Put Your Hands Up For Heinz Baked Beans

Beans on a plate, originally uploaded by foodforfraud.

Hands up if you like Heinz Baked Beans. Hands up if you liked the Heinz Baked Beans with the rubbish sausages in. In either case you will no doubt note that this is indeed an online blog as such I can not see you with your hands in the air. If you answered in the affirmative for either question, I, and many more like me judge you.

Having got back from New York on Friday night I set about cooking, risotto saturday night, roast dinner for Sunday lunch. Tonight Kate is out with friends so I have to fend for myself. I essentially ended my working day by watching football and trawling the BBC website for Autumnal recipes. It’s not really Autumn yet, but I’m excited as it’s my favourite time to cook. I hit upon a sausage and bean casserole idea and I leave to go home picking up sausages, beans and some mushrooms on the way.

Once home I feed the cats and then finish the last few bits of washing up from Sunday. I then cut a whole pack of sausages up into bite sized pieces and fry them off in a little oil, adding a heaped teaspoon of my very own pizza/pasta sauce seasoning. For the seasoning it’s no mystery, you just go to the dried herbs section of your local supermarket and pick herbs, chilli flakes, garlic flakes ground black pepper and salt. You then mix them in whatever order and quantity to suit your own taste and then sprinkle it on everything. The only rule is, it must have equal measures of chilli, garlic, salt and black pepper, but be mainly herbs. Don’t worry if you don’t think thyme goes in pasta dishes, when it’s mixed with basil, rosemary and God knows what else you won’t care.

Anyway, back to dinner. Once the sausage pieces have browned sufficiently that you can start stabbing them with a knife and eating them if only to quench your growing hunger and burn your tongue then add a whole chopped onion and two finely chopped cloves of garlic. Fry until softened and beginning to brown. Pour in a glass of the red wine someone left at a house party which is literally too awful to drink but has mysteriously been open in any event, a tin of chopped tomatoes, and 6 sliced mushrooms. Cook for 20-30 mins stirring occasionally. Oh, I almost forgot, you’ll also need lashings of worcestershire sauce. Once it’s bubbled away for about 20-30 mins add a whole tin of drained Haricot beans. Stir in and cook for a further 10 mins. Add water and or stock as you go if needed but this should be a very thick sauce.

Serve in bowls with lots of black pepper and parmesan cheese. Toast is optional, but it provides a nice texture difference to the soft beans in hot spicy sauce. Either way it’s good, I had a second bowl after the toast had run out just to make sure *ahem

We’re Jammin’

IMG_8099, originally uploaded by foodforfraud.

As the old Joke goes. How does Bob Marley like his doughnuts? W’Jammin’. Boom!

Anyway, before we continue with the post, please allow me to apologise for the severe lack of posts for the last 9 months. I haven’t been pregnant, I sadly destroyed my hard drive with all of my photos on and have been robbed of many a good recipe. So I apologise.

So, summer has drawn to an anti-climatic end, and we’re now faced with the prospect of Autumn’s slow decline into winter. For those of us with seasonal affected disorder this signifies a steady decline into depression and casual alcoholism in the run up to Christmas.

Some of us see the end of summer as a bright spot in the year, I am one of these. I love pies, I also love making my own Jam. The cusp of the end of summer is some of the best time to do this. Plums, blackberries, apples, pears, all kinds of other fruits are always good, cheap and in abundance this time of year.

The basic idea is simple enough. Fruit + Sugar + heat = Jam.

So I started this summer to christen the Preserving Pan Kate had bought me for Christmas by making Nectarine and chilli jam. It’s a very simple process.

Ingredients:

1.5KG unripe Nectarines
750g Sugar (only use granulated white sugar or preserving sugar. Brown sugar will make your jam look cloudy)
6 green chilies finely chopped (seeds in or out it’s up to you)

Equipment:

Preserving pan (any large pan will do)
1 large glass mixing bowl (not a metal one as this will taint the flavour)
a paring knife
a jam funnel
sterilised jars
labels designed by your very clever girlfriend

Start by halving and removing the kernels from the nectarines. Don’t worry if you can’t get all the kernels out, they’ll be released during the cooking and you can pick them out then. Cover the halved nectarines with the sugar and leave overnight. This process is desiccation and it draws out the juice form the fruit and means that you don’t have to add water to help dissolve the sugar, which ultimately reduces your cooking time.

Add the sugared fruit to the pan and heat slowly whilst stirring until the sugar has dissolved. You’ll know the sugar has dissolved by the sound and feel on the spoon. Once the sugar has dissolved you can bring up the heat and allow the fruit to cook and the liquid to reduce. This usually takes about 45mins to an hour on a medium heat. When you think the jam is ready test it by putting a teaspoon full in the freezer for 30 seconds. If a skin forms it’s ready.

For the Jars, the best way I’ve found to do this is by cleaning the jars that you’ll need plus a couple of small extra jars just in case. Place them whilst still wet all with their lids (if you’re using a kilner or similar jar remove any rubber seals) on a baking tray and pop them in a preheated oven at 120 degrees C and leave them there to dray and stay sterilised until needed.

Once the jam is ready you must jar up immediately. This helps kill any bacteria and ultimately preserve your jam for longer. Don’t worry about your metal lids as the jam cools you’ll hear them pop in so you’ll be able to tell which jams are unopened.

For the plum & blackberry Jam follow the above recipe, using 1.5KG of plums and 400g of blackberries but only add the blackberries in the last 20 mins. This keeps them largely whole and gives you a little surprise every now and then when using the jam.

The Nectarine and chilli jam is great as an alternative to mango chutney with a curry and any spicy food, it’s not too hot, but you can adjust this with the chillies is you wish. I deseeded the chillies for this as I didn’t want to blow my head off, but in hindsight I may not do that next time to see how it goes.

The plum and blackberry Jam is amazing stirred into porridge, on toast, and I am thinking of making a victoria sponge using it. It has whole chunks of plum and small blackberries barely holding there shape, which burst with the pressure of your knife as you spread it over your hot buttered toast.

Now I have to sign off as I am salivating over the keyboard, which frankly doesn’t bode well for the warranty.