Beans and more beans and tuna

[santaman2000]

The bacon end bits and trimmings are sold in 1 kg (2.2 lbs) packages called "cottage bacon."
Can't tell you the price, not bought in ages and they always sell very quickly.

I'll trim a lot of the pure fat pieces out of it = some packages are not quite the bargain I thought they were.
If/when I need fried dice bacon, chopping fancy rashers is a last resort.
Not at all the taste that I'm looking for in baked beans. More onion and garlic. I'm thinking.

Sorry RV, but beans and onions and garlic sounds like the best cause of wind imaginable

I was gonna say ends and pieces are so.d here as well. Those make very cheap “cooking” bacon. I rather like the fat. To be honest, that’s really the whole reason bacon or pork is added to recipes anyway; to give it fat. My grandmother never added bacon itself but instead kept the bacon grease for recipes (note to others: Southern vegetables aren’t for vegetarians) I also add onions when cooking beans (or almost anything else) from raw. Usually as part of the “trinity.” (onions, bell pepper, and celery)

 

[Toddy]

We buy that bacon all the time. At Tesco (other shops are available) it comes packaged as “cooking bacon” - silly me I thought all bacon was - at 72p for 500g. Quite a bargain. We use It for pasta sauces, bacon sandwiches, and well, basically everything for which bacon is required. The only drawback is that like most UK bacon it contains a fair amount of water, and it isn’t sliced neatly. So we use knives (the horror!) to cut it up ourselves, and fry it dry for the first few minutes, after which we drain the pan of liquids and fry it on to crisp it up properly . Yummy!

That's the stuff. It's surprisingly good for making soup, though you need to skim the fat off it. If you like bacon fat though, that makes a decent job of frying egg, making skirlie, or as the fat in savoury bakes like cheese scones.

@santaman2000
That 'trinity' isn't really a European thing, we make a mirepoix of carrot, onion and celery though or a soffritto (much the same as a mirepoix but sometimes a bit like RV's when it's made of onion, garlic and tomato), lot of folks find peppers, well the skins, gives them heartburn and it hard to digest.

M

 

[Robson Valley]

Beans, onion and garlic = musical fruit. How did you know?
Hope none are "atomic." Big bang and a lot of fall-out.

I never take all the fat out of cottage bacon = impossibility.
I'll take 1/3 of it, particularly the pure white lumps.
Good stuff to feed the Ravens at 20 below.

 

[Janne]

I just came home from one of the supermarkets, and yes, baked beans in tomato sauce is indeed also made in North America.
Van Camp have several versions, plus I saw several other brands, some very fancy and organic!

Once I run out of the Branson’s I might try the Van Camp.


We have visitors from Norway, son’s future family, and mum is a vegetarian, so tomorrow I am going to cook a vegetarian goulash, (substituting the beef with Quorn) an experimental version, and tomorrow an experimental version of the Cuban dish Chickpeas with chorizo, but replacing the chorizo with tofu I will marinate in wood vinegar.

 

[Tengu]

Quorn is good. My dad eats some as a partial substitute for red meat. (something he eats little of these days)

He has a delicate stomach so soya...well, lets not say what soya does to him.

But quorn harms him not

 

[Janne]

I love the taste of the unflavoured one.
The chicken ( and beef) flavoured ones are a travesty.

I like the flavour of tofu too. More so since I quit the Marlboroughs!

Did the crafty Americans not develop a bean that does not produce so much flatulence?
Less oligosacckarides?

 

[Woody girl]

Yes soya can have an unfortunate effect on ones digestive system !
Many years ago I was given a bag of beef flavour style soya chunks.
Eagerly made a stew with lots of barley and beans plus the soya chunks.
........ I had social problems !
The aroma surrounding me was not a gucci fragrance!
The chunks were gifted on!

 

[santaman2000]

........@santaman2000
That 'trinity' isn't really a European thing, we make a mirepoix of carrot, onion and celery though or a soffritto (much the same as a mirepoix but sometimes a bit like RV's when it's made of onion, garlic and tomato), lot of folks find peppers, well the skins, gives them heartburn and it hard to digest.

M

Yeah, the French have mirepoix, the Spanish and Portuguese have soffrito (the exact composition of soffrito varies between different Hispanic nations/regions of the world.

I just came home from one of the supermarkets, and yes, baked beans in tomato sauce is indeed also made in North America.
Van Camp have several versions, plus I saw several other brands, some very fancy and organic!

Once I run out of the Branson’s I might try the Van Camp.


We have visitors from Norway, son’s future family, and mum is a vegetarian, so tomorrow I am going to cook a vegetarian goulash.....

I remember Van Camps! Haven’t eaten that one since I was a kid. I never read the ingredients on that one but I remember we treated it the way RV described (use it as an ingredient and add sugar/honey/molasses or whatever sweetener and a bit of liquid.

You realize real goulash doesn’t have tomatoes either. Rather lots of paprika.

.......Did the crafty Americans not develop a bean that does not produce so much flatulence?
Less oligosacckarides?

Not that I’m aware of.

 

[Robson Valley]

Ah. Now we are very close to the real "Trinity" of the Neolithic peoples across the Great Plains of North America:
Corn, squash and beans, grown in enormous family gardens. Enough for a winter with a good crop.
Can you find a reprint of "Bird Woman's Garden?" The real deal, digging sticks and all.
I can still remember being taught how and when to grow corn/maize.

In most of the rest of the world, I can believe that the Stone Age ended a few thousand years ago.
Not true in North America. Not true, less than a block from my house right now.

Beans don't give me gas like they once did. I don't miss it at all.
I could play the first 4 bars of our National Anthem.

 

[santaman2000]

Ah. Now we are very close to the real "Trinity" of the Neolithic peoples across the Great Plains of North America:
Corn, squash and beans, grown in enormous family gardens. Enough for a winter with a good crop.........

A lot of truth in that. But that combo was more often called “the three sisters” than “the trinity.” And less about coming together but rather about growing together.

 

[Robson Valley]

Got me going. Tonight is Bush's Original beans with added onion, garlic powder, Worster and half a dozen dried Roma tomato slices.
Bunch of dry toast with Cheese Whiz as a landing pad. Salad.

In Bird Woman's Garden, there are illustrated descriptions of how she/they stored the crops to prevent rodent damage.
I forget what the book says for the original interviews but they are really old. I have read the entire reprint.
Cool and dry, I can keep pumpkins and squash (Cucurbitaceae) for 6 months or so.
Excellent lesson for anyone interested in ethnobotany.

What were the Neolithic crops in the UK?

 

[Toddy]

Barley, oats, wheat, celtic bean, peas, flax and masses of hazelnuts.

 

[Janne]

What is a Celtic bean?

I always wondered if crab apples and those small wild plums were a part of Neo cuisine. Maybe even consciously planted/ farmed?

Abundant.

Cheez Whiz ? You desecrate your mouth with that?

 

[Toddy]

It's a dark butter bean kind of bean. Very variable apparently, bit like apples and plums in that folks cultivated their own varieties.
Grows well in brackish soil, so easily worked esturine soils were very exploitable, and fertile.

M

 

[Nice65]

Got me going. Tonight is Bush's Original beans with added onion, garlic powder, Worster and half a dozen dried Roma tomato slices.
Bunch of dry toast with Cheese Whiz as a landing pad

Cheez Whiz, I love that particular abomination of cheese. Is it still available in the pressurised can?

 

[santaman2000]

Cheez Whiz, I love that particular abomination of cheese. Is it still available in the pressurised can?

Yes! Yes it is!

 

[Nice65]

Yes! Yes it is!

I feel dirty just thinking about it.

 

[Robson Valley]

CheezWhiz is probably a petroleum byproduct from Canada's Athabasca tar sands deposit.
We see no pressure cans but 4 or 5 ? different jar sizes. Works very well to waterproof the toast.

I. Don't. Care.

My baked bean supper was great. 4 smallish slices of toast and CW, the can of adulterated Bush's beans and my face in my plate.
Can of local dark ale (Swamp Donkey) to wash it down. Half a dozen Fudgeoo cookies for dessert.
Remarkably little gas pressure blow-back during the night.

I'll never cook beans from scratch on a camping trip for the fuel cost and monitoring.
Cans. Burn the cans in the camp fire. Food smells will bring in the bears at night.
If it's a sow with cubs, you have no end of new problems to cope with. Sleep with a loaded 12 ga.
You burn all your food trash. Clean and cold, back to town in my home garbage.

 

[Tengu]

Dad gave me some money and I bought some food.

I now have potatoes!

And cheese!

The beans and tuna can wait for a fancing it day!

Im having baked potatoes for supper!

And I have bacon pieces, I get mine from the butchers; as good as their sliced bacon.

I can have a handful for 40p.

Some is embarrasingly big lumps of fat, but others is big chunks, cook as gammon or cube for a kebab.

 

[Janne]

We did buy the pressurised Cheeze Whiz once.
I do not think it is made from the Canadian Tar Sands, but from the used Engine oil from the machines used to mine the sands!

I think it is chemically the same as that Kraft product which is not allowed to be called cheese in Europe?
Those orange-yellow plastic clad slices?