Smoky Baked Beans on Toast

This is a recipe that I find quite difficult to pull off but it's very, very tasty when it works. Great served with toasted crusty bread and a little salad or as a side dish.

Ingredients-
1x onion, grated
2x garlic cloves, grated
oil for frying
2x cans of beans (in this case I'm using 1x haricot beans and 1x butter beans)
water from canned beans
2x tbsp cider vinegar
2x bay leaves
2x tsp smoked paprika
½x tsp of mustard powder
pinch of ground cinnamon
pinch of ground nutmeg
1x tsp black treacle
1x canned tomatoes
2x tbsp tomato purée
demerara sugar/salt and pepper to taste
crusty bread

Method - Firstly, drain the beans making sure to preserve the water from the cans. Add a little oil to a pan and heat to a medium temperature, next add the onions, garlic and half of the smoked paprika. Stir regularly and allow to brown over the heat for around 10 minutes. Now reduce to a low heat and add the water from the beans, cider vinegar, bay leaves and the beans to the pan and allow to simmer for 5 minutes. 

Whilst waiting, preheat the oven to 180°c. Now, mix in the rest of the paprika, cinnamon, nutmeg and mustard powder then simmer for another 5 minutes. Mix in the treacle, tomato purée and tinned tomatoes. Taste the mixture, this is a key point as too much mustard powder or too much treacle may have made the sauce taste unpleasant. To counter this add extra salt if it is too sweet or demerara sugar if it is too bitter.

Finally, add to a casserole dish and place in the oven. The dish will be ready to eat after around 20 minutes in the oven, however, the sauce will benefit from longer (around 40-60mins) as more water will evaporate from the sauce and create a stickier texture. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Served with a side salad (root beer optional)

It is extremely easy to make very different versions of this dish by tweaking the amounts of certain ingredients based on your own personal taste, mainly smoked paprika, mustard powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt will effect the final outcome the most. 

More recipes coming soon.

JAB 

Quesadillas and Homemade Guacamole

First up on Rocket Bean is an awesomely tasty recipe for quesadillas and homemade guacamole that serves 4 people. This also makes a great snack that can be eaten cold.

I'm currently looking at ways to make this recipe vegan friendly without the use of vegan cheese (not a huge fan of it) so watch this space. As with any recipe using fresh chilies, increase/decrease the quantities to your own personal taste and leave in the chilli seeds if you want it really spicy. Also, fresh coriander makes a huge difference to the taste of the guacamole and so it's worthwhile seeking out.

Guacamole
Ingredients-
2x Avocados
10-12 vine ripened cherry tomatoes, chopped
½ bunch of coriander, finely chopped (or 2tsp of dried coriander leaf)
3x cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1-3 chillies, finely chopped
1x lime, juice only
Salt and pepper, to taste 
Note: you can also add spinach to make the mixture go further.

Method - Very quick and easy to make. Halve and stone the avocados and spoon out the flesh into a blender (or a container suitable for use with a hand blender), add in the rest of the ingredients, squeezing the lime juice over the top of the contents. Now blend and the guacamole is ready to serve. Salt and pepper can be added after blending to taste. 

You can also simply mash all the ingredients together using a fork if you prefer a more chunky dip.

Finely chop the garlic and chillies before adding to the blender.

Chilli Mushroom and Bean Quesadillas
Ingredients-
8x flour tortillas
1x onion, grated
2x garlic cloves, grated

chilli powder

olive oil for frying
1x can of kidney beans, drained and mashed
1x can of butter beans, drained and mashed
1x chilli, finely chopped
1x red pepper, sliced into strips
200g strong cheddar, grated
250g mushrooms, sliced
tin foil

Method - Add the olive oil to the pan and heat to a medium temperature.

Next, add the grated onion, garlic and chilli powder to the pan with a little salt and fry gently for 10 mins, allowing to brown over the heat. Add the chopped chilli and mushrooms and continue to cook for around 5 mins until the mushrooms soften.

Preheat the oven to 180°c.

Drain the beans and mash together in a pan. 

Canned beans will generally not need to be cooked for this recipe and will be soft enough to mash straight from the can. Dried beans can be used instead but will need to be soaked overnight before being cooked and mashed. 

Once cooked place a tortilla onto a sheet of tin foil and then layer on the mashed beans, chilli mushroom mix, peppers and grated cheese spreading evenly across the tortilla and top with a second tortilla. Now place another sheet of foil on top of that tortilla repeating the layers until you have used all tortillas and filling (making a stack of 4 quesadillas).

Place the stack in the preheated oven for 15-20mins until the cheese has melted and the tortillas have started to go crisp around the edges. Remove from the oven and cut into quarters, serve with guacamole and side salad.

Enjoy, and feel free to leave feedback or let me know your thoughts should you try any recipes out!

JAB