Thursday 4 April 2013

Madhouse Recipe : Bacon & Beans with a (Green) Twist


You may remember me telling you about this week's veg box which had some rather interesting-looking Paimpol Coco Beans - the pods are very loose and squishy because the beans are very widely spaced. This is what they look like when you've shelled them.



I still wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with them. Google suggested serving them with fish, but I'd already done Fresh Spinach & Salmon En Croûte so I thought Madhouse Daddy Mike would grumble if I made him eat fish again ! A bit more searching suggesting serving them with lamb or bacon, so I figured I'd just look in the fridge and see what leapt out at me. The answer was green beans, mushrooms, tomatoes and onions, as well as bacon and chicken from the freezer.

Some of my best recipes start out as freestyle fling-in-whatever-comes-to-hand creations so that was what I decided to go for !


The Paimpol Coco Beans went into a pan of boiling salted water to soften for 5 minutes, then I added the topped-and-tailed green beans and blanched them for 2-3 minutes, making sure they retained some crunch.


In the meantime, I fried some rashers of bacon, then sliced and fried some onions and mushrooms in the bacon fat. I added some fresh tomatoes chopped into wedges for 3-4 minutes until they were soft and cooked through but still firm.


I drained the beans and added them to the tomatoes, onions and mushrooms, then chopped the bacon into strips and tossed the whole lot together.



This was orignally designed as a vegetable accompaniment to some chicken, but having added the bacon, this actually makes a complete meal in itself. 

The Paimpol Coco beans aren't unpleasant but I wasn't overly impressed because they didn't really taste of anything much to be honest. Maybe I didn't have enough of them in the dish for their flavour to really come through.

The Diary of a Frugal Family

*** Click through to add your recipes to the #CookitBlogit linky ! ***

Other blogposts you may be interested in :

Recipe : Philly Cheesecake Brownies

Use up your leftovers ! : Egg Fried Rice recipe



3 comments:

  1. this is very reason I dont like to meal plan, so you can go with the flow with what you have and what you fancy. sounds nice, but I have never heard of these beans

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I meal plan as a rough guide so I know what to buy to stock the freezer in the weekly shop and what to defrost in advance, but am flexible enough to swap things around when I have things in the fridge that need using up. It avoids those last-minute panics when I rush in from work, need to get something into hungry tummies quick and haven't got a clue what to knock up with what's in the fridge ! lol

      Delete
  2. I've not heard of those beans either. Your pictures look really appetising -considering it's mainly vegetables :). I'd eat that quite happily as a main meal (with the bacon), or you could add chicken.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...