Cooking With Kids: Bacon and beans on toast - a kiddie classic
Pic: iStock
Beans on toast has been an Irish favourite for generations. You can make your own version with older children.
Making your own allows you to decide how much sweetness and spices to use. The combination of the smoked paprika and cake spice works nicely and is a good recreation of tinned versions.
You can use mixed beans instead of cannellini beans to give a more textured and colourful result.
There are lots of variations once you have the standard bean recipe made; a fried egg on top, or some cheese grated and sprinkled over the beans.
The recipe makes a generous batch that uses two tins of beans. You can save half of the sauce to use at a later time. Just add the beans when you are heating the sauce before serving. The sauce will store in the fridge for four days, it also freezes well.
The apple and peanut butter sandwiches should keep younger ones happy. They are a firm favourite in our family.
Once the slices are cut young helpers can push the star from the centre with a cookie cutter and then slather the apple pieces in peanut butter. It usually results in lots of sticky finger-licking.
Beans are really nutritious - they are also a sustainable food choice which is handy and affordable. Servings Preparation Time Cooking Time Total Time Course Ingredients 1 onion 2 cloves garlic 1 tbsp rapeseed oil 1 tsp smoked paprika 1 tsp mixed cake spice 1 tin chopped tomatoes 1 tsp honey 2 tins cannellini beans 4 streaky rashers 8 slices bread a knob butter Method Carefully chop the onion into small cubes. Use a garlic crusher to crush the two cloves of garlic. Heat the rapeseed oil in a large saucepan over a low heat and add in the onion. Put on a lid and allow it to sweat until the pieces have started to go see through. Add in the garlic and stir the onion and garlic for a half a minute. Add in the paprika and spices and stir them in too. Now add the tin of tomatoes and the honey. Allow to bubble away slowly for ten minutes stirring occasionally. Use a soup gun or a liquidiser to blitz the sauce until it is smooth. Season the sauce with some salt and pepper. Ask and adult to open the tins of cannellini beans for you. Drain the liquid off the beans. You can divide the sauce in two, if you like, and put half of it in the fridge for another day. Put the sauce into a saucepan, then add the beans. Set aside. Carefully cut the rashers up into pieces that are about a centimetre each. Heat a small dash of oil in a pan and ask an adult to help you fry the pieces of rasher until they are crispy. Place the slices of bread into a toaster and toast them. When they are still warm butter them. Warm your beans over a low heat. Put two slices of bread on a plate and spoon your warmed beans on top. Sprinkle the rashers over the beans.Bacon Beans on Toast
To make these tasty sandwiches you will need an apple and some peanut butter. Ask an adult to cut the apple into thin circles.
There will be a shape that looks like a star in the centre of each apple slice, this is the way the core looks when it is cut this way.
Use a small star cookie cutter to take this out of the centre of the slice, as it is too tough to eat.
Spread peanut butter on half of the circles and place the other ones on top to make apple peanut butter sandwiches.
