Chorizo Bean Pasta

This is the first of the "If It's" series of recipes, which basically stands for "If it's in the fridge it's in the dish!". More often than not you cannot beat eat up night. You know, the last night of the holiday when everything gets eaten up before the journey home the next day. Some unusual but wonderful creations are conjoured up in caravans up and down the country, and sometimes they can be the most delicious meals of the trip. We are no exception so starting us off is this dish created on the Isle of Wight, which turned out very tasty indeed, even if it doesn't look like it!

Ingredients:

1/2 Chorizo ring
1/2 Green pepper
1/2 Tin of tomato soup
1/2 Tin of beans and sausages
1/2 Carrot
1/2 Lemon, juiced
1/2 Lettuce
1/4 Broccoli
1x Garlic clove
2x Celery sticks
1x Stock cube
1tsp English mustard
Splash red wine vinegar
Glass of water
Handful of pasta
Pinch of mace
Handful of Greek basil, leaves separated from the stalks
Nice oil
Sea salt if you have it


Method:

1. Chop everything up then start by sweating off the chorizo in a wok.
2. When the chorizo starts to release its oil add the pepper, carrot, celery and garlic. Stir fry for a minute or two.
3. Now in goes everything else except the basil leaves and lettuce. Stir until cooked.
4. Plate up! Serve topped with the basil leaves, next to the lettuce dressed in oil and a bit of sea salt.

Feijoada - Brazilian Black Bean and Sausage Stew

My son Max is studying Brazil at school and his homework is to research the national cuisine and cook an authentic dish at home, well in our case in the caravan. After a bit of googling we found this national dish called feijoada, which is basically a bean and sausage stew. We have taken a few sacrilegious shortcuts as we are in the van, and Max is only 7 so it needs to be easy to cook. Traditionally only dried black beans should be used where we have used tinned, and instead af raw ham hock we used a cooked one from Asda's rotisserie. Thank you to Elise and Hank for the recipe.

 

Ingredients:

1x tin of black beans (or any beans if you cant get black)
1x tray of diced pork
1x tin of corned beef, chopped into cubes
 Half of a chorizo ring, skinned and chopped up
1x cooked ham hock
1x packet of sausages (we used precooked cocktail)
1x onion diced
2x carrots, peeled and sliced
2x cloves of garlic
2x bay leaves
1x tin of tomatoes
Lemon juice


Method:

Its not rocket science this, basically just bung it all in a pan.

1. In a big pan heat some oil and sweat off the onions.
2. Add the diced pork to the pan and brown.
3. Add the garlic and chorizo, letting it release all that lovely paprika goodness.
4. Add the tin of tomatoes and half a tin of water.
5. Add the corned beef, carrots and bay leaves.
6. Add the beans.
6. Add the cooked sausages and stuff the hock into the centre of the pan.
7. Simmer gently for about 30 minutes then season with salt and pepper and a squirt of lemon juice.

Serve with rice and any greens, we used broccoli, French beans and basil leaves.