52 Cookbook Challenge, Week 3: Ursula Ferrigno - Real Fast Vegetarian Food

I've had this book for years.  I bought it back in my hardcore veggie student days and it has seen good service. However, despite owning it for about 14 years and being a massive fan of it's Mediterranean style, there's still tons of things I haven't made.  I do highly recommend the mushroom tart (I've spoken of this before, when talking about quiche) and there is a delicious fennel soup recipe that I love - it is soothing, piquant and, ahem..., very cleansing, perfect if you are feeling a little under the weather.  There's a lovely spicy aubergine pasta that has been up several mountains with me (tastes great cold, even better kept hot in a Thermos, and is a great source of energy on a long walk), and I've made a bunch of the other pasta sauces and the melanzane a few times too.  However, as so often with a long-used book, I find I go back to it for the same few recipes, rather than taking it down to browse a-fresh and see if things grab me now that didn't previously or to remind myself of the many things that almost made it onto the plate but were passed over in favour of something else.  (one of the nice things about the challenge so far is the first two books are now littered with post-it notes to remind us of the other things we wanted to try but for various reasons didn't choose for our Experimental meal.

Anyway, the decision to pull this book down off the shelf was partly due to wanting something quick and easy for Thursday's supper.  It had been a busy week and it was just me and Baby Bird so I also wanted something appealing to my little bean-muncher.  I opted for Bean Hotpot.  A delicious blend of three types of bean (butterbeans, cannellini and kidney beans went into ours), with tomato, garlic, onion.  It was great.  We covered it in Parmesan and both happily tucked in.  The leftovers reappeared for Saturday's supper, this time with Hubby in attendance and a garlic bread accompaniment.  Again, massively popular with all family members.  We will be making this again.  It will make a great packed lunch for Hubby on those days when he is unlikely to make it home for dinner and can't face another take-away and it is so quick and simple to make that I can make it while Baby Bird potters around without too much bother.  I'd love to show you a pic so you could see how tasty it was.  Sadly, they were lost in The Great iPhone Update Debacle of January 2012, which has taught me a valuable lesson about the importance of regularly backing up my phone to my PC, and also about how wise it is to just get on a blog about things before I have a chance to get distracted (or to lose things).  If I hadn't got three weeks behind, you'd be looking at a pic of a bean hotpot right now.