Thursdays Are For Cooking!!!
15-bean mix pack
Baked Beans
This is a side dish that is as old as the first colonies in the New World, with beans first being introduced to UK and European kitchens in the 16th century. Nowadays, beans are an ingredient that is everywhere.
It goes quite nicely with Apple Brown Betty as a dessert. You might want to serve a roast ham or wurst with it, sweet potatoes or baked acorn squash, and fresh biscuits or cornbread. And butter. Lots of sweat, creamy butter!
Ingredients:
1 pound of dried Great Northern beans
½ pound of thick-sliced bacon, cut up
2 large chopped onions
3 garlic cloves
1/3 cup of molasses
1/3 cup of maple syrup (optional – New Englanders use this))
½ teaspoon of salt
¼ teaspoon of black pepper
¼ teaspoon of dry mustard (optional – Southerners include this)
2 cups of ketchup
1 ½ cups of packed dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce
– Soak the beans overnight in cold water. Simmer them 1 to 2 hours in the soaking water next morning, until tender. NOTE: Do NOT throw out the soaking water.
– In a large skillet, cook bacon over medium heat until crisp. Remove to paper towels with a slotted spoon; drain, reserving 2 tablespoons drippings. Saute onions in drippings until tender. Add garlic; cook 1 minute longer. Stir in the ketchup, brown sugar, molasses, maple syrup**, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper.
**Maple syrup is optional. Leave it out if you don’t like the flavor. It’s a regional accent.
– Preheat the oven to 300F.
– Drain beans, reserving cooking liquid (water they simmered in); place beans in an ungreased 3-qt. baking dish. Stir in onion mixture and bacon. Cover and bake at 300° for 2-1/2 hours or until beans are tender and reach desired consistency, stirring every 30 minutes. Add reserved cooking liquid as needed to keep them from drying out, but covering the beans with foil or using a baking dish with a lid will work, too.
And Happy Trails to all of you, too! Try herding cats if you think life is too hard. 
Category: Economy
Chilly and damp here in my AO today. A big pot of beans is just the remedy, or split pea ‘soup’ so thick your spoon will stay up unattended. It’s really easy and you don’t have to soak the split peas. Dice up some onion and garlic, slice a kielbasa into rounds and fry in pot with olive oil until the onions are translucent, toss in the peas and just cover with water or stock. Cover and let simmer for about an hour and a half and check for doneness. Season to taste and serve with crusty bread.
I’m moving to your house. I’ll be there this morning, after I hit the grocery stores.
Oh, wait – I just got back from my foraging trip. I’m stocked up on stock and stuff. And I am tired of this drippy, glooomy weather!!!!
Made taco soup for lunch in the slow cooker.
2 lb.’s Deer burger
2 green onions
1/2 bag of frozen mixed vegetables
1 packet of taco seasoning
1 12 oz. can of diced tomatoes with green chilies
onion powder, garlic powder, salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste.
I can handle everything but the chilis. They don’t like me at all these days. And my neighbor Luis can’t eat them, either, any more. He used to love jalapenos. Now they’re a no-no.
Thank You for sharing again another nice recipe with us, Ex-PH2. Beans…a great source of inexpensive protein and fiber for the diet.
And once again, another use for bacon drippings..adds that flavor, especially in cooking onions!
Thank you to all for their recipes as well.
baconisgood
I save bacon drippings, especially the “crumbs” that come off the bacon strips during cooking. Usually, I will cook onions in either butter or olive oil, but it does seem like a good idea to soften them in bacon drippings. More Flavor!!!
“1/3 cup of maple syrup (optional – New Englanders use this))”
True. I had a can of B&M baked beans and Jewish hot dogs for supper yesterday. Poured some local Maple syrup on it. Not real fancy like your weekly dishes but you nailed it with the syrup.
Trivia:
I grew up within a few miles of the Friends Beans factory. The water tower for the plant was painted as a giant can of Friends beans.
There was a four diamond baseball park right next to it, across the B&M tracks (Boston and Maine RR). B&M (beans) bought Friends beans and the baseball field is now a giant apartment complex.
Sometimes, I, too, long for them there good old days. It just seems like things were a lot simpler then.
num num num, again! baconisgood (ht to A’Pat) “And on the 8th day God created bacon.” Way to go big guy!
Grilled bacon cheeseburgers, ala 5/77 & Aw1Ed style on evening past. Got a pack of my grounded beef beast working in a crockett pot, percurlating lowly. Been ongoing all day. Cornered bread in the skillet and butter softening as we speak.
Found a sack of 15 beans in the larder. Since we still having all 4 seasons in one day here, will mix this one up and put him in a crockett pot. With more cornbread…and my soon to arrive birthday cookies…
After I get done at AW1Ed’s table, I’m heading your way, 5th/77th.
I picked up 8 beef rib hamburger patties while out foraging today. They are thick and fresh, and I believe two of them would make a nice meal with the right gravy and a couple of veggies on the side.
come on. Find I 75 S or US 41 S. Last time I was thru there Nashville and Chattanooga were a cast iron bitch. Straight thru ATL 75 S. Rush hour there starts at 0405 and ends at 0315 hrs.
Hang a left on I16 E. We’ll leave a light on for you. K Kitty, Smokey, and Sassy Frass looks forward to meeting Miss Punkin Squawky Pants. Trixie Girl and Chapman (the K9s) may sniff you inappropriately.
To each as they prefer, this recipe is perfect, as written. One thing they do in the metro-Boston area is add some clove to the mix. If nothing more, the clove provides a delightful aroma. It’s the molasses and brown sugar that turns this into the main course of a meal.
Being a Louisiana native, I’m a bit partial to Camellia beans but the New Englanders like to use small white beans. After trying them out, I agree.
Amen on saving the simmer water, you will need to add some as they bake.
Still love my old blue enamel Walmart Dutch Oven baking pan.
By all means, do NOT let the liquid get too low or the starches and sugars will seize to your pan like barnacles to a pier.
It’s Bean a long time since I ate beans. (Sorry,I just can’t help it)
It’s bean good of you to show up, Old Bean!