A day of house work

It's been a nice rainy day today. A perfect day to stay in and do some autumn cleaning. Our lovely rug is down in the living room, most of our summer clothes have been put up and quite a few of our winter stuff has come down. My sister got a bit carried away and re-arranged the furniture in her room. I think it looks a lot better now, more spacious.

Being all wintery, I decided to cook a typical winter dish: beans. Specifically gigantes beans (giant beans). Did you know that the Giant and Elephant (they are even bigger than the Giants) beans of various areas in Greece are products of Protected Geographic Indication? I only just found out. Giant beans are really big white beans.

I decided to cook them in the oven following a recipe in an old fashioned greek cookbook I've got.

Giant Beans in the oven

* 1/2 kgr of beans

* 1/2 kgr tomatoes finely chopped (you can take of the skins if you like)

* 1 chopped carrot (I put more because I like carrots)

* 2-3 red onions finely chopped

* 1 clove of garlic minced

* finely chopped fresh parsley

* 1/2 a cup of olive oil

* 1 teaspoon of dry mustard

* 1 teaspoon of paprika

* 1 tablespoon of salt

* pepper

* 2 tablespoons white wine

1. Clean and wash the beans.

2. Put in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Put on the fire.

3. As soon as the water starts boiling, take of the fire and let sit for 1 hour.

4. Drain and cover with hot water. Boil for 1 hour.

5. Put in a casserole dish together with all the rest of the ingredients except the wine. Cook covered in a medium oven for 2 hours.

6. Add the wine near the end.

Makes 5 portions

note: If your beans are old, they will need more boiling or cooking. Don't be afraid to leave in an hour longer in the oven if it looks like it needs it.

They didn't turn out too bad.

We ate them with lots of feta cheese and a salad of lettuce, roquette and purslane (which doesn't taste too bad after all.)

And now, I'm waiting for my brownies to cool down so I can cut them and put them in the fridge to set.

I'm feeling like a housewife...