I’ve been on a cooking kick lately. It’s amazing how much more cooking I do when I can actually be at home in the evening. 😀 I’ve got another one or two I do want to share, but I don’t want to overload you all, so I might make them but hold off on the posts until later. (Oh, and I made a couple of edits at the end of the Hot Beef Sandwiches post, which should answer some of the questions I got in the comments)
Tonight, we are featuring yet another of the recipes from my Aunt Cathy (she of the sandwiches from the other day). These get raves pretty much anywhere I’ve brought them – Mixed Baked Beans.
The usual suspects:
A pound of bacon, a pound of ground beef (again, turkey works just as well), an onion, ketchup, mustard, brown sugar, white sugar, vinegar, kidney beans (2 cans), butter beans (2 cans) and regular baked beans (2 cans – use whatever kind you like. Good old generic pork and beans works perfectly.)
First, chop the bacon and toss it into a skillet over medium heat. Let it cook until it gets nice and crispy.
You’ll be browning the ground beef and cooking the onions in with it, so make sure the skillet has enough room for all of them. If you don’t mind soft bacon, you can put them all in at the same time, but flabby bacon makes me shudder and say nasty words, so I render the bacon out before putting anything else in.
Mmmm…. crispy bacony goodness.
Whether or not you drain any of the fat at this point is entirely up to you. I opt not to. Don’t judge me.
Now, toss in a chopped onion (as finely as you need it to be chopped, Cristi)
And the pound of ground beef/turkey.
Cook those until the meat is browned and the onion is softened. Scrape the bottom of your pan with a wooden spoon to make sure you get up any bits of bacony goodness that stuck to the bottom.
In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 cup of ketchup, 4T vinegar (any kind you like – white wine works, apple cider works. I’d probably skip the balsamic, though.), 2T mustard (just the basic yellow stuff), 1/2 cup brown sugar, and 1/2 cup white sugar.
Stir to combine.
Now, open and rinse the two cans of kidney beans (I use one light and one dark just for the visual appeal, but it makes no difference in the flavor),
and the two cans of butter beans,
And add them to the bowl with the ketchup mixture, along with the baked beans (obviously, you don’t want to rinse those)
Stir to combine.
By now, your ground beef should be browned, and your onions nice and soft.
Add the meat mixture to the beans and ketchup mixture (when I said large mixing bowl, I wasn’t kidding) and stir until everything is mixed. Pour it into your handy casserole dish
Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. The sauce with thicken up and all of the flavors will blend.
The beauty of it is that it works as a one-dish meal and will feed about 16 people as such, or it’s a great side dish for picnics and will feed even more. You can easily halve the recipe, but it freezes really well, so I never do, even if it’s just Kris and I eating.
Ok now THIS would have been perfect for the dinner I had to bring a sidedish too! I’m definitely doing this for the next one. I’m drooling.
I make this exact same dish without the ground meat! Oh, and I thinly slice the onions and caramelize them before adding them to the dish.
That looks yum! But with Hubster’s potent ass, beans are…unwise.
OMG, that looks delicious.
I remember the first time I had baked beans in the US. I didn’t know it would have pork bits in it. Eew. Next time you’re in World Market or somesuch, get a can of Heinz baked beans (a sort of turquoise colour can). Have the beans on buttered toast (use a knife and fork). SUCH a great snack :0)
Looks really good… but I hate kidney beans. Would it work with black beans, do ya think?
oh, man, now I am SOOO hungry! Anything with bacon in it has my vote.
YUM! 🙂
Oh, wow, that looks amazing. Onions would kill Mr. Batty dead, though… do you think it would taste any good without the onions?
Can I nix the butter beans, because, um….ewwwwwwwwwww!
Otherwise I love it!
And in response to Disco above — BEANS WITH TOAST SOLDIERS was my brekkie growing up in England. I still make it once and a while (with said Heinz Breakfast Beans) and Xiris looks at me like I have an alien coming out of my left ear.
What a great recipe – thanks! It’s similar to my grandpa’s upstate NY country chili bake so it brings back great memories. I will be making a vegetarian version soon since this is very inspiring! Nom!
So now I have 2 recipes to try!!! They both look great and easy too. Thanks keep them coming.
Num! I’ll bet this would be easy to convert to a slow cooker recipe!
It isn’t right that I should want to eat this at 9am.
Wow, does that look good. I think I’ll be trying that soon!
You must be channeling my husband. These last 2 recipes just scream “Shane!” Thank you for posting them. We’re getting into a bit of a rut with dinner and it’s nice to have something different to cook. I’m making your hot beef sandwiches tonight, and I can’t wait!
I love it SO much when you post your recipes!
People drain fat off of meat? What the hell for?
I just wanted to let you know that this looked SO good that I sent it to dh and we made it for dinner tonight. Holy cow it was delicious! Thanks for posting this, we now have a great new recipe to add to our arsenal!
Looks delish. I don’t shy away from beans, when cooked properly they pose no hazards. (I eat refritos almost every single day of my life.) I made the sammiches this morning and I’m going to bake them tonight. They were mega easy to make.
Nom.
Throw out bacon grease? Shudder at the thought. It’s good for what ails ya.
Can I just say: YUM.
Yum! Hubby will love this minus the butter beans! I too need this for a crockpot! Thanks