351 - 'Baked' Beans

If you're wondering what artist's eat, I can tell you what this artist eats. Nourishing, home cooked food. Tinned baked beans are bland, and they are normally choc full of unnecessary sweeteners (sugar or fake sugar or apple juice concentrate).

So I make my own and I just knocked up what must have been a full gallon of home cooked beans, in a batch lot for the freezer.

I've broken with Eliza Acton's cookery writing style here, and used colour and font weight to show the ingredients within the recipe. That way, you can scan for the ingredients you need to collect together AND read through the recipe fluently, without having to jump up and down the page.

Eliza Acton was a British poet, who was commissioned to write a cookery book. 'Modern Cookery for Private Families' published in 1845. It was groundbreaking in its presentation and methodology. Accurate measurements, cooking times and ingredients were displayed in a systematic format. In older cookbooks, the writing was dense, with key info embedded in rambling paragraphs.

You can read a fictionalised story of Eliza Acton - Miss Eliza's English Kitchen by Annabel Abbs. I recommend it for a good read.

Homemade Baked Beans Recipe

Also available to download

Simmered instead of baked.

• 3 portions of beans (not totally sure how much that would be dried).

Wash / rinse beans.

Soak overnight your dried beans (eg haricot) with a pinch of baking powder (to help soften in hard water areas). 

KEEP the soaking water which is full of nutrients.

Boil in soaking water NO SALT to cook the beans - keep an eye on them so they don't go too mushy. 

KEEP the water.

• 1 onion chopped
• 1 clove garlic chopped or crushed
• bay leaf
• optional stalk celery

Fry up the above until they change colour to golden.

• Optional chopped up 1/3 sweet potato (add for thickness)

Add spices:

• 3 rounded tsp SMOKED paprika
• 1 tsp HOT paprika
• Half tsp of mixed herbs

Fry up a bit.

• Optional tomato puree - a squirt

Add and fry up a bit.

• Packet of tomato passata OR tin of chopped tomatoes.

Add in and bring to boil.

Add your beans and their liquid.

• Optional Stock

Add stock or extra water if it looks like it doesn't have enough sauce.

Add extra flavour:

• Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 tsp molasses
• 1/4 tsp marmite

Simmer for at least 30 minutes without a lid to reduce liquid or with a lid if you don't want to lose liquid (depending how saucy you like it).

• Optional 1tsp Miso

Mix in before serving.

Optional:

• Soy Sauce
• Salt 
• Pepper

Add to taste.