Category Archives: baked beans

Baked tofu and bean balls

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These balls are ideal for either Loinfruits or as party finger food. They bake to a lovely dark golden colour. To ensure that they were easy to remove from the tray once cooked The VegHead cooked a batch in a large muffin (or “cup cake”) tray – and used a load of the happy little paper cup cake whats-its. The Loinfruit saw the uncooked balls sitting in the gaily coloured trays before they went into the oven and there was a near riot in the kitchen ….

“Look! It’s cakes for dinner!” , said The Loinfruit
“Oh no it is!”, said the Nasty Ogre, cruelly crushing their happiness *

Ingredients:

  • 1 block of medium tofu
  • 1 cup of giant Baked Beans
  • 2 slices of bread, finely crumbed
  • 1/3 cup of cashews, finely crushed
  • 1/3 cup of sunflower seeds, finely crushed
  • 1 tablespoon of finely chopped fresh dill
  • 1 tablespoon of finely chopped fresh parsley
  • 2 tablespoons of olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons of light tahini
  • 1 tablespoon of tamari
  • pepper to taste

To do:

  • Mash everything together to an even mixture
  • If too wet, crumb another slice of bread and mix through thoroughly
  • Form into firm balls of approximately 5cm diameter, place into prepared paper cups
  • Bake in a hot oven for 35 minutes

(*) “The Nasty Ogre” is a.k.a. “The VegHead”

Cous cous and bean stack

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On Saturday night, SheWhoMustbeFed and The VegHead had a bean tagine, with a side dish of cous cous and stir fried broccoli spears. Thus yielding some left over cous cous. There are few better ways to create the two cups full of cooked cous cous thaqt you will need for this dish. Remember that and you’re life will be moderately more glorious.

This dish also relies on having some Giant Baked Beans handy.
And its not a bad idea to have some Pesto in the fridge too.

Ingredients….
Cous cous layer:

  • 2 cups of cooked cous cous
  • 1/2 cup of oats
  • 2 tablespoons of hemp seeds
  • 1 tablesoon of dried italian herbs
  • fresh rosemary and thyme – chopped
  • a few thin slices of onion – chopped
  • 1 clove of glaric – crushed
  • pepper
  • a generous amount of olive oil

Regular readers may notice that al that was basically a stuffing recipe, only made with cous cous, hemp seeds, and oats rather than bread crumbs.

Bean layer:

  • 1 cup of giant backed beans
  • 1 cup of chopped cauliflower florets
  • teaspoon of paprika
  • 1/4 teaspoon of spanish smoked paprika

Making a party in your baking dish…

  • Mix up each layers worth of ingredients into seperate bowls
  • In a baking dish, dvide the mixtures into 4 even layers (meaning two layers of each), starting with a layer of the beans and cauliflower.
  • Mix about one tablespoon of pesto with an equal amount of water. Evenly spoon over the top of the last layer
  • Bake in a covered dish, on high for 45+ minutes
  • Server with roasted or steamed vegetables, and a boat of gravy if you’re feeling indulgent.

Haricot bean tagine

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This was made as a companion to Fragrant Moroccan Vegetables, for The Bandit and Octavia’s Daughter. The two tagines nestled together snugly in the oven while the loinfruits made occasionally disturbing thumps in the lounge room.

What you would need:

  • 3 cups of cooked haricot beans
  • 1 cup of passata
  • 1 tablespoon of miso
  • 2 cloves of garlic – chopped
  • 1 teaspoon of paprika
  • 1 teaspoon of ras el hanout
  • 1/2 teaspoon of Spanish smoked paprika
  • 1 cup of boiled water
  • Olive oil

For the doing:

  • Pre-dissolve the miso paste in the boiled water
  • Give everything else a good mix before slopping it stylishly into the tagine
  • Add more water if necessary

And bake in a stinking hot oven for 45 minutes or so. As always, this will cook in that time if the tagine and the oven are preheated while you’re preparing everything.

Baked bean pizza pie

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My American friends (“some of my best friends are americans” as the saying goes) call a pizza a pizza-pie. Especially in Noo Yark. This really is a pizza pie though, in that it is made with the dough top and bottom.

You will need….

  • a batch of pizza dough
  • a batch of pesto
  • a batch of giant baked beans

To make….

  • roll out two pizzas that are about 35cms in diameter. Place one on a pizza tray (that is dusted with fine cornmeal)
  • spread pesto on both pizza bases, leaving a margin of about 4cm to the edge (as opposed to if you were spreading this on a normal pizza you’d go almost right to the edge)
  • (on the base that is on the pizza tray) spread beans on the same area as the pesto. Try to cover the pesto entirely with a single layer of beans (meaning lay the beans flat, evenly, and closely packed)
  • cover with second pizza dough, with the pesto facing down
  • roll the edges together all around the dish
  • bake in a preheated hot oven for about 20 minutes. Probably worth checking it after about 12-13 minutes to check that the pastry isn’t overcooking – if that looks to be the case lower the heat

Giant baked beans

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This is a home developed version of a traditional Greek dish known as γίγαντες πλακί, which I am sure that you know is pronounced yee-gahn-dess plar-kee. Also known as “baked beans for grown ups” (*).

This dish is also used as a basis for several other recipes in the VegHead’s kitchen, so if you see another recipe that calls for “giant baked beans” this is it. We make a batch of this up generally once a week and most of it then goes into other recipes.

Things wot go in…

  • 500 grams of cooked butter beans
  • 1 large clove of garlic, crushed
  • 1 small onion, finely sliced and chopped
  • 2 teaspoons of chopped dill
  • 2 teaspoons of chopped parsley
  • Ground pepper to taste
  • 1/4 cup of olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon of tomato paste
  • 1 tablespoon of light miso
  • 1 large tomato, chopped
  • Boiled water

The doing…

  • Dissolve the miso and tomato pastes in about 1/4 cup of boiled water
  • Mix all ingredients. If it looks too dry add a little more water. If you accidentally add too much water then increase the cooking time.
  • Bake in a covered dish in a pre-heated hot oven for about 30 minutes

* hahaha – just reviewed this post before publishing and spotted that I had mistyped “baked beans for grown ups” as “naked beans for grown ups”. Lucky I saw that…