Some days I feel like the stream of dirty dishes is endless and I do nothing all goddamn day long but wash dish after dish after dish, dry them, put them away, and then – bingo! – the sink is full of dishes again.
Yesterday was one of those days. Fred harvested the navy beans last weekend, and I looked around online for a canned baked bean recipe, and so yesterday I spent all day making the goddamn things which involved washing the beans, measuring them, figuring out how much water to add, bringing the water (with beans) to a boil, letting them sit for an hour, draining them, adding them back to the pot with fresh water, bringing the water to a boil again, then draining them while reserving the liquid and good god, what a pain in the ass.
I love – LOVE – baked beans, and last year after we harvested the black-eyed peas I said “What kind of beans do you use to make baked beans? Let’s grow some of those!” So earlier this year Fred put navy beans on the grocery list and I bought a bag of dried navy beans, and we planted half of them in the garden.
(I’m sorry, is it not fucking AWESOME that you can buy a bag of beans at the grocery store, plant them, and have them GROW? I’ll never get over that.)
After the harvested beans were – what the fuck is the word I’m looking for? De-podded? There’s a word, I just cannot think of it. I’m ovulating and have Stupid Brain today. YOU’RE WELCOME. – removed from their pods and ready to go, I weighed what we had, and we ended up with four and a half pounds. Four and a half pounds from half a pound planted. Not shabby, I guess, though Fred thinks if he were to pick the pods when they were done growing instead of leaving them to dry on the bush, we might have ended up with more.
So I found this recipe for making your own canned baked beans, and first the issue was that Fred doesn’t like molasses, but we got the suggestion from a canning guru on the forum where he hangs out to substitute honey or brown sugar for the molasses, then once I got to the part where the beans were baking in the oven, I thought about the fact that there’s 3 tablespoons of honey for 4 1/2 pounds of navy beans, and I don’t know much but I’m pretty sure that the baked beans we usually use are way sweeter than 3 tablespoons would make them.
We usually eat Bush’s Baked Beans, for the record.
I spent some time looking around online after my beans had been in the oven for a few hours, and stumbled upon a site where someone claimed that they used the baked bean recipe in the Ball Blue Book, and when they substituted maple syrup for the molasses, it tasted exactly like the Bush’s baked beans. Since my baked beans were already in the oven with their honey sauce, I decided I’d grab a bag of navy beans at the grocery store when I go on Thursday and try that version of baked beans.
Meantime, I had to take the beans out of the oven every hour to make sure they were covered with liquid, and since I was using a flimsy foil pan, every time I took them out of the oven I dumped liquid and beans on the bottom of the oven, which burned. You can imagine how fantastic my house was smelling by then.
With the beans finally done cooking at around 3:00, I got them canned (well, half of them canned. 5 pounds of navy beans makes about 7 quart-size canning jars; my pressure canner only holds 4 jars at a time, so I had to put the uncanned beans in a plastic container to can at a future date (probably later today). When Fred got home, he tasted the beans and declared that they just tasted like cooked beans, not like there was any honey or spices in there at all.
Grrrr.
We talked about it some more, and I think that when I can the second half of the beans, I may stir some BBQ sauce in with them to improve the flavor. I don’t know. Those of you who know about canning and baked beans – hell, even those of you who don’t – what would you recommend I do? Suggestions? I don’t want these beans to go to waste!
So in and amongst all the bean baking and canning, I put the leftover chicken from Sunday’s lunch on to simmer for a few hours so I could pick the chicken off the bones and make chicken and rice casserole. I was concerned that there wouldn’t be enough chicken meat to make a small batch of the casserole, but there was enough, and after we ate it for dinner last night, we had enough left over for another night.
Tonight, I’m making a stuffed pattypan squash for myself and a stuffed green pepper for Fred. And some oven-fried squash and green tomato.
Ordinarily before I go get groceries on Sunday, we make a list of the meals we want to have throughout the week, but this past Sunday I decided to just figure it out as the week went along, and if I had to run to the store to get something, it’s only a five minute drive to the crappy grocery store. So far, I haven’t had to get a thing – between our garden and our chickens, we’ve pretty much been all set this week.
I love it when that happens.
Previously
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: I really REALLY want a monkeypod tree for my back yard.
2003: Bonus entry, just for you!
2002: Sit on it.
2001: Packing, packing, packing.
2000: No entry.
You “shelled” the beans!?
Did you know you were married to The Word of the Day?!! http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2008/07/23.html
If you don’t like molasses, then dark brown sugar would substitute. 3.5 tablespoons of honey doesn’t sound like nearly enough…but I never use honey in baked beans, so I’ll leave that to you.
Usually, I get salt pork, if I can. If I can’t, I get thick-sliced bacon. Once you butcher your hogs, you’ll be able to make salt pork. Since you’ve already canned your beans, I’d suggest dicing up two strips or so of bacon, about a quarter-cup, and render it in a skillet until the bacon’s crisp. Pour off most of the fat, leave about a teaspoon or so, and then add the bacon to the beans. Add some dark brown sugar, maybe a quarter-cup–you’ll have to taste it to be sure. Add about the same amount of apple cider vinegar–that’s going to give you the sweet-tangy flavor. You have onions in it, right? Add about a teaspoon of dry mustard or a little bit more of Dijon prepared mustard. And I’m from Indiana roots, so I add about a tablespoon of tomato paste. Mix it, heat it up, and it should taste more like what you expect. Throw in a tablespoon of maple syrup for some of the brown sugar, if you like.
My dad’s favorite homestyle meal was cooked beans (bean soup) over Southern cornbread. You top it with some fresh chopped onions, some pickle relish, and it’s a good solid meal. It’s also, interestingly enough, a complete protein.
Meg in VA: YES! Thank you. 🙂
Paula: Too cool!
Deborah: Thank you! I’m absolutely drooling here. 🙂
Robyn,
I soak the beans in water overnight, then drain the next morning and continue with the recipe. No boiling, dumping, etc. involved!
Holli
The foster kitty looks like Maddy when she was a baby 🙂
I know Fred doesn’t like molasses, but molasses is what’s missing from the beans. I bet if you don’t tell him it’s in there he’ll never know. Bush’s Baked Beans most certainly have molasses in them. Something happens to molasses when it cooks to give beans that baked beany flavor. Honey just won’t cut it.
I make them like Deborah does too. You can add all that to the the existing beans when you heat them up. We used to call this dish “Bean Mess”..plus we topped it with cheddar cheese.
With all the beans you guys have been eating, I’m thinking there must be quite a bit of turbulence going on in your house. The headlines read: Man and woman blow up there house using there own homemade gas.
Deborah’s absolutely right, and that’s how I make them too.
But … just because Fred doesn’t like molasses doesn’t mean that
good baked beans don’t have molasses in them. They all have it —
Bush’s has it — but it does change taste when combined with all
the other stuff. (I dislike molasses very much, except in baked
beans or in gingerbread. Somehow it changes, there.)
Here’s what I do:
Rinse the beans in a strainer to get rid of dust and particles.
Then put them in a pot with cold water to cover them by around two to four inches, and let them sit overnight. In the morning, drain them. Then put them in another pot with fresh water and
let them cook until, when you pick a bean up in a spoon, you can
blow on it and the skin will split. That means they’re ready.
Now, put those beans in a bean pot or a casserole (NOT a foil pan! it isn’t thick enough to bake properly so that seasonings will penetrate the beans!) with enough of their cooking liquid to
barely cover them. For each (pre-cooking) pound of beans, add
a couple of big spoons of dry mustard, around a half-cup of molasses or maple syrup, one big onion peeled and studded with three or four cloves that you push down to the bottom of the bean pot, and about 1/4 pound salt pork diced. Some hot pepper if you
like it, black pepper if you’d prefer. The salt pork should give it enough salt, but if not, you can add it later.
Let it bake in a very slow oven, covered. Maybe 325 degrees.
After maybe 2 hours, take a look and make sure it’s covered with
liquid. You can now take the cover off and let it cook a little
while longer to form a nice brown crust on top — if you want to be fancy, you can put a few strips of bacon on top before you do this, and it’s luscious.
Just don’t forget — plenty of dry mustard, onion, salt pork, molasses, and you’ve got it made. I recently ate some homemade
vegetarian baked beans that were terrific, no salt pork of course but they had chopped apple added and some chopped dried apricots, and that was good too in its own way.
Awwwww! That’s the BEST picture of Miz Poo EVER! Just thought I’d let you know, in case you hadn’t noticed. 🙂
I love baked beans but I can’t fathom growing navy beans when they are 29 cents a pound at the grocery store. On the other hand, I should plant and learn to tap a maple tree since I’m willing to pay $7/pound for maple sugar, which I use in my baked beans.
Norma’s Baked Beans
2 lbs. dried beans (navy beans are standard, but Norma (my late mom-in-law) often used kidney beans. So far, I’ve been using navy beans)
½ lb. bacon (I use smoked ham instead because it’s less fatty–what you want is the smoky flavour the ham adds.)
1 to 1 ½ tsp. of salt
¼ tsp. pepper
1 tsp dry powdered mustard
½ cup ketchup
1 tsp. powdered ginger
2 ½ cups maple syrup
2 onions finely diced
Give the beans a good wash, drain them, pick out any questionable beans and/or chaff, and then soak them overnight in an oven proof pan, covered with about 1 ½ inches of water above the top of the beans. (The only thing I had that was big enough was a enameled roasting pan.)
The next morning, skim off any foam, drain off what’s left of this water, rinse.
The first few times, I put in all the ingredients after this step and baked the beans. The problem was it took them so long to bake (and I had to tend them constantly, adding more water), that they ended up being very dark. They took on an almost licorice flavour, which the spousal unit didn’t like.
Now, after I rinse them, I add water just to the top of the beans and simmered them on the stove top until they are semi- firm (but not reduced to mush). I think it took about half an hour–I didn’t boil them because I didn’t want to split them or turn them to pablum. The object was to get them to absorb some more liquid to speed up the eventual baking.
Keep an eye on them because they can burn and may need a water top-up, depending on how much liquid they absorbed overnight.
After that, I put in all the other ingredients, gave it a good stir, and baked at 375 for about an hour with the roasting pan lid on. Stir them occasionally. If they look runny, take the lid off and bake them for about half an hour more to reduce the liquid a bit.
I also read on-line that if your beans look runny, but they’re too mushy to bake any longer, you can take out a cup of beans, mash them up well with a fork, add them back to the pot, stir them in, and they’ll thicken the beans.
The longer you cook them, the darker they get.
I’m sure after you’ve done this a few more times, you’ll be able to “eyeball” this and know if some extra water is necessary while it bakes. The problem/challenge seems to be that the beans absorb water at different rates during the overnight soak.
They’re worth the effort. They are delicious. I only wish I had my mom-in-law demonstrate how to make them before she died. Her recipe card only noted ingredients, not technique.
Here in New Zealand, our baked beans are made with a tomato based sauce, and are delicious! I was picturing you whipping up a home-made tomato sauce to add to your beans, so I’m sure you can imagine my confusion when you were talking about honey and molasses! And then I read all the comments and there seemed to be a fair bit of bacon mentioned! You American’s sure eat weird food… eg biscuits and gravy – biscuits here are what you call cookies, and gravy is a meat-flavoured sauce that you have with meat. Not with biscuits LOL