Yesterday’s Beans Are Today’s Bruschetta Topping

May 21, 2012 | By Adam Roberts | COMMENTS

This post combines three recent posts into one scrumptious bite: (1) Rancho Gordo beans; (2) My Love Affair with Toast; and (3) My Very Own Herb Garden.

Let’s start with the toast: instead of a jam-topped breakfast concoction, this toast moves in a more savory direction. I toasted it just like normal (I couldn’t cut a thick slice because Craig bought pre-sliced sourdough bread; I forgive him) and then–here’s where we go savory–rubbed it with a garlic clove and then drizzled it with good olive oil (Katz’s, if you wanna know the details).

The beans were from a riff on another recent post: Lemon Butter Chicken with White Beans.

This time, I used a different bag of beans:

And a skin-on, bone-in chicken breast instead of the whole chicken:

It’s a pretty dazzling meal–that lemon butter sauce works some serious magic–but there were still plenty of beans left over. Into the fridge they went, almost forgotten.

But then yesterday: we were hungry. We craved a snack. We had this bottle of wine open:

We also had beautiful flowers:

That I bought from Lili of Tigers and Lilies a pop-up in Echo Park:

Maybe the flowers are irrelevant; or maybe they provided just the whiff of inspiration I needed. Because soon a vision came: beans on toast! Or, more artfully put: Yellow Eye Bruschetta.

You heard about the toast. You know about the beans. The cool beans went on top of the warm garlic-rubbed toast. I drizzled with more Katz olive oil, sprinkled with fleur de sel (the good stuff), and then–as a final grace note–added basil (chiffonaded) straight from my herb garden:

It may have only been an afternoon snack, but it’s an afternoon snack I won’t soon forget. And the perfect way to use up leftover beans the next time you cook up a big batch. If you want to be extra fancy, you can blend half the beans with some olive oil and lemon juice and spread that on toast and top with the remaining beans.

Let’s face it: when it comes to toast and beans, the possibilities are endless.

Tags: appetizers, beans, Katz olive oil, Rancho Gordo, Snacks, toast

Categories: Beans, Recipes