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Lemon and white bean soup with pasta and spinach

Its cold, its rainy and my mum has gone. She came to visit for the last few days as she is on half term and it was so good to see her. May was so thrilled to wake up (at the crack of dawn) on Saturday and discover that her ‘bestie’ was in the spare room. She spent all day playing with my mum, showing off all her tricks and toys. There was a lot of cuddling and chatting and coffee drinking. We hung out at home, had a little Christmas shopping trip into town and ate cheesecake at Mio.

We took mum to the playpark and let her fret as May threw herself headfirst down the slide (its her new trick). I loved having her here. We drank sneaky glasses of champagne in the evening and watched ‘The extra Slice’ that she had downloaded for me. We did jigsaws and I asked her a million baby questions. Most of all it felt good to hear her say ‘don’t worry, your doing a great job’ whenever I panicked about something. We miss her already!

If today needed something it was a little bowl of hygge. Hygge is such a buzz word right now but to me it is just a Nordic feeling that can’t really be translated and is something that you live. I grew up with ‘hygge’. Hygge is a way of making things cosy, its also a greeting, a feeling and a polite way of saying it was nice to see someone. It is so many things. Its the candles that you light, or the cake that you bake. It is a thick jumper on a cold day, or that feeling when you sit cupping a mug of hot chocolate. It is being with friends and not being able to stop smiling. It is the familiarity of a certain chair or a perfect spot to sit and read. For me, today, it was this soup.

I needed something warm in my stomach, something that was simple and quick to make but that felt cosy and homely. This soup did the trick. It is so easy to make and the ginger gives just enough heat to keep you extra warm in this crazy cold autumn weather. I used spinach but you could also use kale or Swiss Chard, butterbean or chickpeas could sub in for the white beans too.

Ingredients
1/2 white onion finely chopped
Juice 1 lemon
Zest half a lemon
1 tin white beans drained
3 handfuls spinach
2ltr vegetable stock
80g dry pasta
Small piece (half thumb) of fresh ginger peeled and minced

Method
Place the onion into a large pan with the ginger and lemon zest and soften in oil until translucent
Add in the vegetable stock
Simmer for 10minutes
Add in the pasta and cook until al dente
Remove from the heat and add in the beans, spinach and lemon juice
Season with pepper and serve
Top with parmesan if you fancy

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Building a tribe with feta and spinach bread

They say that it takes a village to raise a child and as this year ticks on, I am beginning to believe them. I guess that it wasn’t that long ago that families lived closer together, that you knew your neighbour, that you had childhood friends down the road. As most of you know we moved to Munich when I was nearing the end of my pregnancy. I ended up two weeks overdue, was induced and after 30hours (with zero progress at all) had an emergency section (the umbilical cord was wrapped multiple times round Mays neck). From the minute May arrived, we needed a tribe and we haven’t stopped needing one since. We needed our freezer filling, our dog walking, our baby to be cooed over. We needed to be taken care of. The few friends that we had here made us feel loved and special but we had only met them weeks before and we weren’t at the stage of being able to let them into a crazy house, in three day old clothes stained with milk leakage. We needed people that knew us. People that knew our normal and could read between the lines. We needed friends that knew our history, that knew how to ask the difficult questions and who would ship us off to bed when we needed it. This year has been the very very best of years. We have watched in wonder as our little daughter grows and learns. But it has also been the hardest of years. Doing something so life changing as becoming parents meant that we needed the support of loved ones around us and on top of that, the husband has struggled this year with depression. He has found moving here harder than me in many ways. He has struggled with the culture shock of the land and of becoming a dad. I have spent the last 13months trying to keep his head above water whilst being the best mum I can be and when there is just the two of you, everything is felt more intensely. I think that why this year more than ever, cooking has mattered. It has been my respite, my solace. It is the little bit of me that I can cling on to. On days where words haven’t hit the spot the action of putting down a bowlful of something delicious has been my way of showing love. Serving homemade cakes to friends has bought us closer. Taking freshly made goodies to playgroup allowed me to open up and chat round the language barrier.

Today I dropped May off at nursery and then met a old friend for coffee. We greeted the owner by name, we sipped espresso and we laughed. It felt homely. I realised that somewhere along the way, we have been building a tribe here. That despite the hard days, the days where I was sure I was failing everyone, it turns out we were doing something right. I came home wanting to cook. I was wet and cold from the weather and I needed the oven to on and to break bread. So as Cold Feet played in the background I measured out this loaf. It is silky rich when baked and souffle light. It is salty from the feta and earthy from the spinach and it needs that tiny hint of chilli warmth. It would be delicious toasted along side a bowl of ratatouille, dipped in roasted tomato soup or topped with a crunchy carrot and seed salad.

Happy Tuesday x

Ingredients
Large handful of fresh spinach chopped
2 eggs
200g – 250g flour
1 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp dried chilli flakes
1.5 tbsp ricotta
40g feta crumbled
1.5 tbsp rapeseed oil

Method
Preheat your oven to 170C
Grease a loaf tin
Whisk the eggs in a large bowl
Stir in the ricotta, crumbled feta, chilli, oil and spinach
Fold in the flour and baking powder – use as much flour as you need to reach a thick batter
Pour into the loaf tin and bake for 50-60mins or until a skewer comes out clean and it is golden brown

 

 

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