A Kitchen Diary of sorts with rather a lot of chit chat and some exceptionally useful recipes. Photos and artwork by Anna Vaught (me), Giles Turnbull and the generous people at Flickr who make their work available through creative commons. They are thanked individually throughout the blog.

Tuesday 26 January 2010

To Heinz: tinned tomato soup and baked beans



Two products of which I am inordinately fond.

The soup

I have never -- should I be telling you this?-- made or eaten a tomato soup which I liked as much as Heinz Cream of Tomato soup.This from someone who dislikes tinned and packet soup; I find it always seems to taste the same and it has a sort of acrid sweetness which disagrees with me. Except for this one. Here, then, is the way to go. It's actually quite luxurious.

Bring your soup to a high heat but do not boil; gently scrape the sides of the saucepan as you cook, stir well and then pour into a mug which, for you, spells contentment. Get a teaspoon ready and, lastly, put a generous dollop of unsalted butter on top of the soup. That's it. You slurp from the mug and use the teaspoon to eke out the last bits from the side of the mug.

The beans

 I have made surveys of supermarket beans and I am here to tell you that Heinz beans (or should that be Beanz? Yeuch: I'm a "zzzz" snob) are the best, to my mind. You could dabble in the reduced sugar and salt variety, I suppose, but I'm not going there. Lunch today, at a bit of a trot, went like this.

Two hefty slices of wholemeal toast, a bit singed at the edge. A light touch of butter and then a little grated cheese. A mature cheddar with plenty of bite. Just pile the beans, piping hot, on top and -- this is not a suggestion; I regard this as a compulsory part of the dish-- serve with a mug of builder's tea.

Photo courtesy of Smantz Sputner at Flickr

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