Winter Warmers

It's not particularly cold this week, but it is dark and miserable. At this time of year the temperature in the house lurches between extremes, as Annie regularly turns up all the radiators only for Martin to turn them all down again. It can get quite disconcerting for an old cat. On the food front, I am still enjoying my new diabetic dinners, while M has gone all old-fashioned and wintery. High points over the past few days have included ribollita, the Tuscan soup made with cannellini beans and cavolo nero, and devilled kidneys on toast.

For a big pot of the former, soak about 200 grams of cannellini overnight. Sweat finely chopped onions, carrots, celery, leeks and garlic in olive oil, then add tomatoes (tinned are usually the best), the beans and a head of chopped cavolo nero. (M keeps a handful of the dark green leaves back and adds them two-thirds through the cooking time to provide extra texture, but that isn't traditional.) You can add herbs (oregano, thyme, rosemary) and a dried chilli or two if you fancy them, but don't put in any salt yet. Cover with water and cook for about 40 minutes in a pressure cooker, or 90 in a casserole dish. Check the beans - they should yield to the tooth but remain whole - and put some salt in. Cook a little longer if the soup needs it, and serve it with fresh bread. This is a dish that improves with keeping; "ribollita" means "re-boiled", so it's quite appropriate to bring it back to the table a few times, adding a bit of this and that (a potato, a glass of wine, fried bread) over subsequent days.

As for the kidneys, you devil them by mixing a little flour with some cayenne pepper and dried mustard powder in about equal proportions. Add salt and pepper. Slice lambs' kidneys in half, remove the hard white bits with scissors or a sharp knife and discard, then toss the cleaned kidneys in the flour, pepper and mustard mixture. Fry them in butter on a medium heat for a couple of minutes each side, until they're brown and crusty in places. Splash on some Worcestershire sauce and a bit of white wine, stock or water. Cover and simmer for a couple of minutes before serving on toast, with some mashed potato, or perhaps polenta.

Other than these winter warmers, there have been a few sausage dinners recently, a nice prawn curry, plenty of black pudding (one cooked with fried apples in a cream and mustard sauce that was sublime) and tonight was a Chinese hotpot of veal with peppers. As I write this, it's nearly time for Heston Blumenthal on the telly. He's making pizza tonight, and I expect M will be inspired to try all manner of molecular experimentation involving flour, yeast and, if Mr. Blumenthal's previous programmes are anything to go by, napalm. I fear the worst.