Day 54: Spiced beans and corn salsa toppings for baked potatoes

“One man’s meat is another man’s poison” – isn’t that the saying?! I loved it and Dear Husband didn’t. I don’t know whether it was a vegetarian versus carnivore thing (which he was until he met me!) or a man versus woman thing. What recipe am I talking about? Spiced beans and corn salsa toppings for baked potatoes.

I really looked forward to this recipe seeing as it was vegetarian but, I must admit, as soon as I saw the requirement for pinto, kidney or black beans, I knew it would be a hard sell with Dear Husband. With that in mind, I still went ahead with the baked potatoes but also made trout, corn of the cob and paprika potato wedges. Yes, I did make the paprika potato wedges again! It was an unusual day in that, being the summer, I had to revert my brain to full-time-mummy-mode. Plus, there were four hungry men to feed as Dear Husband has a project of his own going on at the back of the house at the minute with the place looking like a building site but I fed the lot. Don’t worry - I am making a point of taking the kids and going shopping tomorrow so as not to be at home.

Making baked potatoes is the easiest thing to do but one of the longest foods to make. They took 1.5 hours in the oven and, if you make them, buy yourself the metal skewers to push through them as this speeds up the cooking time and the potatoes are cooked through to the centre thoroughly. I think I got mine in Sainsburys about six years ago and, as far as I know, they still sell them.

Meanwhile, I got on with the spiced beans topping which required me to sauté diced onion and chopped garlic for 10 minutes. I seasoned them and then waited until it was time to add the cumin and coriander. Now, the recipe said to use toasted coriander and cumin seeds and then grind them using a mortar and pestle but I just used ground coriander and ground cumin straight out of the jar. (By the way, I saw in the paper on Monday that Aldi (or is Lidl?!) are selling mortars and pestles for €8 starting tomorrow. To put that price into context, the Jamie Oliver ones are €8.) After adding the spices, I threw in a can of pinto beans and a can of kidney beans and then seasoned them. I mashed up some of the beans as per the instructions of the recipe and then added a tin of chopped tomatoes and sugar. After 3 minutes, the spiced beans topping was made.

Then, it was the turn of the corn salsa topping which was very straightforward. I used a can of sweetcorn, half of a red onion chopped, half of a red chilli chopped and the juice of a lime. Now, you can’t get simpler than that. Just after noticing there that I forgot to add a tablespoon of olive oil – oops! So much for me being good at following recipes then!

Once everything was ready, I set the whole lot out on the kitchen table and let them all help themselves. So the spread was baked potatoes, spicy beans, corn salsa, paprika wedges, trout, corn of the cob and grated cheese.

The verdict…

I knew none of them would go straight for the spicy beans topping so I instructed them that they had to at least taste it. Dear Husband’s verdict was written on his facial expressions and not in a good way. DMB left his on his plate – enough said. I really don’t think the other two touched it at all. Regardless, I loved the spicy beans and the corn salsa and I’m definitely going to make this recipe again. People (including me) generally don’t eat enough pulses so this recipe would be a really good way of changing that. The spicy beans were really tasty and filling. All the flavours worked so well together. The corn salsa was refreshing and anything with chilli in it, I find it hard to resist.

So, although I was the only one who liked the spicy beans, I would still recommend that you try this recipe the next time you make baked potatoes. It will be a change from the usual cheese or crème fraiche and chive topping and it’s probably healthier because of the beans. In retrospect, Dear Husband isn’t into beans or any kind of lentils so I really don’t know if it was the mere exclusion of meat that didn’t do it for him. In fairness, I did mention at the start of this that Dear Husband was practically a carnivore when we first met so we were a total mis-match in the culinary sense from the word go. However, one thing we did have in common was that neither of us drank so I think that balances things out. Plus, Dear Husband has come a long way from not eating vegetables to eating lots of different vegetables. So, I’ll put his palate down as a work-in-progress for now and stick to the crème fraiche and chives in future (for his baked potatoes anyway!).