how's about cooking somethin' up with me?

Alright. So I said that I wasn't going to, but I have.... after a lifetime of loyalty to probably the most famous of the 57 varieties*, I've only gone and tried Branston baked beans.

...and they were alright.

I like Heinz Baked Beans. BBOT is a much underrated classic. It's cheap, it's quick and easy to prepare, and it's about as wholesome a meal as you can get for less than a pound. Every time I have beans for my tea, I find myself wondering why I don't have it more often.

C. is away for the next couple of days, and as I left the office this evening in an attempt to get home before the football kicked off, I was thinking what I could get for my dinner. Speed was my main criteria: the game kicked off at 19:45, and I only had about 20 minutes to get something ready, open a beer and sit down in front of the telly. I considered a visit to the chippie or some other kind of takeaway, but I just couldn't face it. Then I thought about BBOT. Why not? I had a can of beans in the cupboard, and it would only take me a minute to prepare. Then Ben's whispering campaign in favour of Branston's kicked in: if I was going to have beans, why didn't I pop to the shop and try out the new ones? It would only take 5 minutes, and then I could see for myself if they were as delicious as my favourite Geordie Belle & Sebastian hater had been saying....

I opened the can and immediately saw that the beans looked a deeper, richer colour right out of the can. I find that the sauce in a tin of Heinz beans can sometimes go a bit grainy and glutinous if you leave it on the cooker for too long. This didn't seem to happen with the Branston beans, which is perhaps a little surprising considering I stopped to empty the washing machine and hang out all my shirts whilst the beans were boiling on the hob.

They tasted pretty good too.

But don't take my word for it. So that you can try this yourself in your own home, here's what I did:

ingredients:
1 tin Branston Baked Beans
4 cheese topped rolls

instructions:
-> Open the tin and put the beans into a saucepan and simmer over a low heat.
-> Put two of the rolls into the toaster for a couple of minutes. Eat the other two whilst hanging out the washing.
-> smother the hot rolls with butter (or whatever that bloody stuff is, Olivio or something)
-> pour beans on top of the rolls
-> open a bottle of Leffe Brune
-> stick the telly on and watch Manchester Utd v Celtic
-> enjoy

If you don't have any fresh cheese-topped rolls, I'm sure you can make do with bread or something.

I'll spare you my thoughts on any side-effects I may experience.

* well, after Tomato Ketchup anyway.