baked beans

they're just spiders being spiders.

Makes a couple of servings, I guess? One Baked Bean.

I have never made baked beans before – I’ve never even really liked them (they’re too sweet) – but here’s my best guess as to a recipe.

Ingredients

1 lb beans, like pintos or navies
1 c sugar
2 T ketchup, I think
6 c vegetable broth or some kind of liquid
1/5 c salt
1 bay leaf (you always have bay leaves)
1 T liquid smoke
pepper, to taste

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. These are baked beans, after all – I’m guessing there’s baking involved.
  2. Open up those canned beans. You did get canned right? Dry beans are so much harder to cook, and take all damn day, and honsetly I don’t really even know what I’m doing with those. Any way open em up and pour em into a big oven-safe pot, like a dutch oven or something rustic like that. Admire them sitting in there, like they belong somehow.
  3. Pour the sugar, ketchup, and broth on top. Give the whole thing a big gustatory stir, like they do on the cooking shows on TV. Feel good about that.
  4. Don’t put the salt in yet! I read somewhere that salt makes beans tough, so that shit can wait til the end.
  5. Go ahead and throw the bay leaf and liquid smoke in there though. Maybe a little pepper, if you’re feeling like it.
  6. You know what? I forgot onions. You probably need onions.

  7. Think! Shit. How can you incorporate onions?

  8. Decide to make the onions in a separate pan. It’ll add to the dishes, but it’ll be worth it later.
  9. Chop the onions, dice-style, and throw them in the hot skillet with some oil. Do salt the onions. Cook them for a while. Just til they get translucenty.
  10. Oh shit, while you’re doing that throw the bean pot on low, on an eye. You’ll put it in the oven after the onions have been added. But before the salt.
  11. Okay, the onions look nice and translucent, like they’re supposed to. Kind of scrape them into the beans, which hopefully are kind of bubbling, or at least steaming a little bit. It’s okay if some oil gets in there too, in fact it’s probably a good thing. Isn’t fat one of those things it’s important to add to a dish?
  12. Cook that for a while.

  13. Not for too long, though. They’ve still got to go in the oven.
  14. Once everything is smelling okay, put the pot in the oven and cover it with a lid. Or rather, lid first, then oven; that makes a lot more sense. Either way, it’s covered and getting hot.
  15. Cook it for, I don’t know, maybe an hour? Check it after half and see what it looks like. Maybe even taste it. Maybe it’ll be good, who knows?
  16. Maybe serve it in a big white platter at a dinner party and everyone will rave about it, begging for the recipe,
  17. but be coy, be withholding, they’ll love it even more that way. Besides, you don’t really know what you did. It’ll be our little secret.

  18. Definitely add the salt in there at some point, though.