Jottage from Cambridge: Meals for Rainy Days: Pinto bean chilli and North African squash and chickpea stew

Chickpeas stewing away

Pinto bean chilli

Luckily for my parents I never came home from school one day declaring that I had turned vegetarian, and would never ever be tempted by sausages or bacon again. Growing up surrounded by farms full of plump chickens and cows grazing in lush green fields I can’t imagine the horror they would have felt from such a statement. However, although I have never completely renounced meat, I’ve never been afraid of nut cutlets, and I was over the moon when a large Amazon package arrived containing Hugh’s Veg book (a birthday present from my mother). With this addition to our collection of cookbooks Theo and I have decided to have one vegetarian meal every week. (In fact I was a little tempted to suggest that we both become vegetarian for a month, but this seemed a bit drastic.) I am certain we will save a few pennies as meat seems to be terribly expensive these days. Whenever I go to the supermarket, I am always amazed at the prices – who wants to pay £6 for a small pack of some miserable looking chicken breasts? Also, it seems terribly healthy eating beans and lentils – though I must never tell Theo that I’ve added lentils to anything as he claims he doesn’t like them. Having just read the introduction to Hugh’s Veg book (and made two of the recipes in it) I am in absolute agreement that meat free dishes have what he describes as ‘tastes, scents and textures’ that both ‘tempt and gratify’. 

I thought I would try out a couple of the recipes yesterday as Tristan seemed content crawling about the floor, and the sizzling sounds of onions frying, and smells of turmeric, ginger and cinnamon wafting around the kitchen couldn’t do any harm to his cheerful mood. It was a drizzly day in Cambridge and, looking at my washing outside which has been damp for days, I began to assemble all the ingredients I would need – pots of cumin, ginger, cinnamon, as well as all the vegetables sitting in the bottom of the fridge. I decided to make the Pinto Bean Chilli and African Squash and Chickpea stew. (n.b.  making vege dishes in tandem is very easy, as there are no concerns about knifes, pans and chopping boards becoming contaminated with raw meat and needing to be washed up quickly.) I left out a few ingredients from both recipes: the wine, oregano and coriander from the Pinto Bean Chilli, and the celery and coriander from the stew. However, looking at the variety of colours of the veg and spices in the pans, I was satisfied that both meals would be delicious. 

Tristan had the stew for his dinner (the squash was squashy enough so no blending was necessary) and, although I received a few grudging looks, he ate quite a lot of it. I, meanwhile, decided to try and Pinto Bean Chilli, and put some generous spoonfuls in a tortilla wrap. Although I had soaked the pinto beans overnight they were still a bit hard (they didn’t have any tins of pinto beans in Sainsbury’s), but overall it was a perfect meal. Tonight we are going to try the stew and, as long as I remember not to tell Theo about the lentils, I am sure it is also going to be a success. 

Jottage from Lancaster - North African Squash and Chickpea Stew

It's been a few days of bright sunny days here with hard frosts in the morning, barely clearing in the daytime.  Geocaching hasn't really been possible with all the rain we have had recently but we went out yesterday morning and the frozen ground made it far less muddy than we expected. So today we thought we would tackle another couple of caches.  One was very high, but as we knew that before we set out, we packed a small stepladder into the car and carried it over a stile, across a field and down a flight of stairs to a gloomy railway tunnel under the M6 to find it nicely placed within reach if you were on the top step. 


Our second cache of the day we knew was tricky to get as it was a very muddy path to get to it. When we saw the path it wasn't so much a track as a small swampy stream but a helpful passing lady told us we could avoid that by walking through her garden. And this we did, but then we hit what looked like a deeply frozen patch of thick mud. Unfortunately the frozen surface was only an illusion and immediately we were plunged into several inches of thick, claggy mud, churned up by cows by a gateway. We waded through this and I lost my shoe but John managed to pull it out. 


After finding the cache we thought that the original path may have been the best one after all. So we ventured that way only to realise our mistake very quickly. It was horrible. There were hedges either side of hawthorn - nothing easy to hang on to - and almost immediately the hedge thorns helped themselves to my woolly gloves and then sprung back away from me so I had to wade back through the mud to retrieve them. Then as my foot went deeper and deeper I realised I had lost both my shoes into the mire. John bravely went back to try and get them, he had Wellingtons on but it didn't help a lot. One shoe came out, almost unrecognisably thick with mud but the other stubbornly refused to budge and although he delved deeper and deeper with bare hands it had gone for good. By now I had given up walking and managed with difficulty to crawl along the horrible muddy track (and remember, it wasn't just muddy - the ground temperature was at freezing too). I walked back the final quarter of a mile to the car along a decent track but we were both really miserable - cold, very, very muddy and dirty and generally despondent. Nothing mattered but getting home and throwing everything into the washing machine and then sitting by the fire. 

North African Squash and Chickpea Stew

This may not have much to do with cooking, but as anyone knows, having something nice and warming to eat cheers up the soul as well as anything. Tonight I had decided to cook from the Veg Everyday book and the target was North African Squash and Chickpea Stew. It looked warming with lots of lovely spices and it wasn't much trouble to make up. In the end I made it in my new massive cast iron casserole dish and then cooked it on the wood burning stove. Even just looking at it made me feel better and it was really comforting to eat. It was supposed to make 6 portions but we both had seconds. I then threw in some chorizo and there is now another meal for tomorrow night. Definitely feel good comfort food and like the pinto bean casserole, it seems a very versatile dish that can be brought out again and again.

With added chorizo

We have both now recovered from our adventures but it was really unpleasant and we both felt it wasn't worth it. But we both know in our heart of hearts that we would do just the same again...