Baked Beans on a Cold Day

We had a storm overnight. The snow kept falling through the night. Though I see it didn't amount to a whole lot of snow on my patio, the snow did cause havoc on the highway. The sky is dreary and grey and it will start raining soon making the roads icy. The forecast is more rain over the weekend so it should melt all the ice and snow away over that time.

It was, in short, perfect weather for some baked beans. I don't make baked beans very often but I am committed to making and eating more "from scratch" dishes using pulses and grains. Often I use dried peas, lentils, kidney beans, garbanzo beans, barley, cous cous and bulgar.

For people with diabetes, consuming lentils, peas and beans helps control blood glucose management. Compared with some other carbohydrate sources, pulses have a lower glycemic index. Studies have also shown that consuming pulses can result in more stable blood glucose levels after meals.

Pulses are high in fiber and protein, low in fat and moderate in calories. One cup of cooked lentils or dry peas contains about half of the daily fiber recommendation for adults. Foods higher in fiber content usually help people feel “full” or satiated at mealtime.

 (Source: Wikipedia)

Here is the recipe for the baked beans.  I increased every ingredient by 2 1/2 times so that I would have leftovers. I served the beans with some very lean sausage tossed together in a fry pan with shredded savoy cabbage and a small amount of oil. The cabbage and sausage made a nice savoury counterpoint to the sweetness of the beans.

This was a tasty dinner.

Ingredients

• 2 cups navy beans
• 1/2 pound bacon
• 1 onion, finely diced
• 3 tablespoons molasses
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 cup brown sugar

Directions

1. Soak beans overnight in cold water. Simmer the beans in the same water until tender, approximately 1 to 2 hours. Drain and reserve the liquid.
2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
3. Arrange the beans in a 2 quart bean pot or casserole dish by placing a portion of the beans in the bottom of dish, and layering them with bacon and onion.
4. In a saucepan, combine molasses, salt, pepper, dry mustard, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and brown sugar. Bring the mixture to a boil and pour over beans. Pour in just enough of the reserved bean water to cover the beans. Cover the dish with a lid or aluminum foil.
5. Bake for 3 to 4 hours in the preheated oven, until beans are tender. Remove the lid about halfway through cooking, and add more liquid if necessary to prevent the beans from getting too dry. 

Notes:  I  soaked my beans for a day and half and boiled them in my rice cooker until they softened. I changed the water half way through as I've heard that this cuts the gas that is often a problem when eating beans.  This approach meant my beans were ready in half the time but I let them cook for 2.5 hours to make them nice and well done. I omitted the bacon because I was making sausage.

Enjoy!

A Slow Dinner

Today was a day for a slow food dinner. I made Oatmeal Bread, Pork Roast with Tuscan Salt Rub and Baked Beans. For greens, I had the left over spinach salad from last night.

Cinnamon buns were made later for another day.  Photos above are of the buns before they went into the oven.  First photo has the butter and brown sugar sprinkled on the dough after it is rolled out to size. The middle photo is after the cinnamon spice and raisins have been added and the pieces cut for the pan. The third photo is after the dough has risen a bit and the last of course is the buns right out of the oven.

RECIPES

Oatmeal Bread

This was made in the bread machine and so is simple because all you do is throw all the ingredients into the machine, set it and away it goes until the bread is nice and done.

In case you do not have the recipe here is the one I used.

Ingredients:

9-11 ounces of water
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons sugar or honey 

2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/2 cup quick-cooking oats
  3 3/4 cups bread flour

2 tablespoons powdered milk
  2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Place ingredients in the pan of the bread machine in the order listed. Select White Bread setting, and Start.

This recipe yields a 2 pound loaf.

Roast Pork with Tuscan Salt Rub

This again was easy. I put the roast pork into a small roaster, sprinkled some tuscan seasoning rub on it and cooked it for about 4 hours, first on low heat of 250 F. oven for an hour and then on 350 F. for the balance of time. I have a pre-mixed rub from Suzanne Somers company. If you don't have such a rub readily available or you like to make your own, you can try this recipe from the blog Eating Well.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon fennel seeds

6 tablespoons dried basil

3 tablespoons garlic powder

3 tablespoons coarse salt

2 tablespoons dried rosemary

2 tablespoons dried oregano

Boston Baked Beans

I soaked the beans last night and boiled them for about one hour today. When I was ready to make dinner I put them in a glass baking dish along with a recipe I adapted from www.allrecipes.com

Ingredients

2 cups navy beans

1/2 pound bacon

1 onion, finely diced

3 tablespoons molasses

2 teaspoons salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon dry mustard

1/2 cup ketchup

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup brown sugar


In my version, I omitted the bacon and Worcestershire sauce which I did not have on hand. I added some Louisiana hot sauce in place of Worcestershire. If you would like to use hot sauce, any hot sauce will do. I added the diced onion to the sauce mixture.

Basically you place the beans in a baking dish and pour the sauce over top. You can add a bit of liquid (from the boiled beans or water) and cover. The recipe says to cook the beans for 3-4 hours on 325 F. oven. I cooked mine for 4 hours and the first hour was at 250F along with the pork roast after which I turned the heat on to 375F for the remaining time. I  had about 3 times the beans so I tripled the other ingredients to taste.

Cinnamon Buns

For easy cinnamon buns I made the dough in the bread machine. I then rolled it out to size, placed margarine, brown sugar, cinnamon spice and raisins and then rolled the dough into a log, pinching it together where needed so it didn't fall apart. Once I had a log, I cut the roll into evenly spaced pieces about 1 inch each in width. I set the cut pieces on a baking sheet, covered with a tea towel and let it rise before baking at 350F oven for approximately 30 minutes. You can make a cream cheese frosting, a confectioner's sugar glaze or leave them plain.

 

Enjoy!