Salads & Suppers

Beans, beans, they’re good for your heart, the more you eat, the more you wonder what goes on inside our pipes! Beans carry a nice little freight of oligosaccharides. These nifty carbs move through our small intestine totally intact where most food is broken down. The oligosaccharides then make their merry way to our microflora in the large intestine who snack on them and toot with happiness! I’m somewhat mutilating the scientific language here, but you get the picture. (You might like to read more on gut health with Tim Spector or Giulia Enders).

Other foods that contain oligosaccharides include onions, garlic, asparagus, cabbage, (f)artichokes and leeks. So there’s no point in keeping beans out of your diet for fear of bottom burps. Chances are you’re already mainlining oligosaccharides into your diet anyway! Besides, it strikes me as a very good idea to keep our pipes on speaking terms with us. Let me help you do exactly that.  

Try serving these harissa beans on toast with Parmesan or a fried egg. Simple, easy, cheap and quick.

Let me know how you get on!

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 large white onion, diced

1 fat clove garlic, sliced

1 tin white beans (eg butterbeans)

Fresh crack of salt and black pepper

2-4 tablespoons harissa paste (depending on heat, some can be wild and others deliciously tame)

Good squeeze of lemon

Gently warm some olive oil in a frying pan. Sautee your onion and garlic for 8-10 minutes or until soft and glassy.

Drain the tinned beans, and add the beans to the pan with a little of the tinned juice. Cook for 5 minutes with a sprinkle of sea salt and black pepper. (You can reserve the bean juice to use in a myriad of aqua faba recipes such as zero waste orange cake and my brownies).

Stir through the harrisa, and cook for a further 5-10 minutes to over-ride the tinned bean taste. The amount of harrisa paste you add will entirely depend on the brand you have – some are fragrant and mild, others bold and fiery. Feel free to adjust as you go along.

Plate up as is, or maybe with a good squeeze of lemon and shavings of pecorino. If you’re feeling fancy, a dollop of plain yoghurt and lashings of parsley and lemon zest will take it up a stratosphere.

Feeding fussy children can feel about as easy as pushing socks through a keyhole. Yep. Being a carer, a school teacher, a full-time cook and a Lego engineer is not enough. We also need to be a magician. We’re hiding a cargo of goodness behind this cheesy macaroni sauce, and no one will ever know. Eat your heart out, Copperfield!  

The key ingredient is cauliflower, which blends into an outrageously smooth sauce in the absence of cream. I add ground turmeric for extra colour and antioxidant dance moves.

The elbow pasta shapes associated with traditional macaroni is an important stealth factor in securing approval ratings here, if you feel you need it. And a side of Parmesan or cheddar to top. But don’t just reserve this for kids. I thrive on this meal for a WFH lunch. Plus, it freezes beautifully in individual portions.

for 6-8 portions:

1 large brown onion, or 2 small

2-4 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon butter or extra virgin olive oil

1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

400ml water or home made chicken broth (full of collagen)

1/2 large head (or 1 small head) cauliflower, chopped

125g cheddar cheese

Macaroni pasta, to serve

Peel and chop your onion and garlic. Set aside. 

In a large lidded saucepan, warm your preferred fat and sauté your chopped onion for 10-15 minutes until glassy and soft. Now stir in the garlic and turmeric, sautéing for a further 5 minutes being careful the garlic doesn’t colour (as it turns bitter when browned).

Add the water/stock and cauliflower chunks, turn up the heat, and boil for 10 minutes or until the cauli is cooked through. You may be tempted to add more water – but don’t! The less water/stock, the better. This sauce is best thick and creamy, not runny and drippy.

Once cool enough to handle, puree everything into a luscious smooth sauce all-the-while being careful not to burn yourself with splashes. A blender is perfect, or a soup gun. Once silky smooth, return your macaroni sauce to the pan and add as much cheddar as you fancy. 

Stir through your cooked macaroni pasta and serve hot. If you’re not eating right away, skip the pasta and freeze the sauce in individual portions instead.

Different pastas to try:

We love the chickpea and wholewheat fusilli by organic Irish company Bunalun, which grabs onto sauce. I’ve only ever spotted it in Supervalu and Dunnes Stores nationwide.

Another one to watch for is the 100% buckwheat fusilli available in savvy delis and health food stores around the country. My boys love it.

Freee (formally Dove’s Farm) do a brilliant 100% brown rice penne pasta that the whole family adores. 

Soba noodles can be found in all major supermarkets now (mainly made from buckwheat flour). Another Supervalu treasure is the red lentil lenticchie by a fancy Italian company called RUMMO. This is hands down our favourite. Rummo have plenty of other awesome pasta shapes in a variety of cereals, not just wheat. It’s also worth looking online with bulk stores such as The Source Bulk or Pax Wholefoods, for cheaper, GF, zero-plastic varieties if you eat a lot of pasta. (FYI I’m doing a giveaway this week for Pax Wholefoods stores over on my Instagram account @susanjanekitchen . Win a voucher for you and a friend – delivery all around Ireland).