And just like that, summer is officially over!

I guess it must have happened while I was walking home last night with Jocelyn.

There’s still blue sky over Berlin, and hopefully it remains (long sleeve) tshirt weather for a while longer.

I have to admit though, I’ve been looking forward to Autumn as that means a different kind of food. The other day I made up a leek, ham, corn and potato chowder and then there was roast pumpkin with blue cheese another day. And yesterday I finally made munggo guisado – a Fillipino dish that I’ve had my eye on for a while.

There must be something kind of hippie earth mother about me that lies below my more public nerd identity. Maybe it’s the knitting, the jam making or the gardening, but something made my neighbours give me a bag of mung beans saying “We don’t know what to do with these, maybe you’d like to sprout them or something?”

Damn straight I’d like to sprout them.

So I sprouted some mung beans which was kinda satisfying. But then I started thinking of the “something”.

If Berlin wasn’t satisfying me already with interesting icecream flavours such as licorice, or quark with sesame and honey, I’d have considered making mung bean icecream. So I googled mung bean recipes and found out about munggo guisado.

Munggo Guisado is Filipino comfort food, a blend of mung beans, seafood, pork meat and assorted greens like morning glory or spinach that’s usually served with rice. I had some quinoa I wanted to play with so I served it with that. Though I’m pretty sure munggo guisado could be good served over toast.

Let’s just say, I think I’ve found a new meal, one of those recipes like spaghetti sauce or ratatouille that you return to again and again because it’s so easy to modify.

But for now, here’s a writeup of my initial foray into Munggo Guisado. I didn’t have spinach, but I substituted in a couple of handfuls of parsley as I always have a bunch in a jar on my windowsill.

Munggo Guisado

• 250g Mung Beans
• 1 onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 cup broth / water
• 150g speck, ham or bacon bits (you could also substitute chorizo)
• 2 tomatoes
• dash of fish sauce
• olive oil
• salt pepper
• a big bunch of flat leaf parsley, stems removed and chopped.

Pre soak the mung beans for a couple of hours and then simmer (in more water) until they’re soft.  I ended up cooking mine until they’d absorbed all the water in the pot and split – but they’ll continue to cook in the guisado regardless.

Saute the onion and garlic  in olive oil until soft and then add in the chopped meat and let it cook for a couple of minutes.

Add in the drained mung beans and a cup or so so of water or a broth.

Stir in the chopped tomatoes.

After a few minutes when the tomatoes have cooked down a little, season the guisado with a dash of fish sauce and salt and pepper.

Fold through the parsley and let it wilt in among the other ingredients.

Serve over rice or quinoa.

I don’t have a picture of munggo guisado yet, so instead here’s The Lucksmiths singing about T-shirt Weather:

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