Autumn comfort food

Hello, guys! 

First of all, thank you so much for the lovely feedback on my last post, it meant a lot and seriously made my day. Thank you for reading, commenting, following, subscribing - I appreciate it all.

Today's post is a first as well (oh, the luxury of having every possible topic to chose from) and covers one of my favorite hobbies (for most, also a daily necessity) - cooking.

Despite the surprisingly pleasant weather in Denmark this year in general and recently especially, the Autumn is definitely here - the air's cooler, the evening's - longer, it rains more often and smells of leaves. Every year when the winter rolls around, I experience a craving for warm, filling, creamy, saucy food thick in consistency (porridge for breakfast, mashed potatoes or other veggies - cauliflower works great, by the way, everything pumpkin and, obviously) - SOUPS. Especially cream soups and thicker, more filling, salty ones. This is an old favorite of mine, however, surprisingly enough - a first try at cooking it myself.

When I woke up to a rainy, gloomy day full of chores, I decided to utilize all the ingredients in our kitchen and stir up this Minced Beef Mixed Bean Tomato wonder. I hope you enjoy it, it's really a soup for the soul to me and actually pretty healthy as well.

You'll need:

• 1 can of white beans
• 1 can of red/kidney beans
• 1 can of tomatoes
• 1 onion
• 4 dices of garlic
• 2 carrots (optional! I did without, since I had none, but the original recipe requires it and I'm sure it'll only make it better)
• 400 g minced meat (I only had 200 g, but it was more than enough for two people - the beans make the soup very filling also)
• 1 table spoon of tomato paste
• 2 large potatoes (I simply used up all we had of some little ones)
• 600 ml meat or vegetable broth
• 2-3 bay leaves
• Black peppers, salt
• 3-4 cloves
• Chopped parsley
• Greek yogurt - optional

While it might sound like a lot - most of these things everyone tends to have on hand, but even if you don't - no worries, this recipe is also very affordable, because all of the ingredients are cheap and versatile for using on cooking other dishes later on.

How to:

• Rinse off the beans, chop onion finely, wipe off your tears after doing so and crush the garlic
• Warm up your pan with the olive oil, fry the meat with the onions and carrots, add salt and pepper. Have a light hand with the salt, in case your broth is very salty already, like mine was
• In a pot, pour the broth and add tomatoes, tomato paste and add the ingredients from the pan together with the bay leaves
• Bring up to boil and then add the potatoes - quite finely chopped - boil for 15 min on medium heat (Set the table whilst, because we're being time economic - at this point I'd also do most of the dishwashing, so it takes less time after dinner)
• Add beans, spices, the garlic, finely chopped parsley, bring up to a boil and then let sit for a while on low or no heat. I had to wait for quite a while (15 - 20 min), because my boyfriend was running late, but it didn't ruin anything - I think the taste intensified, actually
• Finish setting the table adding candles, napkins etc., because we're being cheesy and it's cute and sweet
• Have cooled beer ready, because the boyfriend has had a 13 h working day, including 4 hours of driving
• Serve the soup warm, add Greek Yogurt, if desired (it's an old habit from my childhood of eating all soups with sour cream), add some extra fresh parsley and enjoy! Don't burn yourself by eating too fast, because you're so excited to try it (This is definitely NOT a note to myself and I did NOT already do that)

Hope you guys liked it and let me know, if you try it, I'd get so excited! Also, feel free to leave me your favorite fall recipes and foods in the comments, I'll definitely give them a go. Let me know if you'd like to see similar posts to this one coming later as well.

Talk to you soon!

Renate ❤