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Tonight’s meal features a special guest appearance of some organic baked beans which were mysteriously sent to me in a package from an unknown sender....whoever this person is must be a fan of the blog so I would like to say thanks for the kind gesture....just proves that some people have a genuinely kind heart.
These organic baked beans could not have come at a better time due to my current physical condition (man flu) which by the way is far worse than most illnesses but girls still don’t understand this!!! This delivery of beans has allowed me to stay indoors and thus increase the recovery time...however I am still limited to my local shop for ingredients which has impacted on my meals severely.
The baked beans looked great and having the organic element really made me feel like I was doing my bit for the world....that is until I threw the tin direct in the bin without any thought for recycling (oh well, one step at a time) I was actually looking forward to the meatballs until I realised I had purchased them in gravy which once opened looking very much like dog-food (even the realistic tripe smell)
I decided that cooking them separately would do little but add more washing up so I combined them both in the same saucepan. Once they were ready the beans had gone a little brown colour due to the gravy in the meatballs and it unfortunately didn’t taste that great.....some of the meatballs had little bits of gristle in which instantly put me off and made me think about what went into these unnaturally round balls.
I wish I had saved the organic beans for an ingredient that was worthy of them but you learn from mistakes right so tomorrows one will be a little bit better thought out...
Today I’ve been hit by some sort of bug that has left me feeling very ill indeed, I am hoping this is not related to the high consumption of beans (or octopus) that i have had so tonight’s meal wasn’t what I had planned as getting the ingredients was out of the question given how I am feeling. While thinking what the meal could be tonight I discovered my housemates old toastie machine and hey presto....a baked bean toastie with some cheese would now be the creation I was about to make. I used some farmhouse thick break with Heinz beans and some grated cheese....but this proved too much for the small light duty toastie machine and the lid would not close....immediately I knew I was going to have problems cooking this one and while holding the lid down as best I could the bean/cheese juice started running out the side of the machine all over the work top which was making a huge mess but this did smell really nice. About 10 min later (extra cooking time needed for the cold beans) it was ready to come out.....slightly tricky getting it out in once piece but eventually it was free.
The toastie tasted great and wasn’t too much to handle with the way I’m feeling at the moment.10 out of 10 for speed of cooking and quick preparation time but 0 out of 10 for the aftermath of mess. This experiment started out as a bit of a joke and in the first few days I wasn’t sure what I was getting into but looking back even from this point I have realised that thanks to this experiment I have tried new food that I might not have otherwise which in itself has made it worthwhile and I’m also hopefully putting a smile on a few people’s faces along the way. I’m off back to bed now as starting to feel worse......I’m hoping I won’t be found dead in the morning with a bright orange face :)
Offal is a wonderful food but one that has lost its popularity in recent years due largely to the snobbishness of our society and the increase in marketing for higher prices goods but with current world situations it’s very important to waste as little as possible (like the American Indians who used everything from the animal they had killed, even the bones for hunting instruments/jewellery)
Most offal is extremely high in essential vitamins and minerals that can’t be found in other parts of the animal.
My mum always used to cook me a mean liver stew when i was younger which has been the inspiration for today’s meal which is liver and beans and one that i was looking forward to, it’s been a long time since I last had any liver so when the idea popped into my head while walking around Tesco’s I had to grab the guy who was filling the shelves and do a little dance up and down the aisle (I didn’t actually do this but it really did happen inside my head)
Once I got back to mine I started to cook immediately as I had a long day at work which left me needing to refill the petrol tank. One of my housemates was very off-put by the idea of what I was cooking but I thought to myself “I’m only just beginning” I fried an onion until caramelised and then added the chopped liver for about 10 minutes (or until it’s no longer pink in the middle) I then served up with some Tesco standard beans (39p) The meal was as good as I had anticipated it to be and the beans went very well with the liver...so much in fact that I will be having this long after the experiment has ended!!I have a few good ideas for tomorrows meal which build on tonight’s dish so stay tuned...
Life is a journey and no real journey is complete without its up and downs.
Today I think I need to explore a little bit more and move away from the classic recipe dishes and into the forest which is full of its dangers but also its pleasant surprises.....”could octopus and beans be one of these pleasant surprises?” initially I am thinking this is a bad idea, the very sound of it makes me feel sick but you never know until you try it right?I chose Sainsbury’s value beans for this meal....I didn’t want to waste money on some great beans only to have octopus juice all over them so I’m sure for this meal the quality of the beans will not affect the overall taste as much as other meals I have had.The octopus comes in a nice gold tin which leads me to think that some sort of treasure is located inside but unless the treasure you’re looking for is octopus tentacles then it couldn’t be further away from the truth.I tried to place the tentacles as well as I could on the beans but most of them ended up submerged within the bean juice. The first mouthful was the hardest as I have never tried octopus before but I know they are extremely high in fibre which makes them a great partner for the beans which are also high in fibre.I was surprised that I had soon finished the meal without ending up in the toilet. I think the hardest part was looking at the little suckers as I put them in my mouth but the actual taste was very similar to mackerel which I was not expecting.This proves that experimenting with things a little outside of your comfort zone is important as I now know that I would have octopus again but maybe not with baked beans :)
Apologies to my loyal fans who have had to wait a little extra time for this post but due to technical issues with this site I was unable to upload anything until this point so it’s ok....there is no need for mass hysteria, I am alive and this experiment has not killed me yet so get yourself a nice cup of tea and enjoy the rest of this post.
Today I finally had a meal with some preparation time involved. This is something I have been missing a lot in recent days but with this baked bean bake my culinary skills were once again able to flourish.
This meal was recommended to me by a friend to whom I am now greatly in debt too as it’s become my favourite of the baked bean meals so far!! From the start of the day I had been looking forward to this, it’s very rare that you come across a baked bean recipe that can stimulate your senses to the levels which this little beauty has.
This meal was baked bean bake which just from its name makes your ears tingle with excitement and is achieved by taking some Heinz baked beans and pouring them into a small oven-proof dish with some fried onions added and a splash of Worcestershire sauce and pepper to flavour, toast two slices of bread and then cut into four triangles and delicately arrange them on top of the beans and cover with a generous layer of mature grated cheese and add to pre-heated oven (180c)......... I felt like a proud father waiting for his new born child to come out....it seemed to take a lifetime to happen (actually only 20 min) but when it did I was greeted by the most amazing sight and one that I will remember for at least a week.
Dishing up this miracle of a meal was great fun, the cheese had done its job well in holding the whole dish together and it was easy to serve up on the plate of my choice. I added a few drops of Tabasco sauce and then proceeded to eat the whole dish which left me myself feeling like I was about to give birth but this is nothing a pot of tea didn’t soon sort out!!
Today’s meal came from the land of tigers, elephants, camels and of course the sacred cow....that’s right, it’s India which gave birth to all the different varieties of curries that are found around the world today, including the Heinz Curried Beans variety.
I was very surprised to find this particular variety of beans and never knew how big the baked bean market was until now...there seems to be a different variety of beans of almost everyone, the health conscious, the caveman hunter and the traveller who seeks out beans from around the world.
It really is astonishing and until you really take a close look at your supermarket baked bean selection your life will be that little bit duller than it otherwise could be.
The accompanying dish for today’s curried beans was a value curry for a staggering 79p...I really did question how this could be made for such a small price with any profit being made but after some deep thought on the walk home I decided that the chicken was more than likely abused on many different levels, this left me in a moral dilemma..."do I eat the abused chicken or not".............i quickly decided that I couldn’t let the chicken die for no reason and throwing the pieces in the bin would be a huge disrespect to the former Mr Chicken so decided to help fulfil his destiny, either way I put this to the back of my mind and served up the value curry and poured the curried beans over the top.
The meal was satisfying if not slightly hot on the taste buds but I could not pinpoint if this came from the baked beans or the rice!!
A very filling meal thanks largely to the rice, I feel this would be great after a night out on the town with your friends due to the quick cooking time and jokes that can be had regarding the bits of chicken that you are throwing around the room!!!!
After my last two meals I felt I deserved a treat, something that wouldn’t make me feel sick or depressed and this came in the form of a BBQ bean pizza.I chose a value pizza (Sainsbury’s 69p) this was because the cheap pizzas have the least toppings on and allow for more beans to be applied. Heinz BBQ beans were also purchased which when I found genuinely did excite me, I had been told about them before but could never seem to find them, they became a legend in my mind, a myth that I could not ever find but ohhhhhhhh nooooooo...their they were standing on the shelf at eye level for just 59 dirty pennies.. so “thank you very much” I said out aloud and quickly put them into my basket.
Cooking could not really have been simpler, spread the succulent beans on the pizza and insert into the warm oven!! “Brilliant” I thought. The 15minutes waiting time passed quickly while I made a pot of tea.
I was unsure how successful the beans would be in staying on the pizza base but to my surprise they had remained where I left them (this would not have been the case if I had used the value beans which were much more juicy) I decorated the pizza with some cheese to one again spice things up and then took it to my room for consumption.
The pizza went down really well, so well in fact that I could have had another one...the BBQ sauce turned an otherwise boring pizza into a titillating feast and a fantastic meal that left me with a warm fuzzy feeling inside (maybe the pizza is slightly undercooked) I would recommend this to everyone but especially people with injured hands and vegetarians as they are limited with pizza topping options and this one is a sure fire winner.....more tomorrow
