Old Fashioned Pickled Beans

Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions. – Dalai Lama

Photo: norwichnuts, Flickr ccl

Vicissitudes will beset even the most happy person. But how we feel is entirely how we react to them. It's our response to what is happening that determines how happy we are. There's a saying that we all walk around with problems that are invisible to those we meet. I believe it's true. 

So don't think you have it all that bad. Everyone is dealing with their own trials that you don't know about. If you keep that in mind, and that problems don't last, it's easier to keep your equilibrium. 

The delicious Caesar cocktail.
Photo: Thomas Hawk, Flickr ccl

This week I get a new door, furnace, liner and am busy with work. Last week this time I felt the world was falling in.

I've been noticing a trend on my page views lately. It seems many folks are coming looking for recipes on how to preserve nature's bounty. Unless you planted your garden very late you probably don't have beans right now. But you can buy from a store and they're just as good. And they don't break the bank. 

So here’s an old, old recipe from the South Shore of Nova Scotia. They're one of my more favourite ways to have beans during winter. Just add some baked pork and sauerkraut, mashed potatoes and you're set.

Many may be familiar with spicy pickled beans often served in a Caesar cocktail. Although that's one good way to eat them, it's not really a meal, unless you're a lush.

This pickled bean recipe is not the spicy variety, but with a few simple additions can be changed into those. To use the beans all you need to do is rinse, soak if desired, and then boil them until done. They can also be baked on top of sauerkraut with sausages and white wine in the oven. Mmmmmm.....

The taste is difficult to describe. If you like them, you love them. They’re very difficult to find now in any stores. Only a few places I know of still offer them for sale, and they’re all on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. It probably has something to do with the German influence in that area of the province. 

We always used to have a few jars in the basement when I was growing up for use during the winter. They're pretty easy to do. Easier than tomato sauce!

It’s actually quite easy to turn this recipe into the spicy variety if you wish. They’re the twin sister of the old time recipe, with "additions." As opposed to a dinner vegetable, they are consumed as a salty snack, or in a Caesar or Bloody Mary.

The ingredients listed as optional in the recipe will do the trick for you.

Photo: paige_eliz, Flickr ccl

Old Fashioned Pickled Beans

Makes 4 pints

2 lbs  green or yellow beans

1/4 cup pickling salt

2 cups white vinegar

2 cups water

1 tsp whole black pepper

4 dill fronds (optional)

4 whole dried red chilies (optional)

4 cloves garlic, peeled and whole (optional)

Preparation

It is important to get the best looking beans you can find. Ugly raw beans will make ugly pickled beans. Usually fresh imported beans show up in our local grocery stores from the USA in Spring. You can also wait for our local beans to come into season, but that is much later (but cheaper).

Ensure that your jars and canning pot are well washed. The jars themselves should be sterilized. To do so, place the jars, rings and lids in the canning pot with enough water to cover and boil for a few minutes. Remove with tongs and place on a clean surface.

Wash the beans well and allow to dry. Snap or cut the stem ends off the beans and pack into the jars. You can put beans in whole or cut in two. I prefer the long beans for presentation value. Just make sure you have 1/2 inch of head room in your jars. If not, trim the beans.

If using the optional ingredients for spicy beans, place them in the jars with the beans.

Heat the salt, vinegar and water just to boiling. Take the hot sauce and pour into the jars. Ensure to leave some space between the liquid level and the top of the jar (between 1/2 and 1/4 inch) — enough to cover the beans.

Put the sterile lids and rings on the jars and tighten “finger tight”. This means enough to ensure there is no leakage, but don’t force the rings on too tight. 

Processing the beans

Stand the jars of beans upright in the pot. Ensure that the water level is up over the jar tops. It’s best to put a rack or some kind of elevation between the jars and the pot bottom. It’s not entirely necessary and I have processed beans without a rack many times. Bring to a boil and process for the recommended time for your altitude.

0-1000 ft. – 5 minutes

1001-6000 ft. – 10 minutes

Above 6000 ft. – 15 minutes

Remove from the hot water bath and allow to cool on the counter overnight. You will hear the characteristic “pop” of the lids as they vacuum closed as they cool. Once cooled, you can tighten the rings again to ensure a tight fit.

Let sit for 14 days before using. Store in a cool, dry place.

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Grilled Balsamic Beans

Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety. – Francis Bacon 

Barbecuing sausage, hamburgers and hotdogs is a great way to share quality time with family and friends in the summer.

Actually, since the kitchen has been hot and we bought the new barbecue, there have been many weeknight dinners that have been cooked outside.

The airtight package will puff up.

A side salad – either green or potato – is an easy fall back plan as an accompaniment. But that can get tired really quickly. You begin to crave cooked vegetables, you know, something a little more “substantial.” Have you ever thought of cooking green beans as a side dish?

I don’t mean boiling water on the stove. I’m talking about steaming them while you cook your other food, right on the barbecue. It’s easy enough to do. All you need is some simple ingredients, foil and beans, of course.

If you have a garden, as we do, the beans are coming fast and furious about now. So any “creative” uses for them are welcome. You might think that the vinegar is an odd choice, but the result isn’t vinegary, just a little deeper. If anything the garlic overwhelms.

You can foil-steam many vegetables besides beans. Carrots or beets are other good contender. Potato chunks as well. Corn can be placed directly on the grate no foil needed or the kernels can be removed and done this way.

Of course some veggies won’t take to the vinegar as well as beans. Try a little water, wine or stock. Choose whatever spice you think would complement.

There’s lots of options for side dishes. All you have to do is but look. Since we’re on the back side (shudder) of summer you probably want to mix things up a bit.

So if you’re sick of salad, you may want to try this very simple recipe. Variety is the spice of life, alongside salt and pepper!

Grilled Balsamic Beans

Prep: 5 min  |  Grill: 15 min  |  Serves 4

1 lb green beans

2 lg garlic cloves, halved

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1-1/2 tbsp butter

1/4 cup chopped parsley

1 tsp cracked black pepper

1/2 tsp salt

Place the beans on a piece of aluminum foil long enough to accommodate them with about 4” to spare on each end.

Break the garlic cloves up and scatter them on top. Sprinkle with the vinegar. Dot with butter, add the parsley, salt and pepper. Place another piece of foil on top and roll the edges to seal tightly.

Place on a low temperature grill and let cook for 15 minutes. The packet will swell if it is properly sealed and you will hear the liquid boiling in the sealed foil.

Remove from the heat, slice open the top and serve.

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Questions? Comments? Derogatory remarks? Just ask! I’ll answer quickly and as best as I can. If you like this post feel free to share it. If you repost, please give me credit and a link back to this site.

Beans, Peas & Mushrooms with Polenta

I think most people struggle over a matter of years to find a satisfying way to live. – Meg Rosoff 

An excellent vegetarian main dish.

The garden seems to be yielding more of its treasures to us every day. Now we’re into peas and beans.

One of the main tenets we promised ourselves when we moved to the country was to become more self-sufficient. One way was by planting vegetables. 

There’s nothing that tastes quite as good as your own peas and beans picked fresh from the garden. Perhaps they’re infused with a sense of pride. I’m not sure.

For some reason even “fresh” from the grocery store aren’t the same. A close second to growing your own is purchasing from a friendly merchant at your local farmers market.

If you didn’t put in a garden of your own there’s no excuse for not frequenting a farmers market in Nova Scotia for fresh produce. There are 41 of them! Here’s a handy-dandy map that tells you where (and when) they are. Support local businesses and those people will be there to support yours.

Click the picture for a larger version.

Gardening has worked out quite well so far. We’ve had mesclun greens, radishes, chard, romaine, spinach, lettuce, fresh herbs... and I know I’m forgetting some. Swiftly to come are carrots, tomatoes and cucumbers – a lot of both by the look right now. 

One thing that seems to be avoiding our garden are the deer. I don’t know why, but luckily, so far so good...

And now is the time of peas and green beans. Oh, and purple beans. They’re the kind that grow a beautiful dark purple and change to dark green when cooked. Magic!

Our fresh lemon thyme. Regular thyme can be substituted.

So something had to be done with them. Something special as a showcase. That’s where this recipe comes in. Although vegetarian it is a very filling and delicious meal.

I found several recipes for dishes similar to this, but the one I used as a departure I found on Bon Appétit. So you know it’s good.

Of course I changed this and that – one must not plagiarize – but the intent is the same. I do have to admit it turned out quite well. You certainly won't miss not having meat!

Beans, Peas & Mushrooms with Polenta

Prep: 10 min  |  Cook: 30 min  |  Serves 4

for the polenta

1 tbsp olive oil

1/4 onion, diced

1 cup corn meal

3 cups chicken broth

1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan

1 tbsp fresh lemon thyme (or regular)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cracked black pepper

for the vegetables

2 tbsp olive oil

3/4 onion, thinly sliced

250 g Cremini mushrooms, quartered

1/4 cup vermouth

3/4 lb green beans, snapped in half

1 cup fresh peas, shelled

1/2 cup light cream

1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan

2 tbsp butter

1 tbsp fresh lemon thyme

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

To make the polenta, sauté the onion in the olive oil until it is softened. Add the chicken stock, parmesan, thyme, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. 

Then add the cornmeal and cook on medium heat, whisking, for 10 minutes. Make sure the cornmeal doesn’t stick to the bottom.

Pour into a prepared 8x8 pan and bake for 30 minutes. (This will yield a soft polenta.) Then let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

While the polenta cools, make the vegetable topping. It will take about 10 minutes.

Heat the olive oil in a sauté. Add the onion and mushrooms and cook until the onions and mushrooms are browned slightly. Add the vermouth and allow to cook until evaporated.

This next step takes about 6 minutes. Add the beans and peas to the mushrooms. Add a little more olive oil if the pan looks very dry. Sauté for about a minute. 

Then add the cream, parmesan, butter, thyme and some salt and pepper. Cover and let cook for 3 minutes. Then uncover and allow to cook until most of the cream has evaporated.

Divide the polenta into 4 equal servings and spoon the vegetables on the top.

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Homemade Honey Soy Milk

I hasten to laugh at everything, for fear of being obliged to weep. – Pierre Beaumarchais 

Breakfast of champions? Maybe not...

I had every intention of posting about how great and easy it is to make your own soy milk. It's funny how things change. I don't know wether to laugh or cry.

Soy milk is a product I never quite like from the grocery store. Tofu is a different story, but soy milk, not so much. It always tastes “funny” to me. That has now changed, with this recipe, maybe. Why? Read on.

Soy milk is disgustingly cheap to make. Cents, actually – for 2 L. I bought a cup of soybeans at the Bulk Barn for well under $1. On the face of it, soy seems good for you because it contains a lot of protein and plant-based fats.

Soy used to be the poster child of the health movement. Soy products are everywhere now and we’re all told we should eat more vegetable protein than animal. But what do we know about them, like how they got from “there” to “here,” or other essential facts? I would venture not very much.

From what I’ve learned I may very well be turned off again, not by the taste but by the controversy.

A little about soybeans

As you can probably surmise, soybeans were first cultivated in China. This was supposedly some time between 1600-1000 BC. 

From China they slowly spread into other Asian countries via trade, reaching as far as India. All these countries made good, and creative, use of them as food.

But in Asia they pretty much stayed, until about 1880 when they were planted as livestock forage in North Carolina. Soybeans actually had arrived 80 years earlier – as ballast in ships – but were never planted.

A few decades afterward, the US Department of Agriculture started to study them more closely as a viable option for wider livestock forage. Shortly thereafter it was discovered they were an excellent rotational crop, improving the yield of the “food” crops planted afterward.

Today over half of the world’s soybean production is in the USA. Other leading producers are Argentina, Brazil, China and India. Brazil will soon overtake the US’s position, probably in the next decade.

Soybeans show up in the most unlikely places. They are used in well over half of the processed products in supermarkets. So you’re eating soy whether you like it or not.

Genetically modified (GM) soybeans

Soybean is one of the crops genetically modified by large multinational seed corporations. Although the consumption of GM soy is not supposed to be any worse than non-GM, that may or may not be the case. Around 90% of soybeans grown in the USA are GM. Approximately 70% of soy products in grocery stores are from GM crops.

Soy are dried beans, so you have to soak them overnight
to rehydrate, as if you were making baked beans.

GM soybeans were initially created to be resistant to Round-Up (glyphosate) herbicide. That means farmers can spray their entire fields with it, kill everything and the soybeans are unaffected. Buy where does it go? It’s in the ground. Just because it doesn’t kill the soy doesn’t mean it’s not taken into the plant.

A recent study by Italian researchers examined the toxicity of four common glyphosate-based herbicides on human placental, kidney, embryonic and umbilical cord cells. They found total cell death within 24 hours in all cases.

Interestingly, the same company that makes Round-Up produces GM seeds resistant to their product. 

But that’s not all that’s bad about GMs, of any kind. Growing GMs are regulated, usually meaning a farmer can’t grow anything BUT GMs on their farm. So they are tied to multinational companies for their seed, and in-species diversity is substantially curtailed.

GMs also have a nasty habit of finding their way into non-GM plant populations and either cross-breeding or overtaking the natural varieties, doing unknown damage.

So what do you do? One step is to find out what foods you are purchasing have GM ingredients and stop buying them. It may be very difficult, but genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are only there for profit. The "end world hunger" rationale behind GMOs has not materialized.

Here's the crux of capitalism: if they can’t sell one product, they’ll switch to something they can. Neither Canada nor the USA requires any safety testing on GM food products. Some European countries have, or are considering, outright bans on GMOs. Even some African countries are following suit.

Since the beans are raw, the resulting "milk" has to
be cooked for a short time.

“Healthy” soy

It makes a difference if soy in products is fermented or not, too.

Unfermented soy products ( milk, tofu, burgers, nuts, soy baby formula, chips and ice cream) contain high levels of phytic acid. This blocks the absorption of essential minerals in the intestinal tract. Unfermented soy also contains trypsin inhibitors and hemaglutinin that stunt growth. 

According to an article in The Guardian newspaper (UK), researchers concluded that consuming unfermented soy may be linked to reduced male fertility, increased cancer risk, damaged brain function, developmental abnormalities in infants, and early onset of puberty.

Fermented soy products, on the other hand, are better, in moderation. These include miso, tempeh, natto and tamari sauce. The fermentation process removes the phytates, trypsin inhibitors and heaglutinin. 

Not quite so rosy a picture, eh?

Sadly I am almost certain, from the statistics above, that my bag of soybeans were GM. Some other common GM products in Canada include corn, beets and canola. Apples, wheat and potatoes are in approval stages. They're everywhere.

A great idea is to purchase as much food as you can from local small farmers who are not tied to GM seed. That not only benefits you, but your local economy as well. Soy beans will NOT be one of those products you can find.

If you still want to make some, here’s the recipe for your own homemade milk. (Did I say it tasted really good...?)

A chilled glass of homemade soy milk.

Honey Soy Milk

Prep: overnight  | Processing: 1 hour  |  Yield: 2L

1 cup dried soy beans

4 cups water

6 tbsp honey

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 to 1/2 tsp salt

additional water to make 2L

Soak the beans in the water overnight. By morning they will have tripled in size.

In the morning purée the beans, in two batches, as smoothly as you can in a food processor. They will become almost the consistency of whipped cream.

Ladle the mixture into a fine cloth bag (like a jelly bag) and squeeze out as much moisture as you can into a large measuring cup (a 2L one).

Take the solids (called okara) re-mix with more water, purée again and squeeze again. Keep the okara for another use if you wish. (Google for recipes.)

Place the soy milk (more like “froth”) in a large stock pot, bring to a boil and reduce the heat to slightly more than simmer.

Cook the milk for between 5-10 minutes, stirring constantly.

Remove from the heat and stir in the honey, vanilla and salt.

Place in a 2L jar, topping up the milk with more water to make 2L. Refrigerate.

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You know, I really like comments... I really do.

Questions? Comments? Derogatory remarks? Just ask! I’ll answer quickly and as best as I can. If you like this post feel free to share it. If you repost, please give me credit and a link back to this site.

Weekend Three Bean Salad

Beans are neither fruit nor musical. – Nancy Cartwright

Delicious, crisp and colourful.

I’m preempting today’s scheduled broadcast to bring you this timely recipe. I was going to post Tuscan Chicken, but that will just have to wait.

Instead, I’m bringing back a favourite. I believe I am going to start a tradition of reposting this recipe every year. The warmer weather brings out the barbecues and this is perfect for with steak, chicken, hot dogs or hamburgers. It is hands-down THE best three bean salad I have ever had.

I dislike most three bean salads. When you buy it at the store you get a usually soggy, vinegary, sugary mess. Who would like that?

This ain’t no store-bought three bean. Make lots of it. It will keep in jars for a while, like a week or two. But you won’t have to worry. You’ll be amazed at how fast it disappears.

Use fresh green beans. Photo: zoyachubby, Flickr ccl

Bean salad is a common backyard or picnic dish that – oddly enough – is composed mainly of various beans. It is almost always served in a sweet vinegar marinade. What the particular beans used are—or the number (three, four, five…)—is up to the cook.

The trick with a bean salad is to make it colourful, and fresh. If you want to go to the trouble, you can pick and shell beans. Just remember any fresh veggies should be blanched before adding. It helps the vinaigrette to be absorbed.

Use canned chickpeas and kidney beans. It’s just so much easier and faster. But don’t use canned green beans – blanch fresh ones. You won’t be happy with the result. Yuck… If using dried chickpeas or beans they would have to be soaked and boiled, of course.

Blanching is boiling vegetables in salted water for a few minutes. It partially cooks them but they are still crisp. It also helps them retain their fresh-picked colour. Vegetables are routinely blanched before being frozen. 

Keep that in the back of your mind to preserve from this coming harvest season. That’s a bit of news I’ll have to remember when our garden grows...

Chickpeas (garbanzo beans). Photo: Mink, Flickr ccl

Pretty much any bean, or other legume, can be used in this type of salad. The decision is mostly based on how much eye-appeal you want in the end result. 

Most bean salads call for chickpeas (garbanzos), kidney beans and fresh green beans. That way you have white, red and green (the Italian flag, although I don’t think there’s supposed to be any connection). In my recipe I also added orange in the form of carrots. Radishes, green onions, yellow beans are all potential contenders for inclusion.

I have read that bean salad has been a common picnic staple since the 1800s (on Wikipedia) but I can’t find any independent verification. Since picnicking became popular during the Victorian Age I have no real reason to dispute it.

Bean salad gained popularity on this side of the big pond in the 1950s-60s with the advent of the suburban expansive backyard and barbecue entertaining. That was when dad cooked the meat and mom did pretty much everything else… Anyone remember that?

Bean salad is an excellent dish to serve if you have vegetarian friends. The beans are full of dietary fibre, protein, and contain several essential vitamins and minerals. So except for the sugar it’s not a bad thing. It can serve as a main dish for those so inclined.

Three bean salad usually seems to go a long way. The amounts in the recipe would supposedly serve eight folks as a side dish. I have a funny feeling that it’s not the case with this recipe.

This is good. Really good.

This is supposed to be enough salad for 8.
Yeah.. right.

Three Bean Salad

Prep: 15 min  |  Marinate: 2-24 hours  |  Serves 8-12

19oz (540 ml) can chick peas

19 oz can (540 ml) can red kidney beans

3/4 lb green beans

1 medium carrot, julienned

1 rib celery, diced

1 small onion, sliced and chopped

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1/2 cup vinegar

1/2 cup honey

1/2 to 1 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp cracked black pepper

salt to taste (see recipe)

Rinse the chick peas and kidney beans under water until the water runs clear. Place in a bowl that will hold all the assembled ingredients.

Stem the green beans and cut into thirds or quarters. Peel and cut the carrot into matchsticks about 2” long. Rinse both well and blanch in boiling water for 3-5 minutes. Rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process and add to the bowl.

Add the celery, onion and garlic to the bowl and toss well to combine.

In a small bowl combine the vinegar, honey, cayenne and black pepper. Pour over the vegetables and toss. Do not add salt at this time. (Sometimes the kidney beans and chickpeas are already salty.)

Cover with plastic wrap and let marinate in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours, or for a whole day.

Just before serving, taste for salt and add if desired.

........................................................

You know, I really like comments... I really do.

Questions? Comments? Derogatory remarks? Just ask! I’ll answer quickly and as best as I can. If you like this post feel free to share it. If you repost, please give me credit and a link back to this site.

Patio Recipe: Three Bean Salad

Beans are neither fruit nor musical. – Nancy Cartwright

Delicious, crispy and colourful.

It’s definitely not patio weather today in Nova Scotia. It’s pouring rain outside. So one can only dream of the warm sunny weather that we (hopefully) soon have. And one must be prepared. What better way than to start collection recipes for your outdoor fêtes? This one’s a keeper – and I’m not even a big fan of this type of salad. 

Use fresh green beans. Photo: zoyachubby, Flickr ccl

Bean salad is a common backyard or picnic dish that – oddly enough – is composed mainly of various beans. It is almost always served in a sweet vinegar marinade. What the particular beans used are—or the number (three, four, five…)—is up to the cook.

The trick with a bean salad is to make it colourful, and fresh. If you want to go to the trouble, you can pick and shell beans. Just remember any fresh veggies should be blanched before adding. It helps the vinaigrette to be absorbed.

Personally I would opt for canned chickpeas and kidney beans. It’s just so much easier and faster. But don’t use canned green beans – blanch fresh ones. You won’t be happy with the result. Yuck… If using dried chickpeas they would have to be soaked and boiled, of course.

In case you don’t know, blanching is boiling vegetables in salted water for a few minutes. It partially cooks them but they are still crisp. It also helps them retain their fresh-picked colour. Vegetables are routinely blanched before being frozen. Keep that in the back of your mind to preserve from this coming harvest season.

Chickpeas, otherwise known as garbanzos. Photo: Mink, Flickr ccl

Pretty much any bean, or other legume, can be used in this type of salad. The decision is mostly based on how much eye-appeal you want in the end result. 

Most bean salads call for chickpeas (garbanzos), kidney beans and fresh green beans. That way you have white, red and green (the Italian flag, although I don’t think there’s supposed to be any correlation). In my recipe I also added orange in the form of carrots. Radishes, green onions, yellow beans are all potential contenders for inclusion.

I have read that bean salad has been a common picnic staple since the 1800s (on Wikipedia) but I can’t find any independent verification. Since picnicking became popular during the Victorian Age I have no real reason to dispute it.

Bean salad gained popularity on this side of the big pond in the 1950s-60s with the great desire for backyard barbecues. That was when dad cooked the meat and mom did pretty much everything else…

Bean salad is an excellent dish to serve if you have vegetarian friends. The beans are full of dietary fibre, protein, and contain several essential vitamins and minerals. So except for the sugar it’s not a bad thing to serve. It can serve as the main dish for those so inclined.

Three bean salad also seems to go a long way. The amounts in the recipe would easily serve eight folks as a side dish and I could imagine going even further.

This is a fairly big bowl. I would imagine this would servre eight easily.

Three Bean Salad

Prep: 15 min  |  Marinate: 2-24 hours  |  Serves 8-12

19oz (540 ml) can chick peas

19 oz can (540 ml) can red kidney beans

3/4 lb green beans

1 medium carrot, julienned

1 rib celery, diced

1 small onion, sliced and chopped

3 cloves garlic, chopped

1/2 cup vinegar

1/2 cup honey

1/2 to 1 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp cracked black pepper

salt to taste (see recipe)

Rinse the chick peas and kidney beans under water until the water runs clear. Place in a bowl that will hold all the assembled ingredients.

Stem the green beans and cut into thirds or quarters. Peel and cut the carrot into matchsticks about 2” long. Rinse both well and blanch in boiling water for 3-5 minutes. Rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process and add to the bowl.

Add the celery, onion and garlic to the bowl and toss well to combine.

In a small bowl combine the vinegar, honey, cayenne and black pepper. Pour over the vegetables and toss. Do not add salt at this time. (Sometimes the kidney beans and chickpeas are already salty.)

Cover with plastic wrap and let marinate in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours, or for a whole day.

Just before serving, taste for salt and add if desired.

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Questions? Comments? Derogatory remarks

Recipe: Nova Scotia Molasses Baked Beans

Beans are neither fruit nor musical. – Bart Simpson

Saturday dinner, as homey as you can get...

There’s a few recipes that everyone should be able to pull off. Apple pie is one. So is a good chocolate cake (which reminds me I haven’t posted one…).

Two more are molasses baked beans and classic brown bread. We all know about baked beans, if only from a can. The brown bread I mean is baked molasses bread. It is NOT Boston brown bread. These two recipes were staples of our Saturday dinners when I was growing up. I remember Saturdays with the Bugs Bunny show, beans and brown bread. The three go together in my mind as a single memory.

My mother made baked beans, my father made baked beans. So did my Great Aunts Hilda and Nettie and my grandmother. And if you ventured to a church or firehall supper you couldn't avoid them. Everyone's beans were just slightly different and villagers had their favourites – sometimes not their spouses! 

Today I'm posting the baked beans I remember. I’ll be posting the Nova Scotia brown bread to accompany it in a day or two. Wait until you see it. Better than I remember! With these two recipes you too can have a Saturday dinner (next weekend) from my childhood. Just rent some old cartoons or find a TV channel that still broadcasts them.

We always used red kidney beans and no other.
Photo: mtsn, Flickr ccl

History of Baked Beans

Baked beans (or recipes similar) have been part of the European diet for centuries. Columbus brought beans back with him on one of his voyages and their use spread quickly. Before that time American natives used them in their cooking, possibly for thousands of years.

Baked beans as we know them are believed to be based on a Native American dish in which beans were cooked with fat and maple syrup. CExisting recipes show that Colonial settlers prepared a version close to today's baked beans using pork and molasses.

There is an alternate theory that the recipe is an altered form of the classic French dish cassoulet. Most European nations have some form of a baked bean dish, and some claim theirs as the origin, especially those with a seafaring heritage. The truth is lost in the mists of time.

Regardless, baked beans are two styles now, for the most part. One is tomato based, which I really don't like. The other is the one from my childhood: the molasses version. This is my recipe for that favourite which brings back such warm memories.

Remember when cooking beans that they are done when you think they are done. Of course the liquid has to be reduced, but some people like harder beans and others very soft. Therefore time is always given as between "this and that."

Just don’t let them dry out. That would be a burnt disaster!

All ready to go into the oven. 3-4 hours transforms this soup
into something completely amazing.

Molasses Baked Beans

Time: soak overnight; bake 3 to 4 hours

2 cups red kidney beans

1/2 lb bacon (6-8 rashers), cut into 1” pieces

1 medium onion, finely diced

5 tbsp molasses

2 tsp salt

1 tsp cracked black pepper

1 tbsp dry mustard

1/4 cup ketchup (if using tomato sauce or paste you may need to adjust the sweetness somewhere else)

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

more molasses or brown sugar (part-way through)

Soak beans overnight in lots of cold water. Simmer the beans in the same water until tender, approximately 1 hour. Drain and reserve the liquid.

Preheat oven to 325°F (165 °C).

After 3-1/2 hours. Make sure they don't dry out, or
you'll have a real mess.

Place the beans in a bean crock or Dutch oven. Add the remaining ingredients. Add just enough reserved water to cover the beans. Add more water if necessary. Bring back to a simmer on top of the stove.

Place a piece of aluminum foil between the pot and the lid and place in the preheated oven.

Bake for 3 to 4 hours until beans are tender. About 1/2 way through taste for salt and sweetness. If not sweet enough, stir in some more molasses or 1/4 cup brown sugar. I did. I like mine on the sweet side.

Remove the lid at the halfway point and add more liquid if necessary to prevent the beans from getting too dry. Continue to bake, checking frequently, until the beans are cooked to your liking. I prefer my beans still somewhat firm.

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