Have you heard of #foodfridays yet?
Twitter users post their tips and advice about dining out, cooking and drinking, attach the #foodfridays hashtag and voila – instant culinary inspiration and insiders knowledge about where and what to eat and drink.
Don’t believe me? Click on the thumbnail screenshot below for a flavour of what is served up:
Well, anyway, for my first #foodfridays I give you the joy of homemade spicy baked beans. Yes, the humble baked bean has been done a great disservice by the likes of Heinz etc. And while the convenience of canned baked beans can’t be called into question, I urge you all to embrace a different epicurean approach, one that maximises individuality, flavour and texture. If you dare doubt me then simply do yourself a favour and try cooking the recipe below one evening.
Homemade Baked Beans
Ingredients:
- 2 x canned beans (cannellini, borlotti, 5-bean mix – whatever you like best)
- 2 x chopped tinned tomatoes (low sugar, low salt are best imho)
- 4 x cloves of garlic (diced roughly)
- 1 x white onion (sliced)
- 2 tbl spoons tomato paste (or more, depending on how rich you like your sauce)
- Splash of red wine
- 2 x birdseye chillies (or whatever heat you’re comfortable with)
- Fetta cheese, crumbled
- Freshly chopped basil
To make:
- Heat a large saucepan and fry the onion in some oil. Once the onions have browned add the garlic and chillies and let their flavours get all funky together.
- Drain the canned beans and – if you can be bothered – rinse them off. Add the beans, the chopped tomatoes, the tomato paste and the splash of red wine and mix up in your saucepan. Reduce the heat so that it’s all simering along nicely.
- Check on the beans to see how much the sauce has reduced down. Depending on how much heat you’ve got on them the times will vary, but in general I have got better results with a slower reduction of the sauce with a more gentle heat. I like my beans pretty thick, so I tend to reduce the sauce quite a bit, but this is all up to you. They’re your beans after all :-)
- At the last minute add generous amounts of chopped fresh basil, stir tht through and serve the piping hot beans onto two large slices of your favourite toasted bread. Sprinkle on as much fetta as you like and slip gently into a bean-induced culinary coma. You have just experienced what baked beans should always be like.
There are a few great things about this ridiculously simple recipe: you can cook the entire thing in one large saucepan, greatly minimising the post-dinner washing up arguments; you can substitute in and out all sorts of ingredients depending on your tastes; the types of beans you choose can add great variations in texture to your beans, which I really love; and lastly, you can cook vats of the stuff and save it for later. I also really like to throw in some cumin and coriander, but the options are endless really.
Give it a go and let me know what you thought in the comments here. Oh, and Tweet your own #foodfridays tips.
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