Day 22 – Beanana Split

Baked beans are typically used in savoury dishes such as pie and mashed potato, but its very rare that I ever see them mixed with sweet dishes so I decided to explore the possibilities of these little gems as an accompaniment to a desert.

One of my favourite deserts, banana-split would be the guinea pig for today’s trial. A nice ripe banana cut in half, filled with cold baked beans and some ice cream on the side with a sprinkle of sugar over the plate to help bring the flavours together, but would they need any help???......A definitive “YES” was the answer.
I had been secretly confident in my choice of ingredients and thought that I was onto something big....something that could change the way beans were consumed all over the world....but no this was not the case.

My taste buds first got hold of the banana that was nice and sugary which was closely followed by the soothing coolness of the vanilla ice cream “so far so good” but then the baked beans took hold with their overpowering taste and soon I had a mouthful of what tasted like lumpy cold bean juice sick.
I can’t tell you how bad this actually was, it was worse than I anticipated and despite how hard I tried, I could not finish this one. I now understand why this has not taken off and why beans are positioned where they are in the market....well away from the sweet stuff. “Ohhh well I though” another dish tried and tested...it’s time to move on.

Day 21 – Baked beans & Pasta

Even though I have had the misfortune of consuming noodles and beans which as you may recall were the blandest of the meals so far, I was assured that pasta and beans would be a totally different story, so I decided not to write off the idea before I had given it a try.

Fusilli pasta, mature cheese and a tin of Tesco baked beans were the ingredients in this dish and I paid special attention on the seasoning of this dish as I was constantly scared that the blandness would rear its head and attack but “noooooo” said Mr Salt and Mrs Pepper.
A very quick meal to make (10 min in total including prep time) the pasta and cheese was layered and then the beans were poured on top....5 minutes under the grill and it was ready for testing. I must admit that I was lacking in trust from the recommendations of this and was waiting for a chewy bland taste but instead was greeted by an extremely pleasant mouthful of rainbows....”wow, this really is a great dish”

I highly recommend that you try this one as its cheap, easy to cook, tasty and filling...what more could you possibly want from a meal??? This one will definitely be staying in my memory bank for future use.