My family is on a tight budget. When food like Ham goes on sale we get excited because ham makes a nice dinner but I can get two other meals out of the leftovers. When the man went grocery shopping and brought home a ham, I was feeling like Oh no, not THAT again! Ham dinner? Yummy! Bean soup afterwards? Getting. OLD!!!
Man of the house: Why don’t you try making Pork and Beans?
Me:
Hmmm I’ll give it a try.
So, this morning I did what I always do,
I scoured the internets for some a Baked Beans recipe. I came across one and should give a shout out to The Pioneer Woman. No this isn’t the recipe I settled on but did use a couple of the steps for making my sauce.
Since I had my beans simmering on the stove with the ham bone all I really needed was a recipe for BBQ sauce. I settled on this one.
I use recipes more like a guide, for example, I HATE with seething hatredness, how all the BBQ sauce recipes that I come across are ketchup based.
Needless to say, I switched things up a bit so this is what I came up with.
Oven temp. 350F
1 lb dry beans (of course you are going to cook these ahead of time but I started with a pound of dry great northern beans.)
8 slices of BACON cut in half
1 5.2 oz can Tomato Paste
3/4 cup liquid, I used apple, passion, mango juice . I’m sure stock, water or the cooking liquid from your beans would work too.
1/3 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 TBSP yellow mustard (I bet Dijon would be really good too.)
1 half onion diced
1 diced celery stalk plus the leafy greens
1 TBSP garlic powder
1/2 tsp Tabasco Sauce
Directions (yeah, like who needs them?)
In large skillet (I used my Pampered Chef 12 inch family skillet), render the fat out of the bacon. Next remove the bacon from pan and set aside on paper towels. Add onions and celery to the skillet and let them get cozy with the bacon drippings. After the onions and celery are soft add entire can of tomato paste, followed by the ACV and your choice of liquid. Here it would be a good idea to have an extra cup or so of water to thin the sauce a little; tomato paste tends to thicken really fast. Add the rest of the ingredients and let the sauce simmer on the stove for about 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes add your beans and mix well. I can place my skillet pan in the oven but if you want you can transfer the mixture to a casserole dish. Turn off the heat and top with bacon slices.
Bake for 45 minutes or until bacon is nice and browned.
Smile when significant other comes home and says “It smells really awesome in here!”
It’s too bad I didn’t take a picture.
I will be making it again though!
thehappyitch 