Comfort food - beans cassarole

Lately there is a lot of talk about the comfort food and I have been thinking about what our comfort food is as a family.

The other day when we were having dinner that is beans cassarole and rice pilav with pickles it suddenly dawned on me that this is our comfort food.

We crave for this if I havened cooked it for a while and as I am a bit advanterous of what I cook at home sometimes we get tired of all the excotic food so many ingredients and flavours all we want is to take a break and eat something as simple as this dish. This food reminds me and my partner of our childhood and the food that our mum's used to cook for us.

By the way anything with beans ia afavorite of our daughter, beans cassarole, baked beans, green beans. So we all enjoyed the dinner as a family and our little girl even had a go at the gherkins this time.

Ingredients;

500 gr dried cannelloni beans ( or 400 gr tinned canelloni beans)

250 gr dices beef (cut in to smaller about 1 cm cubes)

1 medium onion (chopped)

400 ml hot water

2 teaspoon tomato paste

2-3 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon caster sugar (or brown sugar whatever is in the cupboard)

seasoning

Serves 4-6 and ready under an hour

Method

1. If you are using dried beans soak them in boiling water in a bowl over night, ensure the water level is at least 2 inches above the beans.

2. Heat the olive oil in a cassarole dish and fry the meat and onions for 10 minutes on medium heat.

3. Add the tomato paste and mix everything with a wooden spoon.

3. Add the water, sugar and seasoning along with the beans (if using dried beans) and bring to boil and simmer for 30 minutes or a bit longer to ensure the beans are coooked.

If using tinned beans just add the water, sugar and seasoning and bring to boil and simmer for 30 minutes until the meat is tender then add the beans and simmer for further 5 minutes.

That's it, serve with pilav rice and pickled vegetables or gherkins.

On a additional note an other ultimate comfort food for me is slice of freshly baked sourdough bread smothered with butter.