggs

150ml olive oil

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1-2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

2 tablespoons capers

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

1 tablespoon chopped tarragon

1 tablespoon chopped chives

salt

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

Toss the potato pieces with a tablespoon of the olive oil and sprinkle them generously with salt. Tip them onto a baking tray and roast for 30 minutes, turning halfway through.

Toss the broccoli florets with another tablespoon of oil, add salt and tip them onto a second baking tray. When the spuds are halfway along, pop the broccoli into the oven and cook for 15 minutes - the veggies should finish at the same time.

While everything is roasting make the dressing. Mash the yolk of one of the eggs and whisk it together with the remaining olive oil (tip the oil in very, very slowly). Beat it constantly and try to get the egg and oil to emulsify. Whisk in the vinegar and the mustard and then stir in the capers and herbs plus a decent shake of salt. 

Chop up the two whole eggs and the remaining egg white (you can include more hard boiled eggs if you want - the original recipe has 4 rather than 3) and fold them into the dressing. 

Combine the spuds and broccoli and then gently toss the eggy dressing through. Season if required and serve.

Spiced coconut spinach & dahl

September 15, 2013

I got off a long flight back from Scotland early on Sunday morning. I'd enjoyed a week of eating out across Glasgow's excellent vegan pub scene, a return to Brunswick's brilliant breakfasts and I was ready to have something healthy and home-cooked. Cindy had a good stash of Indian recipes tucked away and we decided to make use of our afternoon to double down with two dishes.

They were both fairly simple on their own, but it wound up taking me something like two hours to put all the pieces together. I ad-libbed a bit, particularly on the dahl - using unsoaked channa dahl (red lentils) and being a bit haphazard with the spices. It didn't turn out looking anything at all like the soupy version pictured on The Cook and The Chef's recipe but it was basically perfect - thick and warming with a great spicy complexity and a bit of sweetness from the tomatoes. It got even better as leftovers through the week.

The spinach was an excellent accompaniment - not a showstopper of a dish, but a nice extension of a simple spinach side, with the toasted coconut, cumin, chilli flakes and lemon juice livening things up. In truth, the key to the excellence of this meal was the addition of vegan store-bought onion paratha - we grabbed ours from Mix Oriental Supermarket at Barkly Square, but I imagine any Indian grocer would have something similar. Dee-lish.

Dahl
(adapted from this recipe via The Cook and The Chef)

300g red lentils
4 garlic cloves, peeled
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, cut into chunks
5 cups of water
1/2 teaspoon black mustard seeds
1 red chilli, sliced finely
1.5 teaspoons cumin seeds
1 onion, chopped finely
4 tomatoes roughly chopped & 3 tomatoes finely chopped
1.5 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon turmeric
4 garlic cloves minced, combined with a tablespoon minced ginger
Juice of a lemon
1 tablespoon tamarind paste
1/2 cup roughly chopped coriander
3 tablespoons of sunflower oil
Salt to taste

Simmer the lentils in the water with the garlic cloves and ginger chunks until the dahl is soft and cooked through - about 20 minutes. Drain, keeping the cooking water in reserve and picking out the garlic and ginger chunks.

Heat the oil in a big saucepan and add the cumin and mustard seeds. Once the mustard seeds just start to pop throw the onion in and cook until it starts to brown. Add the ginger and garlic paste along with the chilli and stir-fry for a few minutes. Stir in the chilli powder, ground coriander and turmeric as well as the roughly chopped tomato, cooking the mix for a few minutes until the oil starts to separate.

Pop the boiled dahl back in the pot and tip in as much or as little of the reserved water to get things close to the texture you're after. Simmer for a few minutes and then add the tamarind paste, lemon juice, coriander and the finely chopped tomatoes. Cook for a final minute or two, add salt to taste and serve.

Spiced coconut spinach
(adapted from 101 Cookbooks)

1 large bunch of spinach, washed and roughly chopped
1 small onion, diced finely
2 cloves of garlic, minced
3 tablespoons coconut flakes, lightly toasted
1 tablespoon sunflower oil
1/2 teaspoon black mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes
2 tablespoons lemon juice

Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat and add the mustard and cumin seeds. After a minute or two, add the chilli flakes and stir-fry for another minute. Throw in the garlic, onion and spinach and cook for two or three minutes - until the spinach is wilted but not soggy. 

Kill the heat and stir through the coconut and lemon juice.

Carnival cookies

June 10, 2013

This was one of the first recipes to jump out at me from Super Natural Every Day, and it doesn't even include a photo! Mixing choc chips, peanuts and popcorn into cookie dough will do that. AOF's success with the recipe only made me keener. Sadly for some, these cookies also contains bananas, so I've been saving them up for while Michael was away.

As I popped my own corn, I found that 20g actually means 3 cups of the stuff! But even gently folding them into dough at the last minute, they broke down quite rapidly and I'd defy anyone to recognise them in the baked cookies. Instead the cookies are soft with much mashed banana and chewy with rolled oats. Even the peanuts just barely retain their crunch. Stealthily vegan and free of added sugar, these cookies are still plenty sweet thanks to the choc chips and banana.

While Heidi's carnival cookies are soft, sweet and comforting in their own right, they've also got me wondering how I might concoct something with a bit more crunch, a real showcase for the popcorn.

Carnival cookies
(a recipe from Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Every Day)

340g ripe bananas (about 2 1/2 large)
1 teaspoon vanilla
60g coconut oil, just barely melted
120g rolled oats
60g almond meal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
170g dark chocolate chips
100g peanuts
20g (about 3 cups loosely packed) popcorn

Preheat an oven to 180°C and line a baking tray with paper.

In a large bowl, mash the bananas thoroughly. Stir in the vanilla and coconut oil.

In a separate medium-sized bowl, stir together the rolled oats, almond meal, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Tip them into the banana mixture and thoroughly combine them to form the cookie dough. Fold in the chocolate chips and peanuts, then lastly and most gently the popcorn.

Scoop generous tablespoons of the cookie dough onto the baking tray, using a second spoon to help shape them. Bake the cookies for about 15 minutes, until they're golden. Allow them to cool a while on a wire rack before eating.

Savoury strawberry salad

October 6, 2012

Cindy and I have decided to bring on springtime through sheer force of will - defying Melbourne's return to 13 degree rainy days by pumping out this summery salad as part of our dinner (to accompany this more weather appropriate pie). The salad is one of Heidi Swanson's simpler recipes and can be thrown together in about 10 minutes. Balsamic vinegar and strawberries are a winning combination, and it's those flavours that make the salad work. The parmesan adds a savoury bite, and the flaked almonds a bit of crunch - it's straightforward, but very satisfying. This recipe makes more than two people can eat in one sitting, and the greens turn a bit soggy overnight, so rescale as required.

Savoury strawberry salad
(the mixed green salad in Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Every Day)

150g mixed greens
1 punnet strawberries, chopped
50g flaked almonds, toasted
25g shaved parmesan cheese

dressing

A few garlic chives, chopped finely (the original recipe wants 1 shallot, but I wasn't buying a whole bunch just for one)

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

1/4 cup olive oil

Whisk together the chives, pepper, salt and balsamic vinegar and leave to sit for five minutes or so. Add in the oil, whisking thoroughly to combine it with the rest of the dressing.

Combine the greens and the dressing in a big bowl and toss thoroughly to coat the leaves.

Add the almonds, strawberries and parmesan and toss again. 

Serve!

Wild mushroom tacos & summer corn salad

April 16, 2012

Cindy and I had planned a Sunday cooking extravaganza with Lisa, Lucy and Gill making delicious treats from Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Every Day, but everyone else fell ill or double-booked themselves, so we were on our own. We'd done our shopping already, so on Monday night we went ahead with a cut-down version, making wild mushroom tacos from the cookbook and a corn salad from Heidi's blog.

The mushroom tacos are super simple (especially if you lazily use packet tortillas). Just buy yourself some fancy wild mushrooms (we got some slippery jacks and pine mushrooms from the markets, plus some basic field mushrooms) and fry them up with onion, garlic and chilli. Sprinkle them with Mexican oregano and serve in the tortillas with a sprinkle of parmesan on top. Earthy and delicious.

   

The corn salad is similarly straightforward, and its crunchy tartness worked perfectly with the heartier mushrooms. These were both excellent recipes - simple combinations of a few ingredients and flavours that you can whip up after work without too much trouble.

   

Summer corn salad
(adapted slightly from a recipe from 101 Cookbooks)

4 cobs corn, shucked with the kernels shaved off the cob
A small handful of chives, sliced finely
1 1/2 cups of toasted pepitas and sunflower seeds
1 teaspoon of Mexican oregano

dressing
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons brown sugar
3 tablespoons sunflower oil

Stir the corn kernels and chives together in a bowl.

Mix the lemon juice, salt and sugar together in a separate bowl. Drizzle in the sunflower oil, whisking like crazy until everything all comes together.

Add the seeds and the dressing to the corn and toss, making sure everything is nicely coated.

Sprinkle the oregano over the top, toss and serve.

Pomegranate-glazed tempeh & vegetables

February 13, 2012

This is one of the recipes that I was first drawn to when given Super Natural Every Day last year - caramelised tempeh chunks will do it for me every time! But it was a whole pumpkin arriving in our vege box that got us there. Michael meticulously chopped the pumpkin, tempeh and eggplant into 1cm cubes and took a sizable cube off his finger while he was at it, so I helped bandage him up and finished this dish off.

The vege cubes are roasted in a tangy blend of pomegranate molasses and olive oil, then served with a sprinkling of fresh herbs and feta. It's lovely on its own as a whole meal or a starter, served with couscous or quinoa or shared at a potluck. For a vegan version you could obviously just skip the feta - or make vegan feta! - but I reckon some roasted flaked almonds or roughly chopped smoked almonds would make a fine substitute.

My one cooking tip here is to arrange the roasting bits sparsely on their baking trays - this allows them to caramelise properly. I started out with the huge quantities below (roughly double Heidi's original) stuffed high in their trays and they got soggy. Taking the time to bake smaller portions in batches is well worth it.

Pomegranate-glazed tempeh & vegetables
(adapted slightly from a recipe in Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Every Day)

2 small round eggplants
600g tempeh
400g pumpkin
6 cloves garlic
2 small lemons
2/3 cup pomegranate molasses
2/3 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon chilli flakes
handful of parsley, roughly chopped
100g feta, crumbled

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line two large baking trays with paper.

Peel the pumpkin. Chop the eggplants, tempeh and pumpkin into 1cm cubes. Finely chop the garlic. Divide the vegetables and garlic evenly across the baking trays and grate over the zest of the two lemons (set the rest of the lemons aside for whatever else you want).

In a bowl, whisk together the pomegranate molasses, olive oil, salt and chilli. Pour three quarters of the dressing over the vegetables and toss it through to evenly coat them as best you can.

Now the veges will bake best if they're spread out with minimal overlapping. This meant I had to set aside half the vegetables and bake them in two batches. The baking totalled 60 minutes per tray, with a few pauses to toss them around for even cooking. They should be tender but still holding their shape when they're done.

Once the vegetables are cooked, spread them out on a platter. Sprinkle over the parsley and feta and serve.

White beans & cabbage

January 22, 2012

During those lovely days in Hobart, we had a commitment to attend to back home. Our previous vege delivery included an enormous cabbage - seriously, it was probably 2-3 litres capacity - and it was sitting in our crisper waiting to be eaten. We had ample time on Sunday afternoon to deal with it.

I was kinda bored with coleslaw, and spring rolls aren't the best work lunch leftovers. I wondered whether my newest cookbook included anything fun to do with cabbage, checked out the index, followed through to page 86 and realised I'd been over-thinking it. This lovely looking cabbage dish graces the cover of Super Natural Every Day!

It's the kind of dish Heidi does often and well - a bunch of fresh produce tossed together in a frypan, served up and sprinkled with a little something. In this case the produce is mainly cabbage, white beans and potatoes. I was a little wary of getting the potatoes completely cooked through purely by sautéing them for 8 minutes and was careful to cut them really small (cubes with no more than a 1cm side). This worked just fine. It's really important to wait out the frying as directed and build a golden crust on the potatoes and beans, 'cause this is where most of the fine flavour comes from. Of course a sprinkling of parmesan helps the flavour along too. As a vegan alternative, I'd suggest some extra salt, a bit of nooch or some of this stuff.

The recipe below is a double quantity on Heidi's version, since we had a lot of cabbage to get through. While her book predicts that this should serve eight, the two of us got a dinner and a lunch out of it each. We've got an appetite for cabbage that I never imagined.

White beans & cabbage
(adapted slightly from a recipe in Heidi Swanson's
Super Natural Every Day)

1/3 cup olive oil
230g potatoes, scrubbed but left unpeeled and sliced into tiny cubes
salt, to taste
2 x 400g cannellini beans
450g cabbage, finely shredded
a small handful of chives, roughly chopped
parmesan cheese, finely grated (optional)

Pour the oil into a very large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the potatoes and a generous pinch of salt, tossing them to coat in the oil. Cover the frypan with a lid and give the potatoes 5-8 minutes to cook through, tossing them once or twice more along the way so that they don't burn but do develop a nice golden crust.

Add the beans to the pan and leave it uncovered, but go for the same cooking approach for a few minutes - leave the beans still to develop a golden edge, then toss it all around for a new crust on another side. Stir in the cabbage and chives, stirring and cooking until the cabbage just starts to soften. Serve it all up with a sprinkling of parmesan or some extra salt.