Munchie Monday: Fritz's Settlers Baked Beans

 Whew!  It has been a long time since I sat down to write.  All is well, just have not taken the extra time needed to write.  Plus  I had to excavate the computer from its Family History location...

Today was Break the Fast at church.  (The first Sunday of every month members of our church around the world fast for two meals and donate the money they would have spent on feeding their family to the local bishop or branch president to use to help the poor and needy.  Many people who are physically unable to fast also donate money to the Fast Fund to help those in need. It is a good thing.  We all benefit physically and spiritually.)

In our particular church unit there has always been a theme to the Break the Fast meals.  Today it was Father's Favorites.  Dear One has always loved baked beans.  I asked him what we should bring. That was his immediate response.  I asked if it would be acceptable to use a recipe we acquired in the last few months.  He was agreeable.  This is it.

Fritz’s Settlers baked  beans
1/2 lb Bacon, chopped 
1 lb ground chuck beef
1 med. Onion
1/3 cup Brown Sugar
1/3 cup white Sugar
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup BBQ sauce - sweet baby ray’s original. 
1/2 tsp pepper, less probably 
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Dry Mustard 
2-16 oz cans pork and beans
2-15 oz cans Navy white beans. 

Slice bacon into half inch pieces - easiest if still slightly frozen. Brown in fry pan on low heat. Covered, which keeps the grease spatter to a minimum.

Chop onion and cook on low heat in covered Dutch oven with a little bit of oil until just tender. Add ground beef and finish cooking with it. 

Combine brown sugar, white sugar, freshly ground pepper, salt and dry mustard. Mix well with fork.

 Add ketchup and Barbecue sauce and stir. This can just be added to the cooked meats with the beans and not combined first if time does not allow. 

Rinse kidney beans/black beans if using
Rinse navy/white beans
Add to Dutch oven. Cook covered for 1 hour at 350.

These are the beans we used.  So easy.  I did not look at the labels to be scared into making my own baked beans this time...

What I Did

First I decided to double the recipe since a lot of people are there for Break the Fast and since we have a 7-quart crockpot.  

Next, I decided not to add the two sugars.  There was enough sweet in the canned beans. I did not put in salt for the same reason plus I forgot. I also forgot the dry mustard and the pepper. We can add pepper at the table.  I added a chopped bell pepper with the onions.  The beans we used were Bush's Homestyle Baked Beans plus Luck's Pinto Beans with Onions.  I did not rinse any of them.

The hamburger was from a local butcher so there were fewer steps between the hoof and our kitchen.  It was pretty expensive but only buying meat every month or two makes it acceptable to our pocketbook.  The hamburger was put into our large dutch oven then the chopped onions and peppers were added and cooked until the meat was done.  After that I added all the other ingredients and stirred well.  The addition of that small amount of bacon really made the flavors pop.

This was popular for all who ate it.  Me and Dear One most especially.  Also my sister who was on a flying visit.

Munchie Monday: Boston Baked Beans in the Instant Pot

On Sunday I made baked beans in the Instant Pot:

Put the beans and water into the inner liner bowl. I used the 3-quart liner bowl since I was only making a small batch of beans and it was an experiment. 

2 cup dry white beans

5 cups plus a little of water and cooked them for 20 minutes on HIGH.  Then reduced temperature naturally for about 30 minutes.

Drained the water into a measuring cup then put the beans back into the 3-quart liner for pot-in-pot cooking of the beans in the 8-quart Instant Pot, something that has worked very well in the past (the pot in pot).

 

In a bowl mixed 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup molasses, 1 teaspoon sea salt, 1 Tablespoon Horseradish brown mustard, 1 diced onion, and 2 cups cooking water.  Stirred well then put back into the pot over the beans and gently stirred them up a bit. 

At that point I decided to put in about 1 cup of leftover barbecued soy curls which I mixed in. 

Set the beans cooking for another 20 minutes on HIGH.  I let them release pressure naturally since we were watching Stake Conference so they released for about 2 hours before we ate them.  They tasted good to me.  Dear One said he likes “his baked beans”--crockpot overnight on LOW to cook the beans then cooking them the next morning for five or six hours, also on LOW, with salt pork and flavorings but using navy pea beans instead of the great northern beans of which we have a bucket full...!  I will try to find them for next week because I will make them again.

PS Since writing the above I have ordered a 6-quart Instant Pot liner bowl to make family-sized amounts of food for pot-in-pot cooking. I discovered that the 6-quart bowl should fit into the 8-quart Instant Pot with enough clearance to be safe. I will let you know if that is not the case!

Also, Dear One has agreed to pick up the pea beans and salt pork at Food Lion on his way home from giving blood today.  I hope he can find them easily.  I don't really know if I have seen pea beans in the stores here...things are different in the South.

A final also--running my numbers this morning was a little deflating as the blood glucose was up, though not alarmingly, but the weight was up 3 pounds. I guess all the sugar in the beans was a bad idea.  Now to figure out something else to eat when everyone else eats baked beans...OR attempting to eat a small bowl instead of a large bowl of beans.  Maybe I can eat them one bean at a time instead of a spoonful at once...

Munchie Monday: Instant Pot Barbecue Baked Beans

When we arrived home some dear friends put together a wonderful welcome home party.  I wanted to make something to bring so I chose son #2's barbecue baked beans.  This is what I did, which was not exactly his recipe!

4 large cans Bush's Original Baked Beans (you can already see this will be an easy recipe!!)

1 large sweet onion, diced fine

1 cup barbecue sauce

1/3 cup brown sugar

2 Tablespoons prepared mustard

1 Tablespoon Montreal Steak Seasoning

Put the diced onion and one quarter cup water in the Instant Pot inner bowl and turn to Sauté mode.  Cook, stirring pretty often, until the onion is translucent.  Stir in the remaining ingredients, cancel the Sauté mode and turn to Slow Cook mode for 4 hours.  I did not put the cover on the pot and stirred the beans every 30 minutes or so.

When it was time to go to the party I put the cover on and carried it with us, leaving the cord at home so I would not lose it.  Very important part of the directions!

These were pretty good.  There was so much food (and fun) at the party that we took home enough beans for another meal at home when the family returned from their 4th of July trip.

In the original recipe there was 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 1/2 cup real maple syrup, and the option of adding in 2 Tablespoons red pepper flakes and 1 Tablespoon cayenne pepper.  That was going to be a bit heavy on the sugar and way too spicy for my eating pleasure which is why I changed it to 1/3 cup brown sugar and 1 Tablespoon Montreal Steak Seasoning.  In case there were leftovers, I wanted to be able to eat them comfortably in case no one else wanted to...

Food Friday: "Baked" Beans

We are having a Departing Dinner again soon.  As part of the menu we are having baked beans. I had found a recipe I really liked using the Instant Pot.  Dear One really liked them, too.  Today, however, when he had a second serving of them as leftovers, he asked about them.  Which made me wonder.  When I quizzed him about his question, he said they were "a little stronger" than he expected them to be.  That made me think I might want to re-think the Instant Pot baked beans.

Our mission nurse had told me she had a recipe her mother made that she would be happy to share with me.  This is the recipe:

In case you cannot read it:

1 pound hamburger, browned and drained
1 large can pork and beans (or 5 small cans?)
1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 Tablespoons mustard
3/4 cups brown sugar

Combine in a crockpot.  Can double recipe to increase but still use 1 pound of hamburger.

I have not made this yet, but think that I will.

Food Friday: Instant Pot Baked Beans Experiment

Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose when you do food experiments.  I will tell you up front that this was more or less a lose!

Yesterday I saw a YouTube video with a woman making baked beans in her electric pressure cooker.  Since we have an Instant Pot and since Dear One loves baked beans, I thought I would give it a try.   Not the best idea to do it this way but I will tell you what I did, and then tell you what I did to rectify things.

Baked beans.  Instant Pot experiment.

2 1/4 cups white beans
6 cups water
1 teaspoon each granulated onions and granulated garlic
3 Tablespoons dried onions--could use a small to medium onion, finely diced
2 tablespoons canola oil--this keeps the beans from foaming up and annoying the pressure valve
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup catsup
Salt pork
NO SALT ADDED.  There is enough in the salt pork, and if any eaters need more, they can just shake it on at the table.  If they eat at the table...

Put all these ingredients into the Instant Pot, and stir them well.  Set the pot to sealing and 40 minutes on the bean cycle, which is low pressure.

After 40 minutes I checked the beans.  There was a LOT of liquid in the pot. The broth tasted pretty good but had no depth to it.  The beans were not cooked. 

SO---I put the cover back on, set it to sealing and clicked the Manual button which is normally at high pressure then set the timer for 40 more minutes.  The beans were cooked but still firm, not like the mushy baked beans we make in the crock pot, and which, apparently, Dear One prefers.  They were not crunchy, either, just not the right texture yet.

Well, I did not have any more time as there were several necessary errands before attending classes, so I put the cover BACK ON and set them to cook again on Manual for ANOTHER 40 minutes.  I told Dear One to just leave it alone until the timer was done and the pressure valve released. Then I left.

After 10 PM I returned home.  The cover was off the pot.  There were a few beans in the bottom of the pot and a large amount of broth left.  The beans were VERY nicely cooked, if I do say so myself.  And they tasted wonderful, as did the broth.  Well, how could they fail with molasses AND Vermont maple syrup as sweeteners?!

Next time I will soak the beans overnight before putting them in to cook.  I suspect that they will then cook just fine on the first 40-minute cycle, though I will go directly to the high pressure cycle and not the low pressure cycle.