Comforting food for a winter's day: Sausage and Bean Casserole

The slow cooker is a wonderful invention! And so is the sausage... And the humble bean. Combine all these wonderful things with a few other wonderful things and you get the most perfect supper for a cold winter’s day. It’s comforting and tasty, with savoury and sweet flavours balancing each other wonderfully, and with a beautiful hint of smokiness too.

Now, usually I get my ‘sweet’ mostly from the can of baked beans I throw in – and I will do this again when busyness demands! – and my ‘smoky’ from chopped, fried (smoked) bacon; but today I didn’t have any bacon and I wanted to use up a tin of navy beans that’s been gathering dust in the cupboard.  So the smoky is coming from smoked paprika, and the sweet from tomato paste and some maple syrup, as well as the sweet potato. With locally grown or produced sausage, onion, garlic and maple syrup, and herb salt used to season, I am pretty happy with the ingredients of this particular stew, and can’t wait to eat it later once the slow cooker has done its magic! We’ll serve it with jacket potatoes (baked) – their skins crispy from the olive oil and sea salt, and their insides mashed with local sea-salted butter. Mmm! Only three hours to wait! J

Ingredients:

4 large sausages from our local butcher, in chunks

1 sweet potato, peeled and diced

1 large organic onion, diced

2 cloves organic garlic, crushed

  ½ red pepper, diced

Large tin chopped tomatoes

Small tin organic tomato paste

Large tin white navy beans (haricot beans)

A handful of leftover black beans (optional!!)

2 Tbsp or so maple syrup

Some generous shakes of smoked paprika

Some more generous shakes of herb salt (e.g. Herbamare)

Some grindings of black pepper

A few sprigs of thyme, leaves only

How to make it:

Saute the onion, garlic, sausage, sweet potato and red pepper in a little EVOO (olive oil).

Throw into the slow cooker along with all the ingredients and cook on high for around 3 hours. And it’s THAT easy!!  ENJOY!

Our Summer So Far

I have neglected to post on here for a while, partly because I've been squeezing all my creative juices into preparing for a talk I did at our church on Sunday morning (I'll post a link when the podcast is online), and also because summer... happens! So I thought it was about time I posted a few photos of some of the adventures we've been having as a family so far this summer.

First, a couple of photos from the wedding of my relatively new but already very precious friend Ellen to her beloved, Marc. It was a beautiful, relaxed and moving wedding that we loved being part of. Here they are, happily and very newly married!


And here's Jeremy and me, also happy to be there!


Next up in our adventures was a short trip up to Skiff Lake, near Woodstock, one of our favourite lakes in the area, not least because when we're up there we get to spend time with our dear friends Mary-Ann and Bob. We went up for two nights this time and had a wonderful time, with good conversation, lovely food and drink, lots of sitting in the sun and swimming and boating... and lots of fishing for Jeremy and Bob.

Here they are heading off for an evening fishing trip.

And here are the Winslows and Amelie in the cottage they were renting...

...a view of the cottage and deck from the water...

..and Amelie peeping into the little guest cottage next door that we stayed in - just a baby barn turned into a room with a half bathroom.

This little place made us think we might like to put one of these at the bottom of our garden one day as a summer guest retreat, just like we saw on the Swedish islands of Donso and Styso, painted the same colour as the house whose garden they sat in, with little gingham curtains in the windows. Now wouldn't that be fun?!

Next up, our friend Gary's 50th birthday bash out at their cottage on the St Croix river. It was a very relaxed time, with BBQ and potluck feast, followed by some jamming (pictured below: Jeremy on his mandolin, with Amelie and her friend Ali playing along too), and then a bonfire overlooking the water.


And last but not least, Amelie and I took a trip out to visit our friend Karen's farm - Robb Hill, just outside Calais over the border in Maine - for the first time last week. It was quite the adventure, as the farm is in the middle of the woods, a mile down a rough track full of puddles as big as small ponds, and Karen had to come and pick us up from the end of her track in her truck, which Amelie and I had fun riding in the back of. It is SUCH a beautiful place and her market garden is so wonderfully burgeoning.

Here are some snapshots from our time there, including Amelie picking peas, and then showing off all the produce Karen so generously let us choose: courgettes, rainbow Swiss chard, peas, carrots, a green pepper, and also a huge bag of different lettuces. It's been wonderful cooking with it all this week.





And that, folks, is a little taste of just some of the highlights of summer 2010 for us so far, and why we love this season in this new home of ours. If you live far away, come and visit! :-)

Simple pleasures: shelling peas (with photos!!!)

Amelie and I sat out in the garden with the pea pods I'd bought at the Calais Farmers' Market, and learnt to shell them together, with a little online instruction and some experimentation of our own, which involved flying peas for a while! And, as promised, I have also learnt to upload and post PHOTOS!! *cheers and applause*
I think I'm hooked now!

Uncovering the green jewels

Amelie becoming an expert pea-sheller!

We ate the peas raw for lunch - they were sweet and almost creamy - with simple, crispy quesadillas fried in my new cast iron skillet: plain cheese for Amelie; and for Jeremy and me, some with tomato bruschetta mix and cheese, and others with cheese, salsa and green onions. I made them on teff/millet wraps this time, to try something gluten-free for a change, and it worked well. Yum!


Look how wonderful and green our garden is in the summer! It takes my breath away all the time. And behind Jeremy in the distance is our vegetable plot with seven tomato plants and some fiery 'companion' marigolds coming along very nicely. Ah, the joys of the season...

Summer Vegetable Chowder (using up everything that's wilting in the fridge!)

As the title suggests, this is a delicious summer soup to use up anything and everything you have lying around in the fridge - just replace an item below with something else you have and want to use up. When I make it more intentionally I add zucchini and mixed sweet peppers.

Summer vegetable chowder

Gently sauté the following in a large pan:
1 tbsp butter or olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 stick celery, finely diced

Add and simmer:
2 cups vegetable bouillon/stock
1 ½ cups leftover mashed potato (containing butter and cream) - or chopped raw potatoes
2 carrots, finely diced (and/or chopped sweet bell peppers)
1 cup tiny cauliflower florets (and/or zucchini/courgette, chopped)
2 tomatoes, chopped
2 tbsp tomato paste/puree

When the vegetables are just cooked, add the following and gently simmer until soft and heated through:
1 cup frozen sweetcorn (or fresh)
½ cup frozen petits pois/peas (or fresh)
1 tbsp lemon juice
Basil, finely chopped, to taste
Salt and pepper to taste
Option: milk or cream to taste

OPTIONS to stir in to the bowl as you serve the soup are:
Sour cream/ crème fraîche
Grated Cheddar cheese (mature/sharp)
Fresh young spinach, torn

Happy savouring!
(More delicious Nourishing Recipes here)

If you're interested, here's the history of the soup when I first made it:
With all the lovely fresh veggies I got at the farmers' market on Tuesday filling up my fridge, I wanted to make some space by using up everything that's been hanging around for too long and has seen better days! This included: leftover mashed potato, slightly squishy tomatoes, some tomato paste at the bottom of a can, and limp celery and carrots. It's definitely time for a soup.

This is what I came up with, and it was YUMMY! I find that almost anything can taste amazing if you 'summer chowder' it - meaning, add tomato and something creamy/milky, the sweetness of corn, the fragrance of basil, and some good strong Cheddar cheese stirred in at the end. So try this with whatever YOU have languishing in the larder! Of course it's amazing with truly summer veg like courgette (zucchini) and peppers. I did allow myself the luxury of stirring torn fresh spinach into the bowl along with cheese and sour cream (this or creme fraiche is excellent to add at this point for the enzymes) - mmm! I did a 'Grace Rouleau' (my good friend and excellent soup-maker!) and chopped everything really, really small in the hopes that my DD Amelie wouldn't get freaked out by all the 'bits', and it worked - she miraculously ate a whole bowl! (though still wouldn't admit she liked it) ;-)

This little piggy went to market...

Well, almost. That is, I did go to market today, but I’m not technically a piggy. In any case, can I tell you about my spree? It was to Calais Farmers’ Market, in our ‘twin town’ just across the border, which only happens in the summer months and so is a rare and wonderful treat. I actually never made it last year, but have been spurred on in the intervening twelve months by a growing commitment to seasonal, local produce, combined with a modest increase in financial resources. I now feel very aware of what a rare and wonderful treat it is to be able to simply throw wallet and passport into my jaunty red Hessian bag, trip over the bridge (now I really am sounding like a little piggy!) into the good ol’ U.S. of A., and be able to choose from a wonderful range of luscious fresh produce from local growers.

So that is what I did today. I was running a little later than I had hoped and planned, and so noticed once in the land of the free and the brave (having very impatiently waited to show my passport at immigration) that my stomach was tied in knots from wishing I was at the market already, being annoyed I wasn’t, and rushing to arrive as soon as I could. But something about seeing the sign for the Calais Waterfront Walk ahead of me, which I rarely get to stroll along in a leisurely fashion, stopped me short and reminded me what a privilege it was to have the time and freedom to wander to market in the sun beside the St Croix River. Thus gratitude unraveled the knots, leaving me consciously present to the still-dewy grass beneath my sandalled feet, the sparkle of sun on water, and the smell of freshly mown lawns mingled with that unmistakable estuary tang. I reflected on how often I am robbed of similar gift-moments, and of being truly present to them, by clinging to some arbitrary timescale I have decided on for equally inconsequential reasons. So the best produce is there for the taking only by the early birds? So what?! Is it really worth developing a peptic ulcer over? I mean, if it were a matter of true significance – whether we ate that evening or not, for example – I would sure as heck have made certain I was there on time! No, on this journey of learning to savour, I would much rather relish my riverside promenade, stop my stomach acids from overproducing, and be thankful for the goods that remain on my happy arrival.

So that is what I did. My first stop was, of course, my friend Karen’s stall, someone whose ways with plants could just (but not quite!) force me to entertain the possibility of a green-fingered gift. With a fairly glistening bunch of her ruby-red beetroots and the lushest young spinach you’ve ever laid your eyes on stashed in my bag, I moved on to another stall where fresh peas and a frilly head of cabbage caught my fancy. As I asked somewhat hesitantly whether it was alright to pay with Canadian dollars, the jovial gent informed me that he would accept them on par since, given a year, the exchange rate would be reversed and (with a glint in his eye) “You’ll be back to buy from me again then, won’t you?!” I assured him with a smile that I would and moved on to peruse the home-baked goods, finally selecting a delicious looking focaccia and some molasses crinkle cookies. Ah, this will make the little piggy that stayed at home very happy! I left the bustling green laden with the fruit of the fertile Maine earth, and also with plans that almost made me want to run (wee, wee, wee!) all the way home: tomorrow, shelling the sugary peas with Amélie in the garden, followed by a meal involving those we manage not to eat in the process, along with delectable roasted beetroot; and today, a rustled-up picnic featuring focaccia and cookies, along with seasalted butter and ‘Seriously Sharp’ Vermont cheddar, fresh green salad, and sliced tomatoes with basil and balsamic vinegar. We could take the picnic to Todd’s Point nature park, lay out our blanket in the shade of the big old silver birches, within earshot of the waves, and eat overlooking the glistening bay.

So that is what we did.