Beans, Tomatoes, Chocolate, Broth

the good mother makes bean soup for the errant boy

You will want to make this, probably tonight.

I am confident in this because it is the kind of cooking that reminds you why cooking is good: what I love about cooking is when something simple becomes something complex in this unearned way. Things from the cupboard, and one gently ageing tomato, became something rich and creamy and smoky and nourishing: something kind of Mexican-adjacent, Mexican-inspired, filtered through an English seaside kitchen in the depths of grey winter. It is accidentally vegan (if you use bouillon), full of vitamins and fibre, and you can sell it to your children as chocolate soup. (It is probably too spicy for your children as is, so swap the dried guajillo chile for…a dried bell pepper? Experiment and let me know.) Anyway, you can add rice if you want it thicker and a carb; you can dip tortilla chips into it if you want a treat. It takes a very short amount of time also. Bean soup done right.

Last night we had one of those nights where what was on the menu and meal plan was not remotely what wound up happening. This was because we had both had the kind of days where we were both working up until the wire and immediately following this we both needed a very large drink and a very hot bath. Unluckily, we have only one quite small bath, and no booze in the house, and also it was definitely dinner time; so I sent my boyfriend off for a bath as his day had been worse than mine, and I made a cup of tea and tried to think of what we could make for dinner. The fridge was medium empty, and what was left was not inspiring.

We have no kettle at the moment (old one started…melting into itself; can’t replace until we have a kitchen to put it in) so I put some more water into the tea pan and got it boiling, as a kind of prayer. Something! Will! Be! Cooked! Something will be made in this kitchen and it will be nice. And it will be speedy.

I yanked everything out of the fridge and at the back of the top shelf (why there?) I found a little punnet of elderly cherry tomatoes. It is very spooky to me how long tomatoes take to go properly bad, like binnable bad, in this bad future, but it’s also useful when you forget they are there. These had wrinkly little skins but were not actively mouldy. Ok! Ok. A plan was forming in my mind. There was garlic and dried chillies and a block of cooking chocolate and some spices. There was a stock cube and a jar of beans. Ok! We can work with this!

Anyway, the reason I am telling you this is that it worked out better than my wildest dreams, like a gift from the kitchen gods. I did not kneel but lay down on the big soft memory foam mat in gratitude and relief.