Butter beans with butter, leek, and garlic. Grated parmesan. Choko noodles.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved baked beans as much as the next kiwi kid, but  the reality is that processed foods these days are often packed full of unnecessary sugar and salt. Hopefully Watties have changed their recipe since this damning article in 2009: “Wattie’s baked beans 420g: Although beans are good for you and packed with fibre, a can of baked beans has almost 30g of sugar. This is a low fat product and high in fibre, but does it require 1890mg of salt and 29g of sugar to make it taste good?”

Processed foods can also be a minefield for allergy families! Additionally, the reason for choosing vegetables like garlic, choko (chayote), leeks, and shallots for this recipe is because they’re low in naturally occuring food chemicals like salicylates, amines, and glutamates which is helpful for sensitive systems.

Don’t worry if you don’t have allergies – I’ve seen people post similar recipes simply because they don’t like baked beans or because butter + garlic can make anything awesome!

Tip: This recipe is also the basis of the easy to make Butter bean dip!

Ingredients

• 400g tin of butter beans (rinse thoroughly)
  • You can substitute different beans according to taste. Like broad beans, these are quite large and hold up well in a wok without a sauce to simmer in.
• Butter (or neutral oil, like Rice Bran Oil)
• Garlic (crushed)
  • You can use garlic granules if you don’t have fresh.
• Optional: leek (thinly sliced) or shallots (finely diced)
• Optional: parmesan or grated cheese
• Optional: cooked bacon (finely chopped)
• Optional: choko (cheyote) as vegetable noodles.

Allergies: gluten free, dairy free*, soy free, egg free, noodle free.

Directions

1.  Heat a frying pan (or wok) and melt butter. Lightly saute the garlic and any optional extras like leek or shallots.
   • Be careful not to over cook the garlic or you’ll get a distinctly smokey taste! (she says from experience…)
2. Add the butter beans and cook until soft. You may need to add some extra butter while they are cooking.
3. Serve topped with parmesan or tasty cheese if desired.

Choko noodles

1. Use a vegetable peeler to remove the skin.
2. Peel wide strips of the actual vegetable (the length of the choko).
3. Add some more butter to the pan (after you’ve removed the butter beans) and fry the choko noodles until softened (they should still be slightly firm to the bite; not raw and not falling apart!). They will pick up the remaining garlic from the pan.