I was recently talking (er, emailing) with a friend back home about how November is second-worst month of the year. Top spot of course goes to January, the harbinger of seemingly-endless dreary weather and a depressing post-holiday funk. But November is right up there; the prettiness of early Autumn is gone, the rain is almost constant, and as my friend put it, “each day is colder and darker than the last”. Yup, that about sums it up.

If you ask me, the one redeeming quality of November is soup. Dark and dreary days and perfect for hearty, warming soups. Whether creamy, brothy or thick and chunky, a good soup almost always hits the spot. I say “almost” because Andrew doesn’t always agree; for him, some soups aren’t filling enough to be considered dinner fare. However a certain subset, the stew-like soup, can be counted on in these times of need.

One of my favourites is a classic Tuscan-style Ribollita. Meaning “re-boiled”, this peasant staple was traditionally made by re-heating the previous day’s minestrone, adding other leftovers, and serving with bread and cheese. There are countless variations on the recipe, but almost all include a mirepoix base, cannellini beans, tomatoes and a good dose of parmesan cheese on top. Anything you add in addition to that only makes it better; I’ve put everything from bits of steamed veg to leftover rice and pasta in mine. To make it more of a meal, I like my Ribollita with some thick country bread. The choice of white or wholewheat is up to you, as is how to serve it; some recipes call for chunks of day-old bread to be stirred into the soup before serving, and some specify that it should be ladled over the bread in the bowls.

This recipe make four generous servings. Unfortunately, Andrew wasn’t in a “soup for dinner” mood the day I made this, but really that works out best for me, anyway. For the next four days, I was able to inject a little bit of Tuscan summer into my November lunchtime.

• Ribollita
• adapted from The Silver Spoon
• serves 4
• 2 Tbs. olive oil
  1 large onion, finely chopped
  2 carrots, peeled and finely chopped
  1 celery stick, finely chopped
  1 garlic clove, finely sliced
  1 bay leaf
  1 spring thyme leaves
  1 Tbs. tomato paste
  2 small potatoes, peeled and in 1/2″ chunks
  1 x 400g can cannellini beans
  1 x 400g chopped tomatoes
  1-2 cups stock (optional- water is fine, too)
  3 cups (packed) roughly chopped curly kale
  sea salt and black pepper
  thick country bread, for serving
  parmesan cheese, for serving
• 1. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan with a lid (I use a Dutch oven). Add the onions, carrots and celery and turn the heat down to low. Cover and sweat the vegetables for 8-10 minutes, until soft and translucent but not coloured.
  
  2. Add the garlic, bay leaf, thyme and tomato paste and stir well. Cook for another minute or two, until very fragrant. Add the chopped potatoes, cannellini beans, and tomatoes. Pour in a little extra stock or water, so that the vegetables are just covered. Bring to the boil, add the kale and turn down the heat so the soup barely simmers. Cover tightly and simmer for 40 minutes to 1 hour (timing doesn’t need to be exact here), stirring occasionally and adding more stock/water when necessary. When all the veg are tender to the point of a knife, season to taste.
  
  3. When you’re ready to serve the soup, place thick slices of bread (buttered, if you’re so inclined) in the bottom of the bowls. Ladle over the very hot soup and let it cool for 5 minutes, so that the bread softens. Serve sprinkled with parmesan cheese.

Are you a fiddler? Because I definitely am. No, I’m not coming clean about my ADD or professing some kind of musical gift, rather I’m talking about recipe fiddling. That insatiable urge to tamper, alter or tweak a new recipe into submission, before you’ve even got a chance to know each other. I hear that there are people out there who don’t do this. Have read that some cooks like to make a dish as written, particularly on a first attempt. Are you one of these people? If so, please speak up, because I’m longing to know how on earth you do it.

The other day I mentioned that I was dying to try Orangette‘s Cream-Braised Brussels Sprouts, and it’s true. This recipe has been on my mental to-make list for months, if not years. However it seems like Brussels sprouts and cream are opposing forces in my house; fate seems to ensure that I never have both in the fridge at the same time. But lo and behold, I recently found myself possessed of both sprouts and cream, as well as a desire to eat. So what did I do?

Why, I fiddled of course. I decided that instead of listening to fate, instead of heeding Molly’s advice or the advice of the 60+ positive comments on her post, I was going to make this dish different. Better, even. Instead of cream, I’d use coconut milk! Instead of butter, olive oil and toasted cumin seeds. While we’re at it, why not throw some cannellini beans in there, as well? (Regular readers know this is a favourite meal-maker of mine.)

And yes, it was delicious. And yes, more filling (with a side of brown rice) than the original would have been. But now I still haven’t made the Cream-Braised Brussels Sprouts, and I’ve got another recipe with which to distract me from them. See where fiddling gets you?

• Coconut-braised Sprouts with Cannellini Beans
• adapted from Cream-Braised Brussels Sprouts from Orangette
• serves 2 as a main
• 3/4 tsp. cumin seeds
  1 Tbs. olive oil
  200g washed, trimmed and halved Brussels sprouts
  1 1/2 cups coconut milk
  1 x 400g can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
  1 Tbs. lemon juice
  dash soy sauce
  sea salt and black pepper, to taste
  2 Tbs. finely chopped cashews (optional)
  2 Tbs. desiccated unsweetened coconut
• 1. Heat a heavy-bottomed pan over high heat and add the cumin seeds. Shake and toast the seeds for about 30 seconds until very fragrant. Add olive oil and allow to coat the bottom of the pan.
  
  2. Add the sprouts to the pan and cook for 4-5 minutes, tossing a couple times to ensure some nice browning. Pour in the coconut milk, turn the heat to low and cover. Cook for 15 minutes before adding the cannellini beans, then continue to cook for another 10 to 15 minutes.
  
  3. Remove the pan from the heat and stir; the coconut milk will have reduced to a thick, golden sauce by now. Stir in the lemon juice and soy sauce, and season to taste. Serve, with the cashew/coconut topping, if using.
  
  4. To make the topping, heat a small pan over very high heat and add the chopped cashews. As soon as they start to brown, add the coconut and toast everything together, keeping the pan moving, for another 30 seconds or so.

In the wee hours of this morning, a simultaneously mundane and exciting event occurred where I love. Mundane to a Canuck like me, but exciting to millions of Londoners who rarely witness such an event. Yup, it snowed. It was just past midnight when Andrew arrived home from a work party; I was asleep, but he saw fit to wake me, knowing that I’d love the sight of huge, fluffy snowflakes being blown horizontally through the village streets by ferocious winds.

I was even more thrilled when I awoke this morning, to see that the snow was still there (it’s normally gone within the hour around here). The day had dawned cold, crisp and bright to match the white blanket now covering the village. A perfect kind of day for buying a Christmas tree (check), baking cookies (check) and decorating the flat with a glass of wine in hand (I’m working on it).

Which brings me to the point of today’s post: what to eat for lunch on a day like this? Luckily for us, I had some perfectly appropriate leftovers at hand, of a dish I scrounged together earlier in the week. Readers, I’m about to make a somewhat bold statement.

This might just be the Most Delicious Thing I’ve ever made from Crap I Found in my Fridge and Cupboards.

True story.

A winter spin on my standby Greens and Beans formula, this dish pairs cabbage with cannellini beans and three types of tomato- paste, sundried, and canned. I know it might do more for my kitchen cred to have “fresh” on that list, but how often do you have fresh tomatoes lying around in the winter, really? This dish can be made from the stuff that’s likely hanging out in your kitchen right now.

More importantly, it tastes delicious: sweet from the tomato paste, salty from the sundried tomatoes and bright from the chopped ones. The cabbage becomes wonderfully tender and the beans add bulk. Served piping hot and covered with copious amounts of parmesan, this isn’t so much food you want to eat as shovel into your mouth. But don’t feel bad; on days like this, we all need a little home-cooked comfort.

• Triple-Tomato Cabbage and Cannellini Beans
• serves 4 as a main
• 8 sundried tomatoes (the dry kind, not packed in oil)
  3 Tbs. olive oil
  1/2 a yellow onion, finely chopped
  2 garlic cloves, minced
  1/2 tsp. chili flakes
  1 Tbs. concentrated tomato paste
  1 small green cabbage, cored and shredded
  1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes
  2 cups previously cooked cannellini beans (or 2 x 400g cans, rinsed and drained)
  sea salt and black pepper
  parmesan cheese, to serve
• 1. Roughly chop the sundried tomatoes and place in a small bowl. Pour over boiling water from the kettle until just covering, then cover with a plate and allow to soften.
  
  2. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. When it’s hot add the onions and garlic and cook until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove the sundried tomatoes from their soaking bowl and add to the onions (reserve the tomato water). Also add the chili flakes and tomato paste and cook for 2 more minutes.
  
  3. Add the cabbage to the pot and stir to coat everything well. Pour in the reserved tomato water and cover the pot; this will help the cabbage wilt faster, so everything else can fit it! Allow to cook for 5-10 minutes, but check frequently to stir and make sure nothing is sticking.
  
  4. Add the chopped tomatoes and cannellini beans to the pot and stir to combine. If the mixture seems too dry, add a bit of water from the kettle to keep it stew-y. Cook for another 10 minutes or so, until the flavours have melded and the cabbage is very tender. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve immediately, with parmesan cheese if you like.

I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon hemming a dress. You’d think that such a simple task wouldn’t take anywhere near that long, particularly when performed by someone who used to spend as much time sewing as I did. During university, I once sewed for approximately 48 hours straight without so much as a ten-minute nap, and I’m pretty sure I got more done than dress hems. (Possibly not, though; the lack of sleep means my memories of this time in my life are fuzzy at best.)

This dress, however, was one of those difficult jobs with a back vent, a lining, three separate fused sections and that horrible silk fabric that shows every single wayward stitch or press mark. Honestly, it made me realize why I left the fashion industry in the first place: my impatient nature probably makes me more suited to food, anyway.

Plus, I wasn’t just hemming a dress; I was making soup. Turns out sewing and cooking are surprisingly good partners. You sew a seam, add some seasoning. Fuse some panels, chop some greens. Do a little hand stitching while the broth simmers- you get the idea.

The soup and the dress are actually linked, and not just in the sense of yesterday’s activities. See, I’m wearing the dress to a friend’s wedding in two weeks. Myself being short of stature, it falls a bit long on me: hence the hemming. The dress being quite slim-fitting, I need too make sure it actually fits me on the day: hence the soup.

I’m definitely not one to “diet” in a traditional sense. The very idea of depravation sends me into uncontrollable cravings of said item. But I figured I will have to stand, sit, eat and dance in this thing for several hours (and long into the night, if we’re lucky), so it wouldn’t hurt to sub a few pastas with soups, right?

Luckily, Autumn is perfect soup season. It’s not quite cold enough to want the rib-sticking curries and roasted veg of winter, but chilly enough to crave something to keep your hands and belly warm. Enter the soup: steaming, filling and undeniably healthy. This one uses some of my favourite cold-weather flavours of beans, kale and fresh rosemary. All in all, a perfect fit for Fall.

• Cannellini Bean and Kale Soup
• serves 4-6
• 1 cup dried cannellini beans
  3 Tbs. olive oil
  1 large onion, finely chopped
  2 medium carrots, chopped
  2 sticks celery, chopped
  4 garlic cloves, minced
  1 tsp. fresh rosemary, minced
  1 cup passatta, or chopped canned tomatoes
  2 litres vegetable stock
  1 parmesan rind (optional)
  several large handfuls kale, stems discarded and leaves chopped roughly
  salt and pepper to taste
  parmesan, feta or other cheese, to serve
• 1. Put the beans in a large saucepan and cover with 2 inches of cold water. Bring to the boil and cook rapidly for 2 minutes; remove from heat, cover and let sit for 2 hours.
  
  2. Heat the olive oil over medium-low heat in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add the onion, carrots and celery, cover the pan, and cook over very low heat, stirring occasionally. After 10 minutes, add the garlic and rosemary, and continue cooking for another 5. The vegetables should soften but not colour.
  
  3. Drain the soaking beans and add them, with the passatta or chopped tomatoes, to the vegetables. Cover with the stock and leave to simmer for 1 hour. (If you have any parmesan rinds in your freezer, now is the time to throw one in.)
  
  4. Taste one of the beans; it should be just starting to become tender. If so, add the chopped kale, pushing it down beneath the surface of the soup. Simmer everything together for another 30 minutes until the beans and kale are both tender. Salt and pepper to taste, and serve with some crumbled or grated cheese on top.
  

For a vegetarian, greens and beans are classic meal fixin’s. So is pasta of course, but we’re always being made to feel guilty for eating too much pasta, aren’t we? “It’s just useless carbs and empty calories” I’ll read, or “Once you become a vegetarian you’ll just eat pasta all the time” someone will tell me. Well, given that I’m Italian at heart, I would love to eat pasta every day, but I know better. So when I went veg early last year, I told myself I’d try to put aside those evil, empty carbs and get some greens n’ beans in me instead. At least part of the time.

The beans I was already on board with. I’m a self-confessed legume lover: lentils, chickpeas, beans small and large, I’ll take ‘em all. I like them in soups, curries, cold salads, warm salads- I even like them with pasta, for heaven’s sake! In fact, I just might like beans more than pasta. (Don’t tell my countrymen, okay?)

It’s the greens that I knew I’d struggle with, particularly my leafy greens. I’ve never really been a salad girl, and despite my parents’ best efforts, I didn’t eat much from this family as a kid. I loved plenty of other vegetables (broccoli is a lifelong favourite), but leafy greens always seemed so boring. So when I became a vegetarian, I knew I had some work to do. Back then (and somewhat pathetically), my repertoire didn’t extend much past spinach, but I’m happy to say that I’ve been gradually educating myself. 

Swiss Chard is one green that I’m still getting to know, and it’s taken me some time. I noticed it at the market last year, but didn’t buy any until recently. Whether this is because I was intimidated by the brightly-coloured stems, or because my internet searches revealed nothing more inspiring than “it’s good sautéed”, I’m not sure. I’ve only cooked with it a few times, but I’m already loving the earthy, sweet taste.

The bunch of chard I bought this week was destined to be my lunch; I’m still working on convincing Andrew of the merits of greens and beans. I was thinking of making this soup, but when it came to it, I thought a simple sautée would be quicker and easier. Hmm- does this make me an official Chard fan?

Any white bean would work in this recipe. I used cannellini, but navy, great northern or even chickpeas would be delicious, too. I ate this dish on its own, but I bet it would be great a little soupier (just add more water) with some crusty bread, or even over pasta if you missed the empty carbs. 

• Swiss Chard with Cannellini Beans
• serves 3
• 1 head Swiss Chard
  3 Tbs. olive oil
  1 Tbs. tomato paste
  1/2 tsp. chili flakes
  2 garlic cloves, minced
  2 X 400g cans of cannellini beans, OR
  3 cups soaked and previously cooked dried beans
  1/2 cup stock or water (reserved from cooking the beans, if possible)
  sea salt and black pepper
• 1. Trim the very bottoms of the swiss chard stems and discard. Cut the stems into 1 1/2″-sections, and roughly chop the leaves. Rinse well and set aside, keeping the stems and leaves separate. 
  
  2. Heat the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pan over medium heat. When hot, add the chards stems and sautée for 2-3 minutes. Add the tomato paste, garlic and chili flakes and cook for another minute. 
  
  3. Turn the heat down to medium-low and add the beans and chard leaves. Pour in the water or stock, add a good pinch of salt, and cover. Let cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until tender. (This can easily be adapted to your liking: if you want it soupier, add more water. If you like it drier, remove the lid and let the moisture cook off.) 
  
  4. When the leaves are cooked and the stems are tender, remove from heat. Salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.