As in Castelnaudary, I make mine with pork rind/fat, pork sausage, garlic and beans as the main ingredients.  I do sometimes use confit d’oie (goose or duck confit), but then I stick to a more traditional format.  This time I’ve gone goose free and added a selection of garden veg and tomatoes instead.

If you are using dried beans you will need

• about 600g of white beans. 
• Soak them overnight then discard the water.
• Put the beans in a large pot with 2 litres of water
• a large peeled onion with a clove embedded in it
• 2 whole peeled carrots
• 2 whole crushed garlic cloves
• a bay leaf
• 2 tomatoes, peeled and chopped

Bring to the boil and cook until the beans are tender (around 1 1/2 – 2 hours)

Alternatively, you can use a tin of organic haricot or kidney beans.

For the rest:

Soften 2 onions (chunkily chopped) in a little olive oil. 

When they are translucent add 3 large cloves of garlic, 2 chopped and one whole.  Allow to colour slightly.

Add 1/2 cup finely chopped celery, including the tender inner leaves, and soften

Add 1 large tin of whole peeled plum tomatoes, or 6 large peeled and seeded fresh tomatoes.

Add 2 large peeled and chopped carrots, or a small bunch of baby carrots (these you can leave unpeeled)

A bouguet garni or a couple of fresh bay leaves would be good now too.

Add your cooked or tinned (drained ) beans in a layer on top and season generously.

Top up with 2 cups of boiling water, bring the whole mix to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for  1 1/2 – 2 hours.

Rub an oven proof casserole dish with a clove of garlic, then 

Add 4-6 fresh pork sausages and allow to brown.

Add the rest of your ingredients to the pot, with a touch more water if you feel it is necessary.

Put a lid on your pot and cook in the oven on low heat (around 120*C) for a further hour – 1 1/2 hours, checking and stirring occasionally.

Serve with fresh chopped herbs and plenty of fresh ground sea salt and pepper.

Enjoy

One of the surest signs of my peasant ancestry is my absolute love of stews.  Call it what you will - cassoulet, ragout, chunky soups, potroasts; chuck it all in one pan and slow cook it till all the flavours have melded, the juice is viscous  and the individual ingredients are on the verge of total disintegration, and I’m a happy girl. 

My nephew calls it cowboy food but his version is a little different to mine.  He just throws everything he can find in the fridge or store cupboard in a pot and cooks it up.  I like to think I put a little more thought into mine.  Essentially though, they are almost the same.  Any odds and ends of veggies and herbs can go in and often do, root veggies being a favourite as they really lend themselves to slow cooking.

Another thing that lends itself to slow cooking is an old African favourite, the ’straw cooker’ more recently re-invented as the Hot Box.  It’s a simple principle really, start your meal off in a pot, brown and flavour your ingredients, add a little liquid, close the lid tightly, then insulate the pot in a hot box, and leave it to slow cook overnight or through the day. 

You can buy hotboxes all over Cape Town, and as well as being great for old-fashioned slow cooking , they are real energy savers.  I know people who are evangelical about them and think they are the answer to global warming. 

More immediately relevant  though, they are an ideal answer to the power shortages the Cape experiences every winter.  You can start your oats off the night before, leave them in the hotbox overnight, and wake up to hot porridge in the morning.  An extra 15 minutes to prep some onions, veg and some lamb neck, or stewing steak  in the morning, and your children can come home to a hot, nutritous meal after school. 

The value of this becomes clear when you think that a vast majority of Cape women are  sole bread winners for their families.  These women travel long distances to their jobs,  extending their working day to over 12 hours in some cases, so the children have to sort themselves out when they come home from school.  A hot meal filled with all the vitamins and minerals retained by the slow cooker method is a real godsend.  And of course there is the added advantage of reducing the risk of fire, as no heat source is required after the initial 20 minutes or so.  No going out and leaving your slow cooker plugged in.  No leaving pots simmering on the stove.  Actually, I think I am waxing evangelical about them myself.  A hotbox is definitely on my list of things to bring back from Africa.  Who needs an AGA?

But back to the food.  It’s difficult to get a picture of soup or stew that truly does justice to the dish.  Pictures are so visual, and lets face it , a whole bunch of things cooked together for several hours is almost always going to turn out in various shades of brown.  But close your eyes and remember for a moment curling cold hands around a deep bowl of warm winter food ; the heavenly smell wafting up, the depth of flavour always inherent in slow cooked food…Are you salivating yet?  I am. 

The dish pictured above is my version of Cassoulet.  Being French only by dint of long-distant nomadic ancestors, anything from my repertoire with a French flavour has been corrupted by the influences of the countries and cultures encountered in their (and my) journeys.  A Frenchman might immediately notice the lack of pork belly, so feel free to add some if you wish, and this version has no crusty bread crumb blanket, so go ahead and include that too if you’re feeling traditional.  Some might argue about the necessity for tomatoes, but that, I think , is a regional thing in France so I am still within the bounds of a cassoulet there.  Others may note the lack of goose in this recipe, once again my defence is that this recipe is as French as I am, which is to say partly, mixed in with Dutch, English, Irish, Scottish, Polish, Jewish and Malay…

Basically I just browned some onions and homemade sausages (which I will post about at a later date), threw in a load of veggies from the garden, topped it up with tinned tomatoes and beans, and left it to slow-cook its way to perfection.  If you require a more precise recipe, I’ve posted one straight to the Vanielje Kitchen Cook Book (VKCB) in the sidebar.

I’m was going to enter this dish into My Legume Love Affair (MLLA), started by Susan, The Well Seasoned Cook.  I’ve never joined this popular event before.  I don’t know why, I love legumes!  This 12th edition is hosted by Annarasa, who has a beautiful blog, and unfortunately (for me) she is restricting the event to vegetarian recipes.  So I guess I will have to join another round, but this event always draws a good crowd so mark her blog down and check out her roundup at the end of the month.  It should be well worth it.

Seasonal eating, normally such a pleasure in the Somerset countryside, is proving a little disappointing this month. Hold on, that’s not entirely true. I think it is just a little disappointing as my head and heart are still weighted down and groaning with the feast of last summer’s bounty, and the lack is not actual, just comparative.

The fact that this summer seems to be a little hesitant about making an appearance and this last week we seem to have gone straight to late autumn has me a trifle anxious. Generally I love each season. The acid green newness of Spring, the lazy, bee-buzzing air of the kitchen garden laden with promise in mid-summer, the late summer apple harvest with fresh pressed apple juice martinis lubricating the long, light evenings, and the first chill rains of Autumn, giving me an excuse to slow cook one of the pot roasts or stews I love so much.

The anxiety comes from feeling that I have only just sat down to the summer course, I have barely tasted it and the overzealous waiter is whipping it away to replace it with early Autumn. Wait! I’m not done! My appetite is barely whetted, let alone sated. And when it comes to food I’m afraid I’m far too greedy to sit back calmly and politely pronounce that I’ve had an elegant sufficiency.

I want my summer course and I want all of it. In fact, I want seconds. So when I saw some asparagus at the market I pounced on it. No it was not local, but at least it was English. And Suffolk is not so VERY far away. I brought it home and made one of my favourite summer meals: Steamed asparagus on toasted olive sourdough, with poached egg and a fresh basil aioli.

The ‘happy eggs’ so dubbed by my daughter because they are double-yolkers from the free range chickens belonging to her schoolteacher’s in-laws. Still confused? Well the chickens must be happy to keep producing double yolks mom! It’s like a present for us. Happy eggs from happy chickens. And the little bit of sunshine that lit up my kitchen when we sat down to this meal certainly made me a happy woman. Or it may have been the sublime combo of garlic, basil, slightly crunchy asparagus and the perfectly poached egg yolk blanketing the whole…

For the recipe check here, and I hope you are getting a little summer sunshine wherever you are.

It seems the very air I breath is permeated with wild garlic this week. Wild garlic or ramsons is similar to ramps, or wild leeks, both belonging to the allium family. Like ramps they grow anywhere moist and shady, like damp woods, stream banks etc. They do have a bulb which is edible, but it is small and finicky to harvest, with the bulb only being ready after about 3 seasons. The flowers are also edible, but much stronger than the leaves, making a few flowers a pretty and flavourful addition to robust summer salads. It is the leaves though, which are most sought after. Easy to harvest and prepare, and absolutely delicious.

I have a feeling that I am going slightly overboard with my wild garlic obsession, as my mom has just told me about an email she received from my daughter yesterday, where Dakota writes: ‘… I’m taking it easy on the garlic, but mom, ohhh!!!!, she can’t keep her hands off it!!!!!’ Even as I admit this I am writing about last night’s dinner and planning something for today, incorporating, you guessed it, wild garlic. I only hope the season is not over before I get through all the dishes I want to make.

Last night I made a real locavore’s salad of freshly dug new season potatoes, steamed Somerset asparagus and freshly foraged wild garlic. A little shaved parmesan and some hot lemon butter to finish it off and I officially pronounced it – Fabulous Dah-ling!

And for those of you who don’t know what wild garlic looks like, where to find it, or what bits to pick, here is a pictorial aid.

…slightly chive like, with white flower heads and bright green spearhead shaped leaves

…moist woods, and other damp areas such as stream banks

…tear off the leaves just above the stem (for regrowth) or snap off at the stem.

And if these clues don’t help, just follow the smell, it will guide you.

For the recipe for my Bashed new potato and wilted ramson salad with new season asparagus and lemon butter please click here or check out the Vanielje Kitchen Cook Book (vkcb) in the sidebar.

This is my entry for Andrea’s Grow Your Own event. I checked with her and wild garlic comes under the Hunter / gatherer clause apparently, so my entry is legit. It’s good to be back cooking with homegrown seasonal produce, so thank you summer and than you Andrea for a great event.

• Wash your freshly dug (or freshly purchased) new potatoes, making sure all the soil is scrubbed off, but trying to keep some of the delicate and tasty skin intact.
• Place in a pan of cold salted water and bring to the boil.
• Cook for about 15-20 minutes until just soft
• In the last five minutes of cooking time place your asparagus in a steamer, or a pan with a little water in the bottom.
• Put the lid on and bring the water to the boil.
• Steam until just tender but still with a bite.
• Drain you potatoes and return them to the hot pan.
  
• Put the pan back on a low heat and shuffle them around for a minute to dry out.
• Bash them up a bit with a fork or the back of a large spoon. This opens them up to allow them to soak up the flavours of the butter and wild garlic.
• Add whole or shredded ramson leaves to the potatoe pan with a knob of butter and a little olive oil, as well as some seasoning.
• Swish it around until the butter melts and the ramsons wilt.
• Spoon the potato and wild garlic mix onto a plate.
• Drain the asparagus then return to the pan with a little butter, some fresh ground black pepper and a liberal squeeze of lemon juice.
• Lay the asparagus on top of your bashed potatoes and pour the lemon butter over the whole dish, allowing it to soak into the potatoes.
• Add some slivers of sweet red bell peppers, for colour and a little freshness.
• Season and shave over some parmesan.
• Enjoy!