Baked beans are very nutritious & can aid weight loss, unless it's the tinned variety full of MSG, which not only damage your body internally but can actually make you put on weight. Thankfully they're easy to make at home, and you can enjoy them for breakfast, lunch or dinner, depending on what you choose to serve them with. I usually eat them at lunch time, and so like to make these quick and easy Irish Soda Farles as a healthy and extremely tasty alternative to regular toast. Soda farles were created by the Irish as something that could be made quickly when unexpected visitors dropped by - and if you know any traditional Irish folk then you'll also know visitors can come and go from dawn til dusk, and they like to be fed!
Haricot beans are the type used in typical tinned baked beans, and pinto are very similar as well. But you can use any kind of beans you like for varied nutrition, flavours and textures. I just use whatever I happen to have ready-cooked in the freezer... in this case I have pinto and chickpeas.
What you will need for the Baked Beans (makes enough for 8-10 portions to freeze):
Approx 1kg cooked/tinned beans (Haricot or pinto) or 500g uncooked dried beans*
1 jar organic tomato passata
2 cups water
1 tblsp wholegrain mustard
1 1/2 tblsp honey (or to taste)
Salt & pepper to taste
*If starting with uncooked dried beans you will obviously need to cook them first, so you can see my previous post on how to do that (with photos)
Method:
Put the cooked-from-dried or tinned beans into a large frying pan (no oil needed)
Add the tomato passata, water, mustard, honey and salt & pepper and simmer on moderate heat for 30-40 minutes until the sauce reduces and thickens
Once cooled you can put whatever you don't use right-away into jars or containers and freeze. They will stay fresh for about 6 months in the freezer.
What you will need for the Wholewheat Irish Soda Farles: (Makes 4)
300g fine wholewheat flour
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp bread soda
150ml buttermilk (or regular milk with 1 tsp vinegar added, then leave for 15 mins to sour)
Method:
In a large bowl mix the flour, salt and bread soda
Add the buttermilk and mix in, then on a floured surface knead for 5 minutes until you have a smooth dough. Add extra flour if the dough starts to stick to the surface – we want it to be quite dry for the farles
Shape into a round and then with a rolling pin flatten to 1 cm thick
Using a floured knife cut the round into quarters
Lay the quarters onto a well-floured baking tray, and pop into a preheated oven at 200 degrees Celcius for 20 minutes
Slice in half, spread with a little butter if you like, then spoon the beans on top
You can also enjoy soda farles as a simple snack with just butter, or sweet with butter & honey... Mmmmmmmm :-)
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