Celebratin' a few things...

A question that suddenly occurred to me the other day, just after my last post, was "How long have I been doing this tinned nonsense for?" I couldn't quite believe it when I looked back to my first ever post and discovered it was dated 22 December 2013. Five years - where has the time gone?!

In one way it was a shame I hadn't realised earlier, and done some kind of 5th birthday special. But when you consider I hadn't written anything for a whole year until the end of 2018, I would have felt a bit of a fraud doing so. To claim I have been blogging for 5 years is a bit like someone lying on their CV to exaggerate their experience, or saying they've been going to the gym for ages, when in fact they've barely used their membership at all since joining. But to say "I started the blog 5 years ago" is at least accurate.

I could perhaps have made myself a tinned birthday cake to commemorate the occasion, such as the ones demonstrated online here, but you may recall I had a go at something similar before, many moons ago. A while ago I read about a company called The Food Ministry, who sold a range of 'Cakes in a Can' through Notonthehighstreet.com, but sadly they seem to have either gone out of business or stopped selling them. More recently I discovered a German company called Feddeck Dauerwaren, who sell various 'Dauerwaren' (non-perishable foodstuffs, for the non-German speakers among you) for camping, trekking, emergencies and general apocalypse preparation. Among the tinned goods are three varieties of canned cake - chocolate, lemon and walnut - "as from Grandma's coffee table, but baked in a can".



No indication is given on the site as to what the cakes actually look like, but I absolutely love the labels on the tins, which have an almost timeless quality to them - plain text, black and white, no pictures or other nonsense - stark, to the point, no nonsense and very German. I may have to try them some time - maybe, if I actually get myself in gear with this blog, for an actual birthday celebration in a few years' time. Or an apocalypse. Not sure which is more likely at the moment.



Back in 2017, my last proper post that year concerned a tin of lychees, some of which became eyeballs for Halloween. I wondered at the time what I might do with the remainder of the tin - in the end, both fruits and juice were blitzed up and frozen with a scant few drops of rosewater (I have learned the hard way that you should always heed the advice of recipes when they tell you to use this ingredient sparingly), removing the tub from the freezer every hour or so to run a fork through the crystals and stop it freezing completely solid. The result was more granita than the sorbet I had originally intended, but the floral notes of both lychees and rosewater complemented each other perfectly - just the thing for a summer's day. Except of course it was November by then. But well worth a try any time of year.

In the same post, I also mentioned getting another tin of pumpkin puree when my local Whole Foods started selling off the giant stack of tins they had rather over-optimistically ordered ahead of Thanksgiving. I'd tried a few unusual recipes with the first time I tried pumpkin puree, which was also quite a while ago, and again was keen to try something other than the ubiquitous (though admittedly delicious) pumpkin pie. But what to make? As I absent-mindedly muttered "pumpkin pie, pumpkin pie" to myself, it suddenly came to me - other alliterative foodstuffs were clearly the way forward. So, dear readers, I present to you a range of foods starting with 'p' - with added pumpkin: 

Pumpkin pancakes - this was an adaptation of a 'two ingredient pancake' recipe I had seen a while back, which simply used mashed bananas and eggs. Just whisk the two together, add ladlefuls to a hot oiled pan, flip, and Bob's your uncle.  Maybe it works better with the stronger flavour of bananas -  while pleasant enough, I felt the recipe left the pancakes tasting a little overly-eggy - adding flour may require a little extra work, but I think would definitely be worth it. With pumpkin though, the advantage is you can decide whether to have them savoury or sweet - as shown below, with siracha sauce (bottom left) or maple syrup and pumpkin pie spice (bottom right)

Pumpkin Porridge - a spoonful or two of pumpkin puree is, I  discovered, and excellent addition to your morning bowful, whatever your porridge preference might be. If you like it sweet, add the puree, a bit of sugar, honey or maple syrup, and a pinch of spice, and you've got the essence of pumpkin pie in a bowl. If you're more of a porridge purist, try adding a spoonful of puree with a little salt, and you can feel as virtuous as ever while getting one of your five a day at the same time. Perfect!


Pumpkin Pork Pie - slice the top off a pork pie, dig out the puck of pork, discard the jelly, add a scant teaspoon of puree to the pastry shell, and then replace the meat and lid. Voila!

Pumpkin Penne Pasta - mix a spoonful of puree into some creme fraiche and stir through freshly cooked pasta. With lots of pepper. For an interesting spin, add just the merest whisper of amaretto liqueur - it works surprisingly well with pumpkin.


Pumpkin Pitta Pizza Pockets - toast a pitta, split it open, spread with pumpkin and tomato purees, mozarella and whatever other fillings take your fancy - preferably pepperoni. Pop in a hot pan or under a grill to heat through and melt the cheese.


I am sure there are more "p" options available (answers on a p-p-p-postcard), but I was scraping the tin by that point.

I did however spot in the supermarket a pot of Pumpkin Pie Spiced yoghurt, which I didn't buy as it was about £2 and had "sugar" far too high up the ingredients list for my liking. So I made my own, stirring a spoonful of puree, some pumpkin pie spice and just a drizzle of honey into some natural yoghurt. Very nice indeed, but sadly not alliterative, unless I'd put it in a tiny pot and called it Pumpkin Pie Petit-Filous.

 

And finally, to Christmas. A while back, I was in my nearest ASDA, a huge barn of a place with every product imaginable under its roof. Browsing the miles of shelves, I spotted this sign above one of the aisles:

I was intrigued - Seasonal Baked Beans? Had Heinz launched a range of Christmas-themed beans, only available in such enormous shops as this?! Sadly not - one side of the aisle was stacked high with every type of baked bean available on the market (but nothing out of the ordinary), while the other side had a range of 'seasonal' goods - selection boxes of chocolates, edible tree decorations, mince pies and so on. But never the twain did meet. How disappointing.

It did get me thinking though - if a company were to launch seasonal baked beans, what might they be like? How can you distil the essence of Christmas into your beans on toast? Or incorporate beans into your traditional Christmas fare?

Some would say that baked beans on a jacket potato with cheese could not be improved upon. But a jacket potato isn't very Christmassy. Roast potatoes, by contrast, are an integral part of any Christmas dinner. Likewise, grated Cheddar is all well and good, but I tend to think of Stilton as being more at home on the Christmas cheeseboard - perhaps with a few walnuts too.

So essentially I just chucked all these elements together - beans with roasties (potatoes and parnsips, because if you've got the latter to hand, you might as well), stilton and walnuts. Don't knock it 'til you've tried it. Although if you do as I did and have brussels sprouts too (fresh, I should say - as we know, the tinned version are an abomination), be sure to ventilate your bathroom adequately in the ensuing hours.

But what to do with the other half of the tin? I briefly considered going 'a bit Heston Blumenthal' and infusing some beans with pine needles for a Christmas tree flavour. But I only have a little plastic tree, and buying a real one just to stick a few twigs in a pan of beans didn't really seem worth it. "I need more time to mull this over," I thought to myself. And that's when it hit me. What could be more seasonal than a spot of mulling? Mulled wine, mulled cider, mulled anything really, it's all good when it's warm spiced alcohol you're talking about. How about adding those flavours to beans on toast? It sounded slightly wrong, but I couldn't get the idea of my head. It had to be tried.

Into a pan with the beans went a cinnamon stick, a few cloves, a grating of nutmeg, some ground ginger, a twist of orange peel and a teaspoon of sugar. I then remembered I had a half-used jar of mulled wine jelly (bought from M&S as it was reduced post-Christmas 2017) in my cupboard, so I thought I might as well stick a spoonful of that in too. At one point I thought I could make the toast element more Christmassy too, by using panettone instead of bread, but I didn't have any to hand. Instead instead I chucked a handful of mixed raisins, sultanas and dried cranberries, to hopefully achieve the same sort of flavours. Once everything had heated through nicely, in went a slug of brandy (don't put it in too early or you'll burn off the booze), before being piled on some waiting slices of hot, plain toast.

 

So how was it? Well, not at all bad, and with all that sweetness and spice, very Christmassy. But it definitely didn't need added sugar as well as the mulled wine jelly AND the dried fruit, alongside what I consider to be the 'sweeter' spices and on top of the sugar already in the beans - this ended up obliterating any hint of tomato or savouriness, making it almost more like a dessert. Can't say I've ever had a dessert with the texture of beans before, so it took a few mouthfuls to get my head round it. But once I had, it was by no means unpleasant - sweet, spicy, slightly boozy - there's very little not to like there really. If I were ever to try it again I would definitely tone down the sugar significantly. Get the balance of sweetness and spice right, and who knows, maybe Mulled Beanz could be coming to a supermarket shelf near you another year. Heinz certainly wouldn't be the first or last company to peddle a bizarre themed product at that time of year - take a bow, Sainsbury's, with your Pigs in Blankets and Brussels Sprouts Flavoured Teas (yes, these were real; no, I didn't try them...)

Still, at least these showed a little more imagination, or less cynicism, than this "Festive" offering from M&S - "Traditional black tea that perfectly complements the flavours of Christmas". It's literally just their normal tea, in a Christmas box.

I'll stick to my tins, thanks.