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
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. These are baked beans, after all – I’m guessing there’s baking involved.
- 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.
- 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.
- Don’t put the salt in yet! I read somewhere that salt makes beans tough, so that shit can wait til the end.
- Go ahead and throw the bay leaf and liquid smoke in there though. Maybe a little pepper, if you’re feeling like it.
- You know what? I forgot onions. You probably need
onions.
- Think! Shit. How can you incorporate onions?
- Decide to make the onions in a separate pan. It’ll add to the dishes, but it’ll be worth it later.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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?
- Cook that for a while.
- Not for too long, though. They’ve still got to go in the oven.
- 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.
- 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?
- Maybe serve it in a big white platter at a dinner party and everyone will rave about it, begging for the recipe,
- 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.
- Definitely add the salt in there at some point, though.