A couple weekends ago, my mom had a cookout at her house. A tradition at these get togethers is my baked beans.
Not sure why I call them "my" baked beans except that I usually end up making them. The recipe actually comes from a decades old cookbook of my mom's...
The page is scattered with stains and well loved. It's an amazing recipe. I'm sharing it now so that you can have it for your Memorial Day get togethers. Thank me later.
For starters, I double the recipe. People are going to love these things. You might as well have enough to go around. So you're going to want about 116 oz of pork and beans. Get a big can. Pour it in a crock pot (or you can bake them... it's just a lot easier to use a huge crock pot).
I usually use my mom's Pampered Chef slap chop on the vegetables, but this last time I just did a rough dice on them. In the past I've just about pulverized the poor veggies in an attempt to make the beans OK for Dan (who hates onions and peppers). I didn't even try this time. He knows they are in there, he's not going to eat it, so why try to please him. He seriously pouts every time we make these, but they just aren't the same without the onions and peppers so he's going to have to learn we won't always change every recipe for him. You must add the onions and peppers. It is not the same without it.
So this is what all the ingredients look like sitting in the crock pot:
Next, get one of those packages of precooked bacon. Don't bother heating it up, just cut it into some smaller pieces. I like to use a kitchen shears for this. Kitchen shears are my favorite kitchen tool. Just cut those babies into pieces, and throw them in with the beans.
At this point, I threw caution to the wind and added some pickled jalepeno slices. Might as well put those beans over the edge into perfection.
Then I put the lid on the crock pot and left for the day.
Came home to this:
A slow cooker in general makes things more liquid. The steam has no where to go with the lid on firmly, so everything just gets runnier. To counteract this, I do drain my pork and beans really well. They're still a bit more runny than I'd like when I make them in the slow cooker, but they're so darn good that I don't get too upset if they run into my potato salad or burger.
Hope you enjoy this secret family recipe. It's been served everywhere from my sister's rehearsal dinner to a backyard barbecue. Seriously a hit.
