Sausage and Bean Bake

This is what I made for tea last night, it was a new recipe and I was pleased with how it turned out. It takes a while, but it's not all hands and time, it tastes yummy and I found it very filling. There's also plenty of change to be flexible about the amount of different ingredients that you use, just adjust to taste.

You need: (for 1 person)

• 1/2 an onion


• 2 sausages


• 1/2 a small tin of butterbeans


• 1/4 of a 400g can chopped tomatoes


• 200ml Chicken stock


• Frozen veg


• 50g self-rasing flour


• 20g butter/margarine


• Teaspoon of dried herbs (I used oregano)


• Splash of milk

Here's what you do...

• Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 6 (180C)


• Soften the onions in a little bit of oil (for about 3 minutes) before adding the sausages and frying until the sausages are cooked and the onions are soft.


• Pour in the tomato and stock, then bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes (put the lid on if it's getting too dry)


• Stir the drained butterbeans and enough frozen veg to keep you happy, then put into your ovenproof dish


• Put the flour into a bowl and mix in the butter using your fingertips until you have fine breadcrums, then stir in the herbs and add enough milk until it comes together.


• Put dollops of the mixuture on top of the tomato sauce, then put in the over and cook for 25 minutes


• Enjoy

Hope you like it. You could use bacon instead of sausage, and if you want to make it vegetarian, then maybe put some more beans in.

Party Time!

It was my birthday recently (yes, I had a Winnie the Pooh table cloth and, no, I'm not 5), a fairly simple affair but I had a good day and everyone was nice to me. :-). For tea, it was just my mum, sister, brother and me (Dad was at work) so I made the pictured party tea (or 'buffet' if you're feeling slightly posher), anyway it was simple to make and (we thought) rather tasty, so I thought I'd share some of my ideas.

• Houmous with carrot sticks (this has become a small obsession of mine, but obviously you can have any dip. We had Lemon and Coriander Houmous and very nice it was too, you can dip other things depending on how healthy you want to feel - it is a party after all)
• Cocktail sausages (need I say more? These are essential in my opinion, we cheated and got ready cooked ones!)
• Quiche (again this was a cheat from the shops, but it was very good)
• Mini jacket potatoes (so cute! And I needed to think of some more filling items as most of my family had been at work/school so only had sandwiches for lunch. There are a million and one fillings you can use for jacket potatoes, but I mixed a bit of creme fraiche with some chives (mine were dried) and a tiny bit of lemon juice, which made a nice change).
• French bread pizza (I cut rounds from french bread, spread reasonably generously with tomato puree, and then put cheese and ham on the top before putting under the grill. The cheese wasn't very coloured because the bread started to burn, but they tasted really good).
• Pesto pasta (very simple - cook some pasta and then stir in red pesto to taste, serve warm or cold)
• We also had bread and butter, kettle chips and pom bear (another essential part food) and then some grapes and party rings before we had cake later in the evening.

Well, I hope that was interesting and gave you some ideas. Nothing is that spectacular, but sometimes it just takes a simple idea to help you ring the changes. I assembled all of this in 45 minutes, so it was very quick and easy (I wasn't working all the time). Also it sounds like a lot of food, but it was about right (and you can quickly make extra of most things if you need to)