Sausages, dumplings and bean pate

Afternoon everyone, I’ve just woken up from my first nap in ages and I’m still ill but here’s another review post for you.

Some days I just decide to cook, or prepare a bunch of things. This is only sometimes as I often have days where I mentally feel like I can’t do anything. Making ahead and then keeping in the fridge of freezer means that on days where I’m struggling to do anything I know I don’t have to rely on convenience food. This week I made a few things including sausage mix and dumplings so I thought I’d let you know how I made them.

The sausages were taken from this recipe from A Girl Called Jack’s blog, the ingredients I didn’t have to hand were carrots and smooth peanut butter, but I used crunchy peanut butter instead and left the carrots out altogether.

Here’s the full recipe for convenience.

• 1 small onion (finely chopped)
• 1 small carrot (grated)
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 tbsp cooking oil
• 1 tbsp peanut butter
• 400g tin of kidney beans
• 30g fresh breadcrumbs.

The dumplings were taken from this recipe here, I didn’t use the passata as a side but had all the other ingredients to hand.

Here’s the full recipe for your convenience.

• 6 tbsps rapeseed oil
• 2 onions (medium, finely chopped)
• 2 tsps ground cumin
• 400 grams chickpeas (cans, drained)
• 20 grams coriander (pack)
• 100 grams oats
• 600 ml passata (with onion and garlic)

As I was making both of these recipes at the same time I fried the onions for both recipes at once, then divided between the two bowls with their corresponding ingredients. Once I had formed the dumplings and stirred the sausage mix I left both in the fridge for a few hours to harden up while I did other things (why can’t my house clean itself?!). Later I fried a couple of each in hot oil but found that they would not stick together despite rolling them quite well, I gave up and cooked the crumbled mass. I figured that it didn’t matter and would taste the same.The second and third times I cooked them they held together a little better so maybe they just needed a bit more time in the fridge. They both obviously tasted very strongly of beans and could have maybe used more seasoning than suggested but the texture was good and they did taste quite nice. These recipes allowed me to make enough for three portions of the sausages and dumplings, so they lasted me for a good couple of meals.

As both the sausages and dumplings were rather dry to eat on their own I paired them with a sort of bean pate which I also made that day, the recipe was taken from here, I didn’t have any ground coriander but I used Italian herbs instead, and I didn’t mind the change. The pate was a bit more wet than I would have liked but it held it’s flavour and did the job.

Here’s the full recipe for you.

• 1 (400g) tin of kidney beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 clove of garlic, peeled
• 2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 3 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes
• 4 teaspoon olive oil
• water to bind
• salt and pepper

The bean pate worked very well with the sausages and dumplings, despite both being predominately made of beans, and the pate had a little more seasoning so added an extra level of taste. I also had a handful of rocket and a little homemade dressing to finish. The dressing was made from oil, rice wine vinegar, garlic powder, mint, salt and pepper. I’d like to try these again, maybe with some homemade sweet potato fries.

Hope you are having a good day