Beans

This quick and easy dish of creamy flageolet beans from Isabella Palmer is perfect for a light dinner.

This fresh, aromatic dish is perfect for late spring evenings. The well-rounded combination of creamy white beans, sweet fennel, zingy lemon and bitter greens is best enjoyed with some crusty bread and a glass of white wine.

Eden's latest recipe is inspired by the Catalan method of adding dry or fried bread to dishes to thicken sauces and make them more luxurious. Paired with the briny and acid dressing, this is a great way to eat beans, not at all heavy but both savoury and bright. Best served with salad and bread – double bread! – why not?

This easy and quick dinner from Claire Thomson's brilliant new book One Pan Beans makes the most of whatever veg you have to hand, combined with fragrant fennel yoghurt and hearty borlotti beans.

A substantial soup, almost a main course, combining meaty black beans and sweet red peppers with the heat of red chilli in the accompanying salsa.

This comforting aromatic stew from Vicky Jones' excellent Beans, Peas & Everything In Between, is a perfect vegetarian dish, evocative of the wild fennel much used in Sicilian cooking.

Finished in the oven, rich and sweet Boston baked beans are an American classic perfect for cold winter nights.

This recipe, from Jenny Chandler's brilliant cookbook Super Pulses, uses black beans to create fudgy, indulgent chocolate brownies. Beans are used in place of flour to add more nutrition and also make this recipe suitable for gluten-free bakers.

The Tex-Mex answer to stuffed crêpes, quesadillas are wheat-flour tortillas stuffed with cheese and whatever else comes to hand. American recipes call for Monterey Jack cheese, or sometimes Cheddar, but Wensleydale works wonderfully. Meaty black beans make these quesadillas more substantial, great for a brunch with guacamole, salsa and sour cream trimmings.