Not Your Mother's Baked Beans

So, I've never been a fan of baked beans. Don't care enough for the thick-ish sweet sauce to withstand the starchy beans. For the most part it's no kidneys, no limas, not even butter beans however cute the name may be. However, I must say I know that your tastes change as you age. Take onions for instance, never used to get'em to my lips. Now, how can you have a hoagie without them and have it taste nearly as good? And of course they're wonderful in a salad... back to the beans..

I caved in some years back now and started making chili for my family. A friend of mine makes hers nice and loose with hardly any beans. I modeled mine after that somewhat. Nice and loose with yummy tomatoes (another item I've recently come to enjoy), but I switched up the kidney beans for small white beans - much more tolerable!

Now, for the 'baked beans'. My sister-in-law's husband just loved his co-worker's wife's beans. Pfeww! What a sentence!  Anyway, he loved them so much that he got the recipe. We were visiting this past Sunday and they served them. They were good - not your mother's baked beans. They're kind of like a chili but sweet and with BACON!

yummy!

I did make a couple of adjustments like decreasing the sugar, changing the beans and subbing out canned baked beans for beans and extra ketchup.

Here's the final product:

1 lb. ground beef

1 lb. bacon

1 large onion

1 1/2 C brown sugar

1 1/2 C ketchup

3 T vinegar

1 can pinto beans w/ liquid

1 can small white beans w/ liquid

1 can small pink beans w/ liquid

1 can french style green beans w/ liquid

In a large dutch oven (I used my 12 inch cast iron deep skillet), cook bacon until crisp, add the hambuger and cook thoroughly, add onion and cook until translucent. Drain well.

Add to meat mixture the brown sugar, ketchup, vinegar and all of the beans.

Stir to combine.

Cover and put it in the oven at 350* F for an hour.

There ya' have it!

Enjoy!

p.s. Let me know what ya' think about 'em!