Canned vegan baked beans and sausages: Has-beans or heaven in a tin?

I survived the first term of this year, made it through the exams (I'm as surprised as you are by that one), and I'm ploughing through the second faster than I'd like. Between now and the end of next month, I've got another set of exams, I have to give a presentation on the disease of my choice (!) to the rest of my year, critique a scientific paper I can barely understand, and complete more other assignments than I'd care to think about. Still, I'm feeling more cheery than I should be with all those horrors on my to-do list,  but that doesn't mean I'm not preparing for the weeks ahead when I'll have my head too far down in the books to be able to put together a meal that's any more effort than opening a tin.

I'm always on the lookout for readymade meals that are tasty and, well, come in a tin!

When I saw Suma had started making tinned vegan baked beans and sausages, I thought it would be rude not to give them a go.

I think the last time I had tinned baked beans and sausages, they were meat sausages and I was probably about 11. I remember going through a phase where tinned baked beans and sausages were the only thing I wanted to eat on Saturdays and Sundays.

Baked beans and sausages were a celebration of not being in school - I knew if I had enough time to toast bread and warm some beans in a pan, I couldn't be in a rush. I didn't have to put on my school uniform, grab my books, and try to make it in before the first bell rung. I could sit and take my time, enjoy a proper breakfast, and know I had a whole weekend ahead of me.

Now, I know if I'm eating tinned beans and sausages, I've got no time on my hands, and that's probably because I've got to haul myself to school once again!

I'll tell what's not changed though - the beans and sausages are almost exactly the same between then and now, despite those in the distant past being meat and today's ones being vegan. How weird is that? I guess that's either because people making vegan food have learnt how to make it taste almost exactly like meat, or because the meat versions were so cheap they didn't have much in the way of meat in them.

Either way, if you're looking for a cheap (about £1.30-worth) ticket to the Proustian breakfast of your childhood, then Suma's beans are exactly that. The sausages have got the same soft texture, and the same slightly herby taste as they always did, and there are still too few of them compared to the beans. And, then as now, if you're looking for a meal that's decent even when you've got five minutes or less to cook, then just grab yourself a tin opener and get stuck in.