This recipe features in meal plan 4

I have split the recipe into 2 rather than 4 portions for meal plan 4

I am making lunches for my busy community nurse daughter who doesn’t like cooking all that much – is she really mine? We are currently enjoying exploring the things she really likes to have in her lunchbox, and those less so. She is particularly keen on all the tomatoey things, so I think she will love this, especially served with some lovely buttery couscous

• 100g onion, chopped, Asda Smartprice 98p/2kg, 5p
• 100g dried butter beans, £1.09p/500g, 22p
• 400g tin value tomatoes or passata 33p
• squeeze of lemon, 32p whole lemon, 2p
• clove of garlic, crushed, 25p/bulb, 5p
• 1 stock cube, 20p/10, 2p
• 2 basics pitta, 22p/6, 7p

Soak the dried butter beans for several hours, or overnight. Drain, rinse, cover with water and cook until tender, about 1.5 hours. You can reduce the fuel use by bringing them to the boil and covering tightly, then turning off the heat. You may need to do this more than once. Or you can use a pressure cooker, I tend to do all my beans in that. It takes 45 minutes from dry in the packet to cooked. Or I have also soaked beans well, then put them in the Remoska with some water, covered with foil. Or you can cook them in a slow cooker, make sure you boil them fast for 10 minutes first tho.
Once they are cooked, (they need to be nice and soft) drain them, but keep some of the cooking water. If you don’t want to use dried beans, you will need 1 tin, drained

Saute the onion and garlic in a tsp oil until transparent.

Add everything else to the pan and simmer for a few minutes. If the sauce tastes too acidic, add a tsp sugar.

Jack adds a pinch of cinnamon and some fresh basil, so if you have those available, add them now too.

For meal plan 4, serve with a pitta each. You can have them hot or cold, maybe in a lunchbox.

Good with rice, pasta or couscous as well. If you have them available, especially in the summer, maybe from the garden, some crispy salad leaves or green beans would be a nice accompaniment. At the time of posting (Nov13) I still have some spinach and sorrel in the garden, they would be lovely with this, either on the side, or wilted through. I will also be using the first of the leeks this week, so you could use those instead of the onion if you have any in your garden

at 2 servings, just the Plaki, 322 calories, 16g protein, 2g fat, 60g carb