Rainy day cooking

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter you'll already have seen this pic - but as I've not been over the door all day it's all I've got. The rain has been falling, not spectacularly but utterly persistently, all day, from the gloomy morning that looked like November to the crepuscular evening that would have had me lighting candles had I not run out of them.

But it's a colourful collection of ingredients for making Greek Beans - Gigantes, they call them, baked in the oven with these lovely veg until the tomato and olive oil seeps into the beans and transforms them. It was pointed out that the beans aren't actually in the photo: they are sitting draining in a colander because I cheated and used beans from a jar. (Jar, not tin - these are huge butter beans from Spain and are as unlike either dried beans or tinned as you can imagine, being tender and creamy-textured.)

By the time I'd taken them from the oven, two hours later, I could have sat down to a plateful there and then, but these are for my visiting family next week. I can't be a star grandma and cook all at the same time ...

Sunshine on a plate, anyway - Chania harbourside under an awning. Bliss.

*NB: Neither the brandy nor the vodka whose empty bottles are on the counter features in this dish. I just need to tidy up ...