Baked Beans from Scratch

Lately I have had a craving for baked beans. Specifically baked beans on toast (gluten free for me, sprouted for the accountant). With all the press about BPA I didn't want to just go out and buy some "organic" ones in a can. Because they might be organic but not BPA free. So I decided to make them from scratch. The original recipe is found at all recipes . I doubled the sauce from the original because I found the first batch too dry, not sweet enough. I also omitted the brown sugar because I didn't have any and instead used more molasses. Here is my edited version of the recipe.

Serves 6-8 people. Not including bean soaking time. Prep and Cook Time takes 6 hours.

Ingredients:

2 cups of dry organic navy beans

1 pound of organic bacon

1 medium organic onion

9 Tablespoons of organic blackstrap molasses

1/2 teaspoon of black pepper

1 teaspoon of Himalayan salt

1 cup of organic ketchup

1/2 teaspoon of dry mustard seed powder

2 Tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce

1/2 cup of organic sugar

Soak the dried beans in water overnight (the water should cover the beans). The next morning cook the beans on the stove top on medium to low heat for 1.2 to 2 hours until beans are tender to touch. Drain the beans and save the liquid. (I forgot to do this the first time)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

In a separate pot on the stove top place the bacon. Cook until done. Remove bacon from pan but do not discard the cooking fat. Place the now cooked beans in the pot with the bacon fat. Then layer the bacon and chopped onion on top. (This picture has a red onion because I ran out of yellow. Red works just fine)

Next in a saucepan place molasses, sugar, spices, Worcestershire sauce, ketchup. Bring to a boil then pour over your layered bean pot. Use reserved water to bring the liquid up to just covering the beans.

Cover pot and place in oven, Cook for four hours. Set the timer for one hour, and every hour thereafter to check to make sure beans are not dry. If liquid level drips add more of the reserved bean liquid (or if you threw that away plain water). 

Olivia being a monkey.

Yum! Homemade is WAY better than out of a can...just a lot of work!