A few posts back, I mentioned the witchling’s sticky glee at discovering the world’s most staining substance – tomato, bean, and coconut soup – and Doc Witch asked about the recipe. So, with apologies for the delay, here it is. I tend to improvise the basic recipe, using whatever happens to be in the cupboard. So far, pretty much any variety of bean has worked well, and you can use fresh tomatoes if you happen to have some, though I would actually bother, for once, to take the skins off.

Tomato, bean and coconut soup
Get…
Two large onions;
A good handful of garlic cloves;
One or two tins of peeled plum tomatoes, depending on numbers and greed (needless to say, I used two);
As many beans as you think appropriate (I’ve used mung, azuki, black-eyed, haricot, and kidney);
A large spronkle of herbs;
A stockcube;
Either a tin of coconut milk (if you’re feeling in need of super-coconut vibes), or one of those natty blocks of coconut available in sachets (you’d be surprised how coconutty one of those little fellows can make a soup seem);
A pinch of saffron.

Then…
Chop and fry the onions and garlic in a sploosh of olive oil. Depart with cup of coffee for ‘quick sit-down’. Return, ten minutes later. Retrieve near-incinerated onions. Inspect. Decide passable if covered rapidly with other substances. Sling in tomatoes, beans and herbs. (If using tinned beans, stick the water in too; ditto tinned tomatoes.) Poke about suspiciously, wondering if burnt bits of onions will ever give in and sink to bottom. Speculate about nature of base of pan, never known for its non-stickyness anyway. Bung in stockcube, noting that brown bits can be attributed to its presence. Let unholy mixture simmer for about twenty minutes, before whacking in the coconut milk (or the rehydrated block). As saffron is stupidly expensive, reduce giant fistful retrieved from little pot to mere whisper, and chuck that in too. Poke about a bit more, and let the whole thing cook for another ten minutes or so. Add water if too sticky, or boil the buggery out of it if too wet. Take off heat, stick in blender (arming oneself with protective clothing; for some reason, this blighter stains like no-one’s business), and blend to heart’s content. Stick in bowl. Scoff.

A while before I mentioned this one, I asked for questions in the comments box, and then very rudely didn’t answer those of you dedicated enough to ask one. Sorry about that. I am rude and thoughtless; what can I say? But one of the questions is apt here – about cooking on woodstoves. The way it works for us is that our stove is lit pretty much all the time in the winter, as it’s our only source of heat, and we try to cook bits and bobs on it whenever possible because hey, it’s free, and it’s deeply and sickeningly green to do so. Largely, I use either the fantastic Picquot Ware kettle (which came to us from Quercus’s mother when she disposed of her heavenly red Aga) for boiling water, which it does in about three minutes flat when the stove is burning well, or the Le Creuset casseroles we were given when we got married (the brightness of the colours! the orange! the red!), as both have thick-ish bases and are pretty bomb-proof. Really, you need pans that are heavy and very flat on the bottom, or the heat is localised to the bits in proper contact. Anyway, we just whack things like casseroles on one side of the top of the stove, make sure it’s not about to achieve thermal lift-off anytime soon (like, we keep it to, say, 250°F; I’m giving it in Fahrenheit because I can’t remember the centigrade off the top of my head – we have a stove thermometer which indicates safe burning temperatures, i.e. not too chimney-fire-alert hot, and not too creosote-anyone?-cold, and I tend to look at that without checking the temperature in centigrade because the print on that side is smaller and I am lazy), and away you go. It’s best for things which take a long time, like, for example, meat which is tough as old bones unless cooked ALL DAY, or for things which take a while to dry out; a couple of Chrimblys ago, we had a good time drying orange slices over it, for example, though equally we have managed to cook bacon, sausages, and various other unlikely things over it, just by keeping a close eye on the progress. So there you go. One question answered.

Oh, and while I’m on a ‘I never do things I should do’ kick, AGES back, several people left me lovely comments offering me lovely award thingies for being generally lovely. That was lovely of you, if you are still reading, and I didn’t mean to completely overlook them – it’s just that my time in t’inter these days is greatly lower than it once was, and I forget quite frequently to do things I’ve been meaning to do for ages. I’m afraid that most things like memes, awardy-whatsits, and, you know, keeping my head together go by the wayside. I shall make an effort to be better in future. I promise. Honest. No, really.