Boston Baked Beans

Love my beans, this is a delicious, tasty mix with bacon/pork slices… this is when I wish I had an old fashioned stove to cook it slowly all day…

Ingredients

1 lb haricot beans, washed and soaked overnight
8oz sliced pork (or thick sliced bacon)
2 tsp salt
1 tbs brown sugar
quarter cup of dark molasses or treacle
half tsp dry mustard
half tsp Worcestershire sauce

method

Drain the beans, cover with fresh water and cook covered with a lid until beans are tender. Turn beans into pot, press the pork on top of the beans. Mix the salt, brown sugar, molasses or treacle, mustard, Worcestershire sauce. Add 1 cup of boiling water and pour over the beans. Add additional water and cover beans. Cover and bake in slow oven (250o-300oF, Gas Mark 1-2) for 6 – 8 hours adding additional water to keep beans just covered. Uncover during the last 30 mins to brown pork and beans.

Butter Beans in Tomato Sauce

(Gigandes Plaki)

Lovely beans indeed, think a huge boil full of giant baked beans, with lots of extra flavour. They work beautifully at room temperature. If you can source some dried butter beans, this is a very economical dish indeed, and all the family will love it! This is adapted from Rick Stein’s Mediterranean Escapes….

500 g butter beans, soaked overnight
250 ml olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
3 garlic gloves, finely chopped
1kg ripe tomatoes, skinned and chopped, or 2 x 400g cans of chopped toms
1 tbs tomato puree
1 tsp sweet paprika
a good pinch of ground allspice
2 fresh bay leaves
1 tbs chopped dill (I like a bit more…)
2 tbs chopped parsley
salt and pepper

Drain, rinse the beans, then cook them in a pan with enough water to cover them by about 5 cm. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer until soft. This could be 45- 1 half hour depending on age of beans and how long you’ve soaked them. Watch them to make sure they don’t get to soft.
Meanwhile, heat 150ml of olive oil in a pan, add the onion and garlic, cook till soft not browned. Add tomatoes, tomato puree, paprika, allspice and bay leaves and simmer for about 25 mins, until sauce has thickened. Remove and discard bay leaves, transfer to a food processor and blend to a smooth sauce. Return to the pan, add salt and pepper. Drain the beans, keep hold of the cooking liquor, add the beans to the sauce, with about 150ml of cooking liquor, with salt to taste. Simmer for another 30 mins. Stir in remaining olive oil, dill and parsley and serve at room temp.

Today’s illustration ‘tomato’ silk/batik painting © lois Blackburn, please go to www.loisblackburn.co.uk for more..

The best beans

I love my pulse recipes, delicious, filling and a real money saver. This one is an adaptation of the wonderful Gennaro Contaldo’s recipe for Zolfino Beans. I’m afraid I haven’t been able to find Zolfino beans, so used instead Cannellini beans (or failing that haricot beans) using dried pulses, you’ve just got to remember to soak them the night before….

350g Cannellini beans 3tbs olive oil
2 garlic cloves 3tbs white wine vinegar
4 sage leaves about 1.4 litres veg stock.

Soak the beans overnight.

Drain and place in a saucepan with the garlic, (I leave them whole, squashing them slightly) sage leaves, olive oil and vinegar. Cover with the vegetable stock, bring to the boil and reduce the heat. Cover with a lid and simmer gently for 2 hours or until the beans are soft. If you find there’s a lot of liquid left, drain it and reduce it by cooking it in separate pot, then add it back to the beans.

Cannellini beans are an excellent source of Iron, Magnesium and Folate.

Today’s illustration is a monoprint ‘haricot beans’ © Lois Blackburn. Please visit http://www.loisblackburn.co.uk for more images.