Here we are with our second recipe dedicated to leftover beans. After a light and rapid bean soup, it’s time to try a strong and flavorful dish that you can use either as a side dish and as a second course to all intents and purposes. Maybe you won’t wait for leftover beans but you will cook beans just to make this dish, once tried. Have you ever heard of beans uccelletto style?

The name is due to Pellegrino Artusi, who named those beans after the kind of cooking they require, since they need the same ingredients (sage leaves, garlic and olive oil) as little game birds (uccelletto in Italian). We add sausages to make them really tasty, as they were always at disposal in farmers houses.

Ingredients:

• Beans
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Sage leaves
• Pork sausages
• Tomato sauce
• Garlic
• Salt and Pepper

As you can easily see, these are the same ingredients we used last week to make bean soup but the sausages. As last week, I won’t give you quantities, it all depends on how many leftover boiled beans you have.

Heat in a large saucepan a few tablespoons of olive oil with a clove of garlic (don’t peel it) and some leaves of sage. When the garlic has flavored the olive oil and sage leaves are crispy, remove the garlic and pour in beans with some spoonfuls of their cooking water, add a few tablespoons of tomato sauce to redden beans. Season with salt and pepper.

Bring to a simmer and let cook for half an hour or so, then add sausages without the external skin and keep on cooking until sausages are completely cooked through.

Serve hot with some toasted slices of Tuscan bread to dip into the sauce and eat sausages!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: beans ‘all’uccelletto’

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In my family there are few strict rules that should be respected as law:

1. don’t oversleep in the morning;
2. during dinner, no cartoons! News channel or chat among us;
3. cook beans with sage, chickpeas with rosemary.

If you ask mum why beans & sage and chickpeas & rosemary, she will tell you it’s always been so! Granddad Remigio used to make this coupling, Grandma Menna still does so.

Tuscan people really love beans: in every restaurant, from posh ones to cheap ones, from genuine taverns to touristic places, you’ll find beans as side dish. Beans and pulses in general are easy to recycle in other dishes, so today I’ll show you a good way to use leftover beans. Next week, another solution!

::::: BEAN SOUP :::::

Ingredients:

• Beans
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Sage
• Tomato sauce
• Garlic
• Salt and pepper

I won’t give you quantities, as you can make this recipe by sight.

Puree boiled beans. You can use an electric blender or a classic vegetable mill: if you are making a soup for a child, it’s better if you use a vegetable mill as, doing so, you won’t incorporate air into the soup and you will avoid the risk to cause colics to this poor child. You can help yourself pureeing beans with some cooking water, according to the density you prefer.

Heat a few tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a saucepan with some sage leaves and a clove of garlic. When the garlic is golden and has given its flavor to the olive oil, pour in pureed beans into the pan and add 2 tablespoons of tomato sauce: your beans will be pretty pink!

Season with salt and pepper and bring to a simmer. Let cook until beans will be flavored by olive oil and garlic and tomato will loose its raw taste. You can eat bean soup as it is, or you can boil short pasta in it, rice or spelt (I prefer spelt!).

If you have leftover bean soup, fill up plastic bottles (not to their maximum capacity, otherwise they will explode into the freezer) and freeze them. When you’ll feel like bean soup, thaw it and it will be ready to warm you during next autumnal evenings.

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: bean soup

You should be interested also in:

1. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: beans ‘all’uccelletto’
2. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: bread soup
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This is a quick appetizer I made yesterday to celebrate Grandma’s birthday (she was born on the 16th, but are taking it easy!). It’s a fusion finger food: on one hand, you have a tuscan background, due to chickpeas flavoured with garlic and rosmary, on the other hand you have an oriental hint, thanks to cumin and tahine, which reminds you of Indian side dishes.

I used an home made bread to serve, flavoured with cumin, sesame seeds, poppy seeds and pine seeds.

Ingredients:

• precooked canned chickpeas, 250 gr drained
• rosmary, 1 spring
• garlic, 1 clove
• cumin, 1 teaspoon
• tahina, 2 teaspoons
• extra-virgin olive oil
• salt & pepper

Heat 2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil in a small sausepan with a garlic clove and a rosmary spring. When the garlic is well coloured and golden, drain chickpeas and pour them in with a few tablespoons of their water. Season with salt, pepper and cumin. Let cook for 5 minutes, stirring frequently to avoid them to stick to the pan.

Remove from the heat and remove garlic and rosmary. Add 2 teaspoons of tahine and blend thoroughly. The paté is ready to be spread on bread croutons or to be served with bread sticks.

My bread was made with a bread machine – yay! finally we get it! – so here you have all the ingredients for a big loaf of spiced bread:

Ingrediens for a cumin and seeds bread:

• plain flour “0”, 275 gr
• wholemeal flour, 225 gr
• warm water, 325 ml
• extra-virgin olive oil, 1 tablespoon
• ornage honey, 10 gr
• fresh yeast, 15 gr
• poppy seeds, 10 gr
• sesame seeds, 50 gr
• pine seeds, 15 gr
• ground cumin, 1 teaspoon
• salt, 5 gr

Quick baking (2h e 20). Dark crust.

Cumin smell is very strong. I had 2 slices of this bread for breakfast with plum jam… I know, it is a very unusual coupling, but – believe me – it was delicious!

Post di: Juls' Kitchen

Chickpeas and cumin paté

You should be interested also in:

1. Grandma Menna’s Kitchen: bean soup