Crock-Pot Baked Beans

1 lb. dry great northern beans
5 1/2 c. boiling water
1/3 c. molasses
1/3 c. brown sugar
1 onion, chopped
10 strips of bacon
1 T. mustard
1 t. salt

Spray crock with nonstick spray or use a liner. Rinse beans in a strainer. Fry up bacon, reserve 1/2 grease and saute chopped onion until translucent. Chop up bacon strips and put all ingredients into crock-pot. Pour boiling water in last and stir. Cook for 13-14 hours, on low for 10 hours and on high for the last 3. That is what worked best in my Crock-Pot, stir occasionally throughout cooking time and once an hour at the end. Adjust cooking temperature and time to suit.

This recipe is great for making baked beans from scratch! You can get it ready a head of time, it doesn't take up oven space and you don't have to worry about the beans when you are preparing the rest of the meal!

Black Bean, Chicken and Corn Bean Dip

So, we didn't have anything to make for supper last night and I ended coming up with this combination of ingredients and it turned out pretty tastey. It is a bean dip I suppose.

Black Bean, Chicken and Corn Bean Dip
1 cans black beans, rinsed
1 or 2 c. frozen corn
2 chicken breasts
1 T. cooking oil
3 cloves of garlic
1 t. chili powder
1/2 t. cumin
1/2 t. cayenne pepper
1 t. salt
juice of 1 lime
On the side:
salsa
sour cream
shredded cheese
black olives
Cook frozen corn in microwave add rinsed beans and cook for a couple more minutes. Cook up chicken breasts in oil with garlic, then add cayenne pepper, chili powder and cumin to the meat. Mix corn, beans and chicken in a large bowl and add salt and juice from one lime. Serve with your choice of bonus side items.

corn and black beans

chicken and corn and black beans

I mixed the salsa in with the corn, beans and chicken, I think next time I will leave it on the side, the lime makes it great!

ready to dig into!

Baked Beans from Scratch

Baked Beans
4 c. dried pinto beans, rinsed
6-7 c. water
1/2 lb. of bacon, 4-5 thick slices
1 t. salt
1-2 t. black pepper
Optional:
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 t. onion powder
mustard
ketchup
barbecue sauce
Rinse beans and put beans, bacon and water in a large pot or dutch oven. Bring to a boil an turn down heat, simmer for 2 hours. Add salt, pepper and seasonings of your choice. Serve as a meal with cornbread or these are great as a side with smoked or grilled meats.

If you are from the north, you will probably prefer your beans and cornbread to be a little sweet. In the southern US, they don't add sugar to their beans or to their cornbread. I decided to try making beans from scratch cause I saw the recipe on Pioneer Woman, have you ever been to her site? I didn't stick to her recipe, I just used it as my jumping off point.

5 slices of thick applewood smoked bacon

Normally you just put the raw bacon in the pot with the beans and water. The bacon cooks up when you boil and then simmer the pot for 2 hours, but it never gets to that crispy bacon level, which I love, so I cooked mine first.

Chopped up the CRISPY bacon

4 c. dried pinto beans, rinse with water and make sure that you only have beans and no FOs, foreign objects

Put beans, water, bacon and bacon grease in pot and boil, cover, turn down to simmer for 2 hrs.

Beans and bacon after they have been simmering for 2 hours, I used 7 cups of water, you probably only need 6. Now they are ready to season.

1 t. salt, they needed more, but then everyone can add as much salt as they prefer at the table.

1 or 2 t. ground pepper, I used about 1 1/2 t. of freshly ground, it is much stronger than store bought ground pepper.

1 t. onion powder, I used onion powder since I didn't have an onion around, you could add 1/2 an onion or so and cook it up with the beans early on.

1/4 c. brown sugar, I didn't want to get them too sweet, you could easily add more sugar, if you like sweet baked beans

Some mustard, barbecue sauce and ketchup, I just added a little of each along with all the other seasonings.

Mix up some cornbread from scratch or mix, I used a mix since I didn't have any corn meal

Bake corn bread in a skillet, heat the skillet on the stove to melt 2 T. butter in the bottom

I ran the butter around the sided to make sure the cornbread didn't stick to the pan.

Pour the batter in the pan, you can see it is already starting to bake on the edges of the hot skillet.

Bake in the oven as directed, mine said 400 for 20 min.

Mmmmm, it is so nice and crispy on the bottom

Serve with beans

From the Archives: Crock-Pot Sweet Potatoes & Apples

s11-29-08
Crock-Pot Sweet Potatoes & Apples

This is great for the fall and especially for Thanksgiving, you can get it ready in the morning and not worry about it until lunch time.

8 sweet potatoes or 1 squash
2 apples
1/4 c. butter
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 T. cinnamon
Peel and cube sweet potatoes/squash