Day 17: Butter Bean

Lou followed this recipe for 'Judy's white bean soup with chilli oil' from BBC Good Food but called it Butter Bean because (a) yesterday's soup was a White Bean (b) she used butter beans and (c) we dunno who Judy is. Somebody to do with Cary Grant, is it?

I left a 2kg bag of butter beans to soak overnight, but the bowl I put them into wasn't big enough and not all those beans got properly soaked, which made things a bit tougher for Louisa when it came to shucking them out of their skins this morning. As it says on the Beeb Good Food, 'it's a laborious job, but worth it'. Happily, Jen came to help and, it being half term, she brought Shanti (14) along.

I wasn't watching, but imagine Lou followed the recipe, scaled up with six litres of Marigold bouillon, and she certainly produced a really rich and buttery, beany soup that did exactly what it said on the blackboard. In the log bok, Shanti wrote, 'wosent that nice and looked like costerd' (sic) which does kind of make you wonder what they're learning in skool these days.

Appropriately, since it's the 23rd, Louisa shifted twenty three bowls of her soup and was honoured to have Irene (left) climb the stairs to sample it. She was so impressed she said she'd be coming back every day from now on, so we have a big rep. to live up to.

Soup Maker: Lou
Soup: Butter Bean
Garnish: Thyme, sweet chilli sauce
No. of bowls served: 23
Expenditure: £12.47
Donations: £29.49
Running balance: +£143.32