Butter beans and beets (s)mush

I was telling you that I love beans and I wasn’t joking. I will put up every single bean recipe that I could possibly think of.

Come on, let’s just face it! Beans are such a fab ingredient, especially for the cold winter period, because they’re nutritious, pretty filling and with a low GI, which means they are very safe and truly healthy to eat.

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My mum prepares a very similar butter beans and beets smush recipe, but she does complicate it a little bit (still delicious!). She does extra (see the recipe notes), but I have decided to implement a few changes to it, making it a lot healthier and pretty amazing too.

If you ask me, this beans smush is a lazy recipe… but nonetheless, some days we just want to be lazy, eat well, be healthy and stay out of the kitchen too. This takes minutes to make, it’s that easy!

This dish can be a prepared in advance and could be a really nice spread, a side, a snack or a small main dish served with a really beautiful homemade flat bread.

Let’s just get busy for a few minutes preparing this beautiful beans and beets (s)mush ;-))

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Butter beans and beets (s)mush

Cook Time 20 minutes

Total Time 20 minutes

Servings 4

Author Ramona Sebastian

Ingredients

• 500 g butter beans (cooked)
• 150 g beetroot (cooked)
• 1 onion (finely chopped)
• 1 leek (finely chopped)
• 2 cloves garlic (finely chopped or grated)
• 250 ml vegetable stock
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar (if necessary)
• 1 spring rosemary (optional)
• salt (to taste)
• pepper (to taste)
• 5-6 springs chives or parsley to garnish

Instructions

• Start by cooking the beans according to the packet instructions ( I will tell you a secret - 50% of the time I use canned beans for this recipe as it is supposed to be a quick recipe. At times it happens that I have kept aside on purpose some beans cooked for a cassoulet or a beans soup.
• Chop the cooked beetroots and set aside. I normally buy the ones that are baked and are slightly marinated in vinegar or I just bake my own and add tiny little balsamic vinegar to the whole thing.
• Wash peel and chop the onion and the leek. Peel, crush and chop the garlic.
• Heat the olive oil in a skillet using medium heat and when this is hot (not fuming please) put in the chopped onion and the leek and sauté until they become slightly translucent, I would say 2-3 minutes not longer. Add the rosemary spring and allow it to infuse for about 1-2 minutes and then remove.
• Add in the cooked butter beans, garlic, and vegetable stock. Cover and reduce heat to low, simmer for about 7-10 minutes until the liquid reduces considerably. When beans are done with the cooking, turn the heat off and set aside for a good few minutes to cool slightly.
• When beans have cooled a little, transfer them together with the roughly chopped beets, salt and pepper to a food processor and blend until they smushed but not become a totally smooth paste.
• Spoon beans into your desired dish and serve. I do prefer this cold as a spread but I do sometimes have it with a steak and mushrooms - see suggestion in recipe notes.

Notes

If you do not plan or fancy cooking the beans from scratch, you can use canned ones. They are as good. Use any beans type: if you don’t have butter beans, then use cannellini beans, or borlotti or any other beans will be as good.I prefer white beans like butter (my faves) or cannelini.

I was telling you about what my mum always used to do (still does) does extra, which is absolutely delicious - she caramelizes some onion in a generous quantity of olive oil and puts it on top to serve with - oh, I cannot tell you how delish that is, so if you like caramelized onion just go for it - yummy!

I sometimes use this beans (s)mush as a base for a nice steak instead of mashed potatoes or chips/rice and add some truffled mushrooms over - OMG it’s divine! Or, as seen in picture a side to a nice panfried or baked fish (any fish will do) woth some pickles or a nice salad. Oh, I am terribly hungry now.

What I mean by truffled mushrooms? I simply use truffles or truffle oil - amazing stuff (also a future recipe).

Nothing better than truffle and steak!

Enjoy folks!!