I wrote the other day about the fact that we’re now in the fifth month of the year (how??) and that I’ve been more creative in using up items in my cupboard, so I thought I’d share some of my ideas that you might find useful, starting with the bean edition.
Our cupboard is full of all different types of beans – black, kidney, haricot, mixed, pinto and of course, the classic baked bean, which don’t need any help. Most of the beans I’ve got at the moment are dried, as I tend to get through the tinned ones quicker. Yes, it’s more of a faff using dried beans, but seeing as I’ve got more time on my hands I’ve been embracing the use of these forgotten goodies.
If you’re looking to include dried beans in your cooking, the instructions will be on the back of the packets, but I soak the beans overnight in a deep bowl covered with cold water, and you won’t need to salt them. In the morning, I’ll drain and rinse the beans, put them into a pan of fresh water and simmer them for about an 1hr – 1.5hrs until cooked, depending on how old the beans are. If you’ve got any bay leaves knocking about, you could throw one in and perhaps some peppercorns for a bit of extra flavour.
Once they’re cooked and cooled, I keep the beans in the fridge, so you can just use what you need and there’s so many things you can do with them. I like to include them as part of a salad, which I tend to have on a weekly basis, so I’ll add some cooked beans to a big bowl, with a tin of sweetcorn and whatever salad I’ve got in the fridge – cucumber, tomatoes, avocado, celery or anything like that and then maybe roast some sweet potato as well if I’m feeling hungry and then tuck in. It makes a good accompaniment to fish, chicken or any other meats as well.
Dressing wise for the salad, I’ll use some olive oil, grain mustard and lemon juice (out of a bottle is fine and more handy than you’ll realise) mix this together and throw it over. Any sauces you’ve made previously would work well here – I made some chimchurri the other day to marinate a piece of steak, so I added the leftovers from the chimichurri to my salad as a dressing and it was lovely.
To make a more substantial meal, you can turn them into a stew, but this mean a who array of things – try cooking an onion, some garlic and peppers (or whatever you have) in a pan with some salt & pepper until the veggies soften, then add your beans (kidney, black, haricot etc) and a tin of tomatoes. You can experiment with flavours by adding the herbs or spices you like – try adding some garlic, chilli (you could use fresh) and lemon juice or another alternative is when cooking the onions add some paprika, cumin, ground coriander and lime juice – use the flavours you like and test as you go along. You can always add, but you can’t take away! You could take this to the next level and make some gaps in the sauce and drop in a few eggs, like a cheats shakshuka, which took less than 15 minutes.
Accompaniments to these saucy beans or black bean stew (whatever you want to call it) could be toasted bread and avocado, perfect for dunking into the eggs and beans like I did for my lunch, brown rice, quinoa or a favourite of mine, is serving it with wraps and adding – yum! You’ll see I’ve used flat leaf parsley here, which I always have knocking around and it keeps really well in the fridge – I’m growing my own at the moment, so I’ll soon be able to stop buying it.
You can also use beans to bulk out your food, which is handy if you’re looking to make some meals ahead to pop in the freezer – mixed bean chilli, meatballs, fajitas, stir fry, curry – the list really is endless.
So, take a look in your cupboard and see if you’ve got any beans knocking around – hopefully you’ll love them as much as I do!
A x
Abi in the Garden 