Xtina ~ Fighter
J-Lo ft LL Cool J ~ All I Have
Gordon Haskell ~ How Wonderful You Are
Rage Against the Machine ~ Bullet in the Head
Maroon 5 ~ Harder to Breathe
Shania Twain ~ Whatever You Do! Don't!
P.Diddy ft Xtina ~ Tell Me
I have a house guest this weekend...our pal F is here for a couple of days, on the way down to spend time with her family and her love. Which is great as spending time with F is always easy but usually I like to make her cakes (F being the friend with a very serious cake addiction! lol) to munch on whilst she's here or test out new cake recipes on her. But my health is probably at its worst right at this moment so I had to buy in cakes. I was horrified to have to do this and I'm sure it shocked F but she is enjoying the bought cakes..thankfully. lol
My kitchen time is reduced to 'plan...get in there and get out again'! Which I hate because I usually find my kitchen a calming environment but when your body is screaming in pain it blasts any enjoyment out! It's all very frustrating. On Saturday my lovely sister helped me prepare a Bolognaise sauce to go with pasta for her lunch and F's evening meal (recipe in tomorrows post) and to be honest I was really grateful for her help.
So that left me with yesterdays lunch to prepare for us. I didn't need to provide an evening meal as F was going to a friends party...to which I was invited but had to reluctantly decline. *sighs*
I turned to one of my favourite cook books and after much flipping backwards and forwards through the pages I decided to try a new recipe out of it. Fassolada on paper looked easy to make, filling and tasty good and it was all of those things. I added 4 tbsp bulgar wheat at the end of the cooking time.
This recipe can be found in Linda Majzlik's fantastic A Vegan Taste of Greece
This is a good main course soup...full of flavour and textures. Great for those days when you need to eat well before heading out to an evening 'do' where you aren't sure what the catering is going to be like. lol.
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| Fassolada..looks rather pretty,no? lol |
(Recipe from A Vegan Taste of Greece/Majzlik)
8oz/225g cooked haricot beans
8oz/225g potatoes, peeled and finely diced
4oz/100g carrot, scraped and finely diced
4oz/100g tomato, skinned and chopped
2oz/50g red pepper, chopped
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 celery stick, trimmed and finely sliced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tbsp olive oil
1 dsp tomato puree
15 fl oz/450ml veggie stock
1 dsp finely chopped fresh oregano or 3/4 tsp dried
1 dsp finely chopped fresh thyme or 3/4 tsp dried
black pepper
1oz/25g black olives, sliced
grated vegan cheese
4 tbsp bulgar wheat
Mash or blend half of the beans with 5 fl oz/150ml of the stock. Heat the oil in a large pan and fry the onion, celery and garlic until soft, then add the tomato and cook until pulpy. Stir in the remaining stock, potato, carrot, red pepper, tomato puree, oregano and thyme, season with black pepper and bring to the boil. Cover and simmer, stirring occassionally, for 15 minutes. Add the blended bean mixture together with the remaining beans and the olives. Bring back to the boil and simmer for 5-10 minutes more until the veggies are done. Serve in bowls, garnished with cheese (if using...I didn't ~R~)
I added the bulgar at the end of the cooking time and left it 'plump' for 15 minutes with the lid on lid on the pan and then served. Don't worry the Fassolada was still very hot after the bulgar standing time.
Enjoy!
~R~
