Ingredients:
1 pound dry white beans (navy beans, but almost anything will work)
1/3 cup molasses
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup ketchup
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
1/8 tsp ground cloves
3 cups water
1 tsp salt
1/2 pound of thick cut bacon cut into large chunks
1 to 1 1/2 cup chopped onion
More salt and pepper to taste
About & Method:
We’re all looking for things to do during the pandemic days weeks months to pass the time, plus I’ve been thinking lately that I need to write down a lot of my go-to recipes here mainly for myself. I have a lot of recipes that I go back to again and again, but I also find myself needing to track down whatever cookbook or website where that recipe is again and again. In the old days, I would have cut out the recipe from a magazine or copied from a book onto a card and then put that all in one place– and I do actually have a scrapbook sort of recipe collection like that. But I thought it’d be more convenient for me to type these recipes up here so I could find them later, plus if I did it this way, maybe someone else on the internets might find them useful. So, that’s why I’m doing this.
Baked beans is a weird place to begin, especially since I don’t make homemade baked beans that much. For me, homemade baked beans are usually like homemade ketchup: sure, you can do that to put your own spin on ketchup and plenty of fancy (and not so fancy) restaurants and gastropub kinds of places do that all the time, but it always tastes weird to me. When I want ketchup on something, I want the manufactured product, preferably Heinz. I have the same feeling about baked beans: there are obviously a lot of recipes and variations out there, but for me, the “right” baked beans are B&M Baked Beans, and the ones in the glass jar. They are the ones I had growing up, and they are the only ones I will buy at the store.
Here we are in mid-summer during the coronavirus pandemic, and I guess there’s a lot of people who feel the same way as I do about B&M baked beans with my grilled hamburger or brats or hot dogs or whatever because I have not been able to find them in the store at all. Fortunately, I came across a recipe that’s pretty close to what’s in the jar, though my version is slightly adjusted to add some ketchup. I also prefer the smaller pinto beans, but really, just about any dry dean should work. Note also this basically takes a day and half of planning! Not that any of it is difficult; it’s just that it’s not what to turn to if you want the right baked beans right now. Note also this is a slow-cooker recipe. I suppose you could do this in the oven in a traditional bean pot, but I don’t have one of those and a slow-cooker doesn’t require me to pay much attention to it.
- Put a pound of dried beans (navy or some other white bean) into a large bowl and enough water to cover by a couple of inches. Soak the beans for at least 6 hours, and up to 12 or so would be good too. The best time to do this is in the morning/early afternoon the day before you are planning on eating your beans. When ready to assemble, drain the beans and discard the soaking water.
- Sometime in the late afternoon/early evening the day before you are planning on having your baked beans, mix together in another bowl the hot water, molasses, brown sugar, mustard, 1 tsp salt, ketchup, and 1/8 tsp of cloves. Obviously, you can of course adjust the seasonings to your own tastes. I do think the cloves do add that “this is just like B&M baked beans” flavor, but go easy on it– believe it or not, that tiny bit of ground cloves goes a long way.
- In the bottom of your slow cooker, spread half of the chopped bacon and half of the chopped onions. Then layer in half of the dried beans; then the other half of the bacon and onions, and then the other half of the beans.
- Pour in all of the stuff you mixed with water, which should be more than enough to cover the beans, onions, and bacon. If it’s not, add a bit more water.
- Plug in/turn on the slow cooker to the low setting for 10 to 12 hours. Go to bed.
- The next day when you get up, check on the beans. They should be just about done at this point. Give them a stir and taste them; they might need some salt and pepper. If they are too liquid-y, continue slow cooking them for another hour or two, but leave the lid half off so some of the liquid can evaporate.
- When they get to the consistency you want, eat them or put them in storage containers for the fridge and reheat them gently. They’ll be delicious for a few days.