Warming. Homely. Easy. Zesty.

One evening about two years ago when the rain was pouring and the house was freezing, I was looking for a way to both warm up the house and keep me warmly fueled through the night. Putting the oven on as well as the fire was very inviting. And so I took a look at what I had in the fridge that could go into my grandmother's magic cast iron casserole dish to be transformed into tasty cold night fuel. The result was a roaring success:

Put the following ingredients in a casserole dish with a lid and cook for 1.5 hours at 160C, stirring every 30mins. It will look like a lot in the pot at first, but I assure you, it cooks down!

400g cooked butter beans

2 medium sized fennel (bulb only), cored and sliced/diced

1 onion, sliced or diced

1 small - medium sized red capsicum, sliced or diced

400g tomato, diced or crushed in a blender

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

400ml or 1 3/4 cups vegetable stock

zest of half a lemon

juice of a whole lemon

a generous sprinkling of cracked black pepper

Serve on a pile of buttery mashed potato.

Feeds 4 hungry people.

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More vegetarian cookbook goodies

Need help with conversions? Download this handy dandy pdf of cooking conversion charts for every cooking measuring system I could find. It should make your life easier.

Want to check out more vegetarian dinner recipes? They're all in the Table of Contents.

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