At the moment I am completely obsessed with kidney beans. It really wasn’t until this year that I saw their beauty – they’re delightful additions to an amazing range of foods, and they’re good for you!
They can pad out taco meat, make up your pattie or be eaten by themselves. Kidney beans are cannily adaptable, but often overlooked. As the blog progresses I’ll try and showcase some more bean-driven recipes. There are other types of bean, I’m not just restricting this to kidney beans – get excited!!
In last night’s post there was a salad accompanying the lasagne – this salad is easy to throw together and looks amazing!
Orange and kidney bean salad
- 60ml olive oil
- 3 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 2 oranges
- 100g baby spinach leaves
- ½ red onion
- 120g feta
- 420g can red kidney beans
Combine oil and red wine vinegar and season with salt and pepper. I like my dressing tangy, so I put a generous 3 tablespoons in – you may wish to put in two tablespoons and test it before adding the third.
Carefully slice off the rind of your orange, then slice the orange thinly.* Finely slice the red onion, cube the feta and rinse the beans.
Place all ingredients on a plate and toss to combine. Drizzle with dressing and serve!
* The rind from the orange is really pretty, but it’s also useful! If you’ve got time, cut some of it up really finely to make into orange icing (recipe soon!), add coarse sugar to it and make a facial scrub or soak it in vinegar to make a natural cleaning product.
When I was younger my brothers and cousins used to have competitions to see who could spit their watermelon seeds the furthest. We’d line up on Nan and Pop’s balcony in Nambucca, still in our swimmers from the morning’s beach adventures, and launch the tiny little black rockets towards a particularly large gum tree about 100 metres away.
