Baked Beans! Yum!

Baked beans are a wonderful dish and the only kind I have ever eaten are those made by Campbells. I know there are other brands out there, but that is what I was raised on. Old habits die hard you know.

Until now I have never tried to make baked beans. I have always been under the impression that it was hard to make a good batch and that it took a long time to make them. I know that I would judge anything I made vs. Campbells and that my version would suffer in comparison. In fact, I know someone who tried to make baked beans at home once. Let's just say that after all the time and effort the results were less than stellar.

However, hope springs eternal and your faithful servant decided to give home made baked beans a serious shot. Much research into various recipes was conducted and three important observations were made.

The first is the preparation of the beans. One can begin to make baked beans using dried beans or one can start with canned beans. Canned beans have a significant advantage: they are already hydrated and cooked to a satisfactory level of tenderness. If you purchase canned beans, then you are ready to make baked beans right away. If you decide to purchase dried beans then you must get them to the same finished state as the canned beans. This will take soaking and cooking time which will add about 3 hours to your overall preparation time. How do you want to spend your time? I used canned small white beans from Goya foods which worked very well in my recipe. Highly recommended!



My second observation was that once you had the bean question resolved, the next part of the recipe was the seasoning schedule. All recipes require the use of onion. But not all recipes call for sauteing the onions before baking your beans. This is a serious error! You must saute your onions prior to making the beans otherwise the flavor will be off. After the onions, there is quite a wide range of seasoning options. This is where you can make this recipe your own. However, make your first batch according to the recipe below so that you know what you are doing. Once you have mastered the skill, then you can begin to experiment. One step at a time grasshopper!

My third observation was that this recipe was basically just braising beans in a flavored liquid! We braise pot roast so this same technique is the secret to baked beans.

Thus we have the three main parts which make up the secret to great baked beans.

Now on to the recipe. For this recipe you will need a enamel lined cast iron dutch oven. I used a 4-5 quart Le Creuset. You can use another brand, just be sure that it has a snug fitting lid and is enamel lined.

Here is the ingredient list:

• Three 15 ounce cans of small white beans; navy beans for example
• 4-5 ounces of good quality thick cut bacon
• 1 medium onion
• 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 2 tbsp dark molasses.
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp dry powdered mustard
• 1 tbsp dijon mustard
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• 2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
• 1-2 cups bean water

1. Turn on the oven and set to 300F

2. Rinse the beans.

• Open the cans of beans. They will be in a rather thick and slippery liquid.
• Dump all of the beans in a sieve and allow to drain 10 minutes
• Get a large bowl and put 4-6 cups of cold water in it.
• Put the beans in the water and swirl them around by had to wash off the slippery liquid. If needed remove 1-2 cups of the water and replace with 1-2 cups of cold water.
• Once the beans no longer feel slippery, pour the beans and water through a clean sieve. Make sure you collect the rinse water and save it because this is the "bean water" referred to in the recipe.

3. Dice the onion.

4. Dice the bacon into half inch pieces.

5. Put the bacon in the dutch oven and saute at a medium heat until the fat is rendered.

6. Remove the bacon from the dutch oven and drain on a paper towel.

7. Add the onions to the dutch oven and saute for 5-6 minutes or until translucent.

8. When the onions are done, take the dutch oven off the heat and allow to cool 10 minutes.

9. Add the drained beans to the dutch oven along with the bacon and all of the seasonings.

10. Add the 1-2 cups of bean water to the dutch oven. The idea is that the beans are covered with water and everything moves freely when stirred. Save the remaining bean water for later use if needed.

11. Put the dutch oven back on medium heat and stir until all of the seasonings are evenly mixed together.

12. When the bean mixture just comes to a boil, cover the dutch oven and place it in the 300F oven. Set an oven timer for 60 minutes.

13. After one hour of cooking time, stir the bean mixture thoroughly. The sauce will still be thin and the beans will still look white. Don't bother tasting anything at this point. Set the oven timer for another 60 minutes.

14. After another hour of cooking time, stir the bean mixture thoroughly. By this time, the sauce will be much thicker and the beans will look more like the real thing. At this point, you can taste the beans. But don't make any adjustments to the flavorings. It's still too soon to tell. Set your oven timer for 30 minutes.

15. After 30 minutes, stir the beans again. This time your sauce will be nice and thick and your beans will have the classic color of baked beans.

16. Turn off the oven and allow the dutch oven to stay there for another 30 minutes.

17. Remove the dutch oven and you are ready to serve your beans.

NOTE: if after one hour of cooking time, it appears that your sauce is looking too dry or thick, you may add some bean water to adjust the viscosity. But with a good lid on your pot you shouldn't have to do this.

Now I know this took a bit of effort, but the results will be fantastic. I served this recipe to 8 people on Memorial Day and there was hardly any left over. I can't wait to make another batch. When I do, I will take plenty of pictures and add them to this recipe. Good luck and let me know how you make out! JJ>

Will Pumpkin Pie Make Me Famous???

So I got an email the other day from America's Test Kitchen which said (and I quote) :

"America’s Test Kitchen is gearing up to tape its 10th season. If you have any funny stories, experiences, or have a related cooking question about the following recipes, and would like to share them with America’s Test Kitchen, please submit them to us!"

I clicked on the link in their email (naturally!) which took me to a listing of the recipes they were interested in. Well don't you know pumpkin pie was on the list. I have a funny story about pumpkin pie and so I thought I would send it to them. Who knows, maybe I could get on TV! Nerd TV. But hey it's TV and not the disgusting kind either. So what follows is the contents of the email. I will keep you posted...

My Mother’s Pumpkin Pie

My mother gave me her pumpkin pie recipe and that is what I used for many years. I always thought of it as a family heirloom recipe. One that was developed and honed over the years to perfection. Only it didn’t taste anything like perfection. It was actually kind of awful.

There was one ingredient in it that I never liked. The ingredient in question? Condensed milk. I have never liked condensed milk. Ever. The thought of cooking down milk and evaporating out much of the water was never a culinary process that I thought maximized the taste and flavor of anything much less a delicate dairy product like milk. In my opinion, evaporated milk starts with an off taste which carries through to everything its used in.

So after many years of making my mother’s pumpkin pie, I revolted. I swore I was never going use condensed milk again. So I decided to get out my various cookbooks and research pumpkin pie recipes.

Now this is all well and good you may say. However, the day I decided to do this was just before Thanksgiving Day. I had been assigned the job of bringing the pies to dinner the next day. So there was no real time to experiment on the recipes. It was going to be a one shot deal. The most worrisome thing of all, was I would be bringing a pie that no one had tasted before. Would my family revolt at not having the “family classic”? The pressure was on.

Back to my recipe research. I got out my various recipe books to look over when it dawned on me to begin my recipe search in the most basic place of all: the back label of the Libby’s 100% Pure Pumpkin can.

The recipe started out well listing sugar, salt, flavors, egg and pumpkin. Suddenly it took a serious turn for the worse. It had evaporated milk in the recipe! Where did that come from? Oh my god, I thought, this recipe looks familiar to my mother’s recipe. I quickly got out the family recipe to compare with the one on the can. Sure enough, the family “heirloom” came from the back of a can!

Talk about disappointment. Here I was thinking I had a recipe which contained the collective wisdom of the ages. Could it get much worse? Thus emboldened by the discovery of a self inflicted con, I decided to introduce the family to a brand new pumpkin pie recipe for Thanksgiving. Consequences be damned.

My search for a new pumpkin pie recipe ended in the America’s Test Kitchen Baking Book. Here was a recipe that used milk and cream instead of condensed milk. That substitution alone convinced me to give the recipe a try. Careful study and execution of the recipe assured success. The next day when I served the pie to my family, there was universal acclaim. In fact, I had never seen my family eat so much pumpkin pie before. The proof was in the eating and that was the end of my mother’s heirloom recipe. We have a new recipe in the family now that I have already passed on to my children. Thanks ATK! Job well done!