Dig out the dried goods – there’s a bean or lentil for every occasion

The beans and lentils occupy an entire shelf of the larder that sits adjacent but not quite close enough to the kitchen. Beans of every shape and size, from tiny cannellini the size of a jellybean to plump and beefy butter beans. Dried haricot and chickpeas, dry as the desert, sit patiently in glass storage jars ready to be soaked for long-cooked soups. Soft, plump butter beans and haricot in fat, screw top bottles await their moment to be turned into supper in a few minutes. There is, I like to think, a bean or lentil for every occasion.

This week, as the temperature dipped and the few remaining leaves in the garden swirled, dervish like, in the wind, the beans came out of hiding. A jar of soft haricot the colour of buttermilk became a substantial yet gently flavoured soup, simmered with roast garlic and rosemary, while most diminutive of all – green-grey lentils – found their way into a silky spinach sauce for roast aubergines.