Gourmet Beans on Toast

Sometimes I can't be bothered to cook. Like yesterday; I bought a pack of un-podded broad beans with all the intention of making a fancy dish. However, after spending a day-off messing about with my nephews, sister and mum over at my sister's house, I got home at about 6 and looked at the bag of beans with disdain. No way could I be bothered to come up with any kind of gastronomic delight from scratch at this late hour.

So, after surveying my store cupboard I decided that easy comfort food it had to be. My bread bin contained a half-eaten wholewheat sourdough bread from the weekend, the freezer had some bacon lardons slowly petrifying at the back of the top shelf, the larder contained many, many tins of miscellaneous foodstuffs. Of course, I could have easily foraged for some fancy cheese and fresh herbs and constructed some kind of bruschetta, but I wasn't in the mood. So without a hint of guilt I told Mrs Ribeye (who had just arrived home after a long day of work) that dinner would be 'beans on toast'. Mrs Ribeye - knowing how I rarely capitulate to laziness when it comes to meal preparation - looked at me quizzically.

Up my sleeve, of course, were the broad beans and lardons to go with the dense chewy (slightly stale, which for this dish is key) sourdough bread. After spending a couple of minutes blanching the broad beans and adding them and the raw lardons to a tin of Heinz's bright orange baked variety, the result was fantastic! The broad beans add a different, slightly waxy, texture to the tinned stuff; the lardons added a savoury note to counteract the cloying sweetness of the tinned beans; the sourdough was a perfect base. All-in-all, another fantastic dinner. Of course, being pigs, we ate the beans on toast with a frozen cod fillet in breadcrumbs, which I also found in the freezer along with the lardons, (you can never have enough enough carbs) to accompany it.

Mrs Ribeye was totally sold. I kid you not; I'm putting this dish on as a Potless Towers regular.

Oh and it's cheap too. The bread is practically free, being a leftover; the broad beans cost £1.50 for a big bag; the lardons were £1; the Heinz beans were 69p - which puts this dish at £1.60 per serving. Brilliant.

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS:

1 x 400g tin of baked beans
150g podded broad beans, blanched and skinned
150g bacon lardons
4 slices wholewheat sourdough bread (or any other dense bread), lightly toasted

Mix all of the beans and the lardons in a saucepan and simmer while stirring, to reduce the sauce to a thick gloop and cook the bacon thoroughly. Top the toast with the mixture and allow to stand for a few minutes before serving, to allow the sauce to soften the toast slightly. Serve with salad or (in my case) other carb-laden foods.