Today's harvest = Tonight's Dinner

When you're on a [cough] 'budget' (read: no money to speak of), the humble legume becomes your very best friend, like, in the universe.
They're cheaper than chips, they're full of marvellous (but boring) vitamins and minerals, they're nutty and tasty, and thank jeebus, everyone in my family likes them.
So, today I whacked together a pot of my 'Posh Beans'.
See, what I actually served for dinner was beans-on-toast, but Posh beans on toasted sourdough with parmesan, spring onions, fresh peas and bitter greens sounds more appetising :-)

First, it was a quick trip to the garden to source the greens (Cos and Mizuna), peas, and spring onions..

Gabriel watched on in delight, squealing and wriggling on Daddy's lap while mummy picked green things.
Next step, washing. This is a 2 step process in my house as after you've washed all the leaves, you have to save and transport the dozen or so ladybugs floating in the sink water:-)

Washed and ready to go. It's probably just me being super romantic, but greens from my garden are much greener than other greens...:)
Then it was a simple toasting of sourdough slices under the griller, pile with chopped mixed greens, slap on a couple of ladlefulls of Posh beans, and top with parmesan, spring onions and fresh peas.

Posh Beans

3 tins cannelini beans, rinsed
1 brown onion, finely diced
2 celery stalks, finely diced
1 red capsicum, finely diced
1 small Aldi tin tomato paste
1 jar passata
1 tbsp massel chicken stock
1 passata jar of water

You can add as much or as little of the following as takes your fancy;
Cajun Spice
Chilli Flakes
Salt
Garlic granules
BBQ sauce
Worcestershire sauce
Savoury yeast flakes
basil
thyme
sage

If you like it a bit 'creamy' add 2 mashed potatoes to the sauce...I do.

In other news, my delightful little munchkin has just mastered the art of sitting up by himself. This means that we've put him down 3 times now for bed. Every time we check on him, he's sitting up in the middle of his cot grinning from ear to ear at how damned clever he is :)
Oh, and all my careful, considered baby-food smushing and mouli-ing...not as important as I thought.
The little fells sits next to Daddy while he eats, and was opening and closing his wee gob like a birdy with great intent this evening.
Focus on food, make birdy mouth, look pleadingly at Daddy.
Rock a bit.
repeat.
I finally relented and allowed Brett to feed him a teensy bit of the Posh beans...
I truly expected him to screw up his face and wail as the chilli burned his little tongue. But nope. It was 'thankyou-very-much-and-where's-the-next-helping?'.
I guess I may have ignored the 'one food at a time' and '4 days between new foods' thing just a bit....{BAD mumma, BAD BAD BAD!}.