Last Night’s Dinner: Leek, Wild Rice and Potato Cakes with Flageolet Beans in a Cider Cream Sauce

Sunday 15 May

It might not look like it, but this dish came about by wanting to use up various bits and pieces from the fridge and store cupboard. Potatoes about to go soft? Tick. Leeks starting to yellow? Tick. Half a packet of wild and basmati rice plus a few handfuls of flageolet beans malingering on the shelf. Tick and tick. A bottle of cider and half a tub of single cream with nothing better to do than throw themselves into a pan? No less.

Every now and again we love to make a savoury cake. They’re so easy and you can stuff all kinds of ingredients into them. To make these I boiled some rice and left it to cool, did the same with a few potatoes and then mashed them, and fried some finely chopped leeks in a little olive oil. Combine the ingredients together in a bowl with an egg and some salt and pepper, shape into cakes/patties. Fry them for a few minutes either side until they’re golden and they’re done.

I soaked the beans during the afternoon and then simmered them in plenty of water until they were tender. Drain, then add a glass of dry cider to the pan and an equal amount of cream and heat on a low setting for a few minutes. Season as necessary and add a little chopped parsley, dill or tarragon even. Serve with the cakes on top of a pile of beans.

Last Night’s Dinner: Butter beans, leeks and asparagus

Thursday 21 April

Last night’s concoction came about after staring long and hard at the contents of our weekly delivery from Abel & Cole and then leafing through some of our recipe books. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall suggests a white bean and leek salad, and this is an adaptation. A very simple spring supper.

To begin, soften the leeks in a large pan with some butter and olive oil. (I think we used to call this ‘frying’, but no one seems to advise ‘fry’ in recipes any more. You can soften, wilt or cook, but you can’t fry.) Then add two cans of butter beans. Season and cook for ten minutes until the beans take on a little colour. You can then boil, steam or grill a bunch of asparagus – which makes a warm salad bed for the beens and leeks. For a little tang we drizzled the salad with a mustard dressing made from Dijon mustard, olive oil and a little white wine vinegar. That should really have been cider vinegar but we didn’t have any.

A taste of spring.