Jazzy baked beans on toast

Lately, The Boy and I have been having brunch instead of breakfast and lunch. It's not entirely intentional but by the time we're done with our coffees, morning errands and are ready to cook, it's about 10am and therefore more brunch than breakfast, though we still call it breakfast. We're finding this works quite well for us and it means we can have a late afternoon snack and then a slightly later dinner.

We were debating what to have for breakfast this morning and originally it was supposed to be waffles with strawberries (The Boy bought some gorgeous fresh strawberries a few days ago!) and bacon. The difficult thing? The bacon was still frozen and we were out of eggs for the waffle batter.

Since we were out of a few things, we decided on a quick run to the grocery store and saw that some Heinz baked beans were on sale. We could get a large size three pack for $2.99! Score! After seeing the baked beans, The Boy decided that he wanted baked beans for breakfast instead.

The thing I love about baked beans is that it is super simple to make. To keep it really basic, I could have just warmed up the baked beans in a pot but we like to jazz up our baked beans a little.

Here's what we did:

Ingredients:

• 1 400g can baked beans
• 2/3 punnet grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/2 green capsicum, diced
• Handful of ham or prosciutto, diced
• 1 teaspoon chicken stock
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 tablespoon tomato ketchup
• 1/3 cup water
• 4 slices toast to serve

Instructions:

• Put all the ingredients into a pot. Stir thoroughly until everything is well mixed.
• Heat on high and bring to a boil, simmer for 5 minutes on low or until the tomatoes are starting to soften.
• Serve on slices of toast and eat it while it is still hot

We used prosciutto with ours since I had a hunk of prosciutto in the fridge. I slice off some 1/2 cm hunks and then diced them up into small pieces. The Boy said that the prosciutto turned the baked beans from pedestrian to classy. Well, to be exact he said the prosciutto might have been too classy for baked beans but it sure did make the dish taste good. :-)

For some reason, we often forget that jazzed up baked beans makes a very satisfying meal. The Boy kept saying that we definitely need to remember to have baked beans more often. It's a lovely addition to the other things that we regularly do for breakfast.

If you do make this, be sure to post pictures for me to see either on Instagram - be sure to tag me with @langshipley or on my Daz In The Kitchen Facebook page.


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Chicken liver pate ... in the Thermomix

I am a huge fan of pate but don't eat it that often as I do not like the store bought stuff. I recently went to one of my favorite restaurants and they changed their menu to include a pate on it. Of course, I had to try it and instantly got addicted and just wanted more.

Being new to the town that we are living in now, I didn't know where I could find liver of any sort, so I asked around on Facebook and a chef friend of mine suggested a butcher, while others suggested a hatchery. Turns out the local hatchery does not sell to the public, but I can order the livers in (any type - chicken, duck or goose) from the butcher and it takes a day to deliver, which is pretty good. I just need to plan ahead a little bit.

So, I ordered some chicken liver for the pate and enquired about goose and duck. Goose is available but takes longer to deliver, also much more expensive. Both chicken and duck are readily available.

I could not order in small quantities and the minimum order was 2kg, so I have quite a bit of chicken liver! :-) Enough to make up 4 batches.

I also love the fact that I can find almost anything for the Thermomix and found this recipe for the pate in the Thermomix.

Here's how I made it:

Ingredients:

• 500 grams chicken livers
• 125 grams Butter
• 250 grams bacon
• 1 onion
• 60 grams any spirit, eg vodka, scotch, rum
• 1 dash Garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• pinch salt
• 2 tablespoons cream

Seal:

• 250g of butter melted in the microwave to clarify

Instructions:

• Place quartered onion and bacon into TM jug and turbo pulse to dice up.
• Add washed and deveined livers and all other ingredients except cream.
• Cook for 15 minutes at 100 degrees reverse speed 1.
• Add cream and blitz 10 seconds speed 7.
• pour into various bowls/containers.
• Can be frozen

Seal:

• Spoon the clarified butter on top of pate to completely cover it to form a seal. This will help the pate keep longer. Be careful not to spoon any of the milk solids into the pate or you will get a cloudy seal.
  

I did follow the recipe fairly closely but was not sure what they meant by "dash" of garlic powder, so I used 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder and also 1/4 teaspoon of salt, though I do know what a pinch of salt is. (The 1/4 teaspoon of salt was not too much. You can hardly taste it.)

I also wanted my pate to be smoother, so I did an additional blitz of 10 seconds on speed 8. I think I should have blitzed it a bit more, as I would have liked it even smoother than it turned out.

The pate came out of the Thermomix very hot and needed to be cooled before serving. I put the pate into 5 medium sized ramekins and filled it to the line on the ramekin then sealed it with the clarified butter.

After that, I popped the pate into the fridge to set. This took about 3 - 4 hours.

I am really pleased with how the pate turned out. It was delicious, and it also smelled and tasted like pate. The Boy who is not a fan of pate, really enjoyed it too. We had a lovely afternoon tea of pate on toast points, accompanied with champagne. Very lush indeed!.

I think I am going to try this same recipe with duck livers at some point.

If you do make this, be sure to post pictures for me to see either on Instagram - be sure to tag me with @langshipley or on my Daz In The Kitchen Facebook page.


© This work is copyrighted to Invest-Ex and Destiny's Fortunes Pty Ltd

Find me around SOCIAL MEDIA:
Cooking blog: http://dazinthekitchen.blogspot.com.au/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dazinthekitchen
Twitter: @langshipley https://twitter.com/langshipley
Instagram: @langshipley http://instagram.com/langshipley
Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/langshipley/
Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/langshipley
Makeup and beauty blog: http://langshipley-deannasworld.blogspot.com.au/