M Savers Summer: Kidney bean muddle recipe

A few months back I was delighted to have the chance to work with Morrisons to create a tasty, thrifty roly-poly type dessert using their M Savers range. Now they’ve invited me back to try out some of their own recipes as part of their M Savers Summer campaign.

It was announced earlier this month that household disposable income in the UK is at a 9-year low, so we’re all going to be looking for better value for money for some time to come. Meanwhile the summer has started to hot up, and we still want to have those get-togethers, back garden barbeques, picnics and so on – and most of all we want to enjoy ourselves.

The financial squeeze seems to be hitting families the hardest and this coincides with the school holidays, so keeping the kids happy and occupied needs to be done on a budget. The M Savers Summer campaign has loads of ideas from Play England to try, and they’re also sending out a touring ‘Play Park’ – yes, it’s a free pop-up playground – so look out for the next dates in Preston, Leeds, Birmingham and Huddersfield.

The first recipe from Morrisons that I tried out was Kidney Bean Muddle – it’s a very healthy dip that’s good with vegetable sticks. It’s also nice as a side at a BBQ, alongside some fresh tomato salsa and a few tortilla chips to scoop it all up with. And of course I couldn’t resist customising it…

Original recipe ingredients

• 1 can M Savers kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 60ml M Savers low fat plain yogurt
• 1 clove garlic, crushed
• 1/4 tsp M Savers mild chilli powder
• 1 large M Savers pepper, sliced
• 2 M Savers carrots, peeled and cut into batons

Method

1. Put the beans, yogurt, garlic and chili powder into a blender or food processor and whizz it up to make a smooth dip.

2. Check for seasoning and add salt and pepper (not too much salt if you’re making this for young kids)

3. Serve with vegetable sticks

This went down very well at Golightly Gardens, I can tell you. The total cost is 84p, or 21p per serving, but most importantly it’s easy to make and tastes good.

Anyway, I then decided to make a dairy-free version to try out on a visiting friend (no, I didn’t spread it on them, you know what I mean). To keep the texture, I omitted the yogurt and added 2 level tablespoons of tomato puree (30ml) and 30ml of water, and added 1/2 tsp each of ground coriander and ground cinnamon.

This mixture made a really nice dip, and – even better – it makes great leftovers. I heated the mixture up in a frying pan for 10 minutes to dry it out a bit, then served it with salad and cheese in flour tortillas as a cheap refried beans substitute, and it was lovely. With the dairy taken out, and only a small amount of garlic in it, it freezes very well too.

More recipes to come in the next few days.

Disclosure: Morrisons has provided me with grocery vouchers, cooking utensils and ingredients. Original recipes by Morrisons. All comments, opinions and recipe variations are my own.