Harissa Baked Beans, Sausages with Potatoes, Onion & Rosemary & Mustard Mayo' White Cabbage Slaw
3 dishes in one tasty meal combination - make them all together or bit by bit..
To say that I am excited to be sharing my first ever ‘Weekend Wonder: One Meal, Endless Flavour’ recipes would be a ridiculously understated understatement! Welcome, I really hope that you enjoy the recipes I am sharing here. This first edition is free to everyone who would like to view it and download the recipes. I have done this so that existing free subscribers and visitors can get an idea as to what I am up to. As of next week only paid subscribers will receive these weekly posts - when you get to the bottom of this newsletter there will be an option to subscribe if you would like to and you don’t already and you can upgrade or downgrade your subscription at any time.
Huge thanks to my newly joined paid subscribers and my newly upgraded to paid subscribers - your support of my work means such a lot. I have had a great time planning this and the next few issues, it would be a total dream to build a foundation income through doing this work.
This is all new, and while I have devised a format and done some nifty little headers on canva, it will evolve as we all chug along and I would really value your feedback...anything I could add that’s missing? Anything that’s long winded/unnecessary/mind boggling? You can share your feedback in the comments section below.
Sometimes the recipes will be one pot or one oven tray wonders. Sometimes they will be like this and involve more than one recipe. What you will find as you scroll along is:
Order Of Events - what to do first, when to cook what.
Recipe/s - with helpful ‘what it should look like’ pictures.
Recipe PDF - easy to download & print.
Simplify & Substitute - how can I speed this up, remove steps, lessen the ingredients, swap out the things I don’t eat or like?
Economise - tips and tricks for making the recipes more affordable.
Right, here we go - read on, enjoy and happy cooking!
Get that oven on - 200c or 180c fan.
Make the harissa - prep the potatoes & onions while the harissa ingredients are cooking OR make the harissa ahead of time, on a different day OR buy some harissa (see ‘simplify’ note below).
Prep’ the potatoes & onions and get them in the oven.
Pop all the bean ingredients in the tray & get them in the oven.
Make the ‘slaw when everything else is cooking.
Harissa
Makes about 400g
Ingredients
1 jar of roasted red peppers
2 red onions
8 cloves of garlic
6 whole fresh chillies
1/4 tsp each of cumin, coriander & caraway seeds, roasted & ground, 1/2 tbsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp tomato puree
Juice and zest of half a lemon
Equipment
Roasting Tray
Cutting board & sharp knife
Lemon juicer
Small heavy bottomed pan to toast spices in
Wooden spoon
Spice grinder or pestle & mortar
Food processor
Spatula
Jar or Tupperware for storage
Preheat your oven to 200c (180c fan)
Halve the red onion and cut them into quarters, leaving the peel on. Place in a large roasting tray with the whole red chillies, whole garlic cloves – don’t peel these either - the peel will protect the vegetables while they’re cooking. Drizzle with olive oil and roast in the oven for 35-45 minutes until everything is lightly charred. Once cooked remove from the oven and leave to cool.
While the onions are roasting you can toast and grind the whole spices. Heat a heavy bottomed pan on a medium heat and add the cumin, caraway & coriander to the pan, shaking the pan regularly so that the seeds don’t catch. Once you can smell the spices, turn the heat down a little and stir the spices until they have darkened just a little and are really aromatic. Remove from the heat and set to one side to cool before grinding. Grind to a powder in an electric grinder or in a pestle and mortar.
Place the roasted onions, garlic (peeling as you go) and chillies (removing the stalks) into the bowl of a food processor with the chopping blade in place, add all the other ingredients including the ground spices.
Blitz the mixture until it has become a rough puree. Add salt to taste.
Store in a sterilised jam jar with a lid of olive oil over the paste, this will lengthen the life of the harissa paste as it stops any air reaching the paste which would allow bacteria to form. Keep in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.
Alternatively you can freeze the harissa - I like to freeze it in an ice cube tray as one cube or two is about the amount of harissa I like to add to things. Once the harissa is frozen, transfer the cubes into a ziplock bag or box.
Things to do with your Smoked Harissa:
Add it to mayonnaise or yoghurt to make a dip or salad accompaniment.
Use it in a dressing for salad, adding a teaspoon to oil & vinegar.
Create a marinade for meat or fish by mixing a tablespoon with some olive oil and lemon juice.
Add a dollop to pasta sauces, soups or stews to add an extra flavour hit.
There is a reel over on Instagram of this recipe click here to watch it.
Harissa Baked Beans
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
1 x 400g tin borlotti beans
1 x 400g tin haricot beans
400ml tomato passata
250g cherry tomatoes
3 tablespoons harissa
2 bay leaves
Salt & pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
Equipment
1 medium roasting tray
Baking parchment
Wooden spoon
Colander
Set your oven to 200c (180c fan).
Line your roasting tray with baking parchment (this isn’t essential but will make washing up much easier).
Drain both tins of beans into the colander & rinse under a cold tap before shaking off an y excess water and putting them in the lined roasting tray.
Add the passata, washed cherry tomatoes, bay leaves, harissa, season with salt & pepper & drizzle with roughly 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Use your wooden spoon to mix all of the ingredients together well before popping the tray in the oven.
Cook for 40 minutes, removing the tray from the oven halfway through to stir the contents.
Any left overs will keep for a couple of days in the fridge.
Sausages with Potatoes, Onions & Rosemary
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
8-12 sausages depending on appetite
700g potatoes - I like to use a waxy potato like Maris Piper
1 onion or 2 - 3 shallots
2 sprigs of rosemary
Olive oil
Salt & pepper
Equipment
Large roasting tray
Cutting board & sharp knife
Wash & dry the potatoes, leave the skins on, then cut them up into wedges along their length - you should get 4-6 wedges from each potato. Put them straight in the pan.
Leaving the peel on the onions cut them in half through the root end to the tip. Remove the skin but leave the root section intact - this will help the onion stay together while it’s roasting. Once peeled cut each half into quarters, again along the length through the root. Add them straight to the pan with the potatoes.
Season well with salt & pepper and drizzle with olive oil, stir to coat all the vegetables with oil.
Pop the tray in the hot oven and cook for 20 minutes - you want the potatoes and onions to start taking on some colour. Once they’re starting to brown a little, remove the tray from the oven, break up the rosemary sprigs and scatter them over the onions and potatoes, add the sausages on top. Return to the oven for a further 25-35 minutes until the sausages are nicely browned & cooked through.
Mustard Mayo White Cabbage Slaw
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
Small white cabbage
Small bag of rocket
100g mayonnaise
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
Salt & pepper
Equipment
Cutting board & sharp knife
Salad bowl & serving spoons
You can make the dressing straight in the bowl that you will be serving the ‘slaw from.
Put the mayonnaise, mustard, salt & pepper and olive oil into the bowl and beat together with a spoon until smooth and completely mixed together.
Gradually add the vinegar, you don’t want the dressing to split. Once all the vinegar is mixed in, add the lemon juice and mix well.
Chop the cabbage in half, carefully cut out the core and then slice the cabbage quite roughly into strips about 1cm wide.
Pop the cut cabbage & rocket into the bowl with the dressing and mix well together before serving.
Times given are for a standard sized butchers pork sausage. These can be swapped out for chicken/vegetarian/vegan sausages but this might alter the timings. The potatoes & onions need roughly 45 minutes in total. Check the cooking time on your packet of sausages & subtract that from 45 to give you an idea of when to add your sausages to the tray. EG your tofu sausages take 15 minutes, so add them after the potatoes have been cooking for 30 minutes.
You may already have a jar of Harissa. You may want to speed things up, if so buy a jar. Bear in mind that my harissa recipe is fairly mild as harissas go so perhaps add less and adjust according to taste later.
Forget the potatoes & onions - cook the sausages on their own for 10-12 minutes until lightly browned & then add all of the harissa baked bean ingredients (pre mixed and uncooked) to the sausage pan and cook for a further 40 minutes for a delicious sausage & bean casserole.
You can use any sort of tinned bean or pulse, just keep the quantities the same - you could use chickpeas or lentils, butter beans or kidney beans….
Leave out the sausage tray bake & add some diced chorizo or smoked tofu to the bean mixture before cooking it and serve with a crusty loaf & cheese.
Use dried beans rather than tinned. I often cook these up in my pressure cooker in batches and freeze them.
Use an airfryer rather than a conventional fan oven - I will be introducing airfryer & pressure cooker instructions in future.
Double up the beans - they freeze really well - so cook once and have twice as many!
This is ABOSLUTELY superb. What a find. I love what you're doing with the time and money elements. Can't wait to get going on it..