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An Article by Richard Mann. Though quite simple to make, these baked beans never fail to elicit raves from hungry guests. Everybody loves them. Here's the secret story behind the recipe--and, of course, we'll lead you to the recipe.
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The Baked Bean Mystique
One of the most popular ways to consume beans is to bake them. People really like their baked beans; most of us swear by our favorite recipes. If you search the Web, you'll find hundreds, even thousands, of recipes for baked beans. There are almost as many ways to make them as there are cooks.
In the future, I will investigate this matter and report on what the differences are and whatever else I might learn from thoroughly immersing myself in baked bean lore. But that's in the future. Today, I am going to give you a pearl of great price, a valuable family secret: our family baked bean recipe. It's a winner. Let me tell you about it.
My mother used to whip up a batch of her favorite baked beans a couple times a year. They featured bacon and brown sugar and were always a hit. She taught me how to make them before I left home, but I can't recall actually making them back when I was a bachelor.
The Discovery of the Perfect Beans
Then I got married. There are thousands of great reasons why I'm happy I found the perfect woman to marry--she's a gem, I guarantee it. But, you know what? One unforeseen but significant reason to marry my way into the Rollins family is her mother's baked bean recipe. The first time I tasted these beans, I wondered where they had been all my life. They were glorious. They were different. They were delicious. I loved them.
I continue to love them. No important family meal ever happens without a pot of these great baked beans. Thanksgiving without the family baked beans? Unthinkable. A picnic without our special baked beans? Never. Company for dinner? Well, we might occasionally leave out the beans, but only if the guests have never had them and don't know what they're missing.
The Master Bean Baker
Soon, I started making the beans myself, so that we could take them to special meals on my side of the family. They were an instant hit. Among my relatives, no meal invitation is extended without a comment something like this: "And you'll bring your baked beans, of course." Of course. I seriously believe that we occasionally are invited solely on the strength of our baked beans.
As I became proficient (not a difficult task), my mother-in-law slowly let me become the one who always brings the baked beans to the family meals. (She knows how much I love to make them.) She--and other family members who shall remain nameless--also know they can count on my beans to be superb. When the aforementioned other family members make the beans using the same perfect recipe I use, the results cannot be counted on to be successful. That's because they don't pay attention to the recipe. They add extra cans of beans ("That doesn't look like enough beans; I think I'll just add some more pork 'n' beans..."), they make substitutions, they use inferior ingredients, and perhaps they just don't give the process the same loving care I do.
Whatever the reason, I'm the main bean baker for both sides of the family. (Or so I imagine....)
The Recipe
Now, after all this build up, maybe you'd be interested in tasting these beans for yourself. OK, I'm getting to that. Before we do, however, let's trace the history of this treasured recipe. It came to me from my mother-in-law, who got the recipe from a friend in Afghanistan some 35 or more years ago. (Yes, Afghanistan. We do not stint in trying to find the best recipes in the world for you.) Where the recipe came from before that we'll never know. I call these beans the Famous Rollins Baked Beans.
The secret of the Famous Rollins Baked Beans is the sausage. You use ground country pork sausage. To get exactly the right taste, you need exactly the right sausage. If you live in Utah, you can get exactly the right sausage at a local grocery chain, Harmons. Ask for the ground country sausage. If that isn't possible for you, audition the varieties of ground pork sausage available to you. Find one that really tastes good to you--not too bland, not too spicy, but flavorful--and you'll have the best baked beans known to man. (Or, at least, to Mann.) Among the national brands, the Jimmy Dean's country sausage is adequate. We haven't found a national brand that's superb.
OK, it's time for the recipe. I hope you are by this time properly excited about your good fortune in finding this recipe. It's in Part 2 of this article. (You'll get a tiny bit of repetition over in that article, because it was written and posted long before I added this background story.)
I hope you'll give these baked beans a try. Be careful with your ingredients, and you're apt to end up with a dish that will be wildly popular and will get you invited to all sorts of wingdings and shindigs that you've never been invited to before. Who would have thought you could buy popularity with baked beans?
You say you don't always have time to log on to the Net and search the Web every time you want a new recipe? You don't have time to meander through a bookshelf of printed cookbooks to find just the right recipe? If so, you've got to sample the Library of Electronic Cookbooks available from E-Cookbooks.net. Once you join the E-Cookbooks Library, you have instant offline access to thousands of wonderful recipes. You can quickly--instantly!--search for just the right item, print it out, and get started cooking right now. Oops, you spilled something on the recipe. So what? You can print another copy any time.
Click over to the Library and download some of the free samples to see how much you'll like this handy resource. Then, for $12.95, you can buy instant download access to the E-Cookbook Library for life. Try it; I think you'll find it to be a good value. (But you should always come back here to your beloved Bean Bible when you want bean recipes. Right?)
This excellent book, 366 Delicious Ways to Cook Rice, Beans, and Grains, gives you 366 recipes for healthful, delicious bean, rice, and grain dishes from all over the world. Yes, they're primarily vegetarian recipes, but the book does include variations on the recipes that use salmon, shrimp, and chicken. Mouthwatering ethnic recipes are mixed with other "natural gourmet" items that are fascinating to read, fun to prepare, and a delight to eat. How do Smoky Black Bean Burritos sound? Or how about Pesto Pasta with Cranberry Beans? I'm ready to start cooking right now.
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The Bean Book Roy F. Guste, Jr., former proprietor of Antoine's Restaurant in New Orleans and noted cookbook author, has put together this wonderful collection of recipes for bean dishes from around the world. Everything you can imagine is in here; the variety of recipes is amazing. It includes "light" versions and a full nutritional analysis of each recipe. How does Bourbon and Black Bean Pie sound? Highly recommended by Bean Bible!
Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook: Feasting with your Slow Cooker We usually feature bean cookbooks here, but this superb slow cooker (crock pot) cookbook has at least a hundred great bean recipes in it! My wife brought it home and I'm sold on it. The "Bean Main Dishes" section alone has 53 recipes. Recipes are short, simple, tasty, and don't use weird ingredients that you don't already have. And, while I'm excited about the bean recipes (the Sausage Bean Quickie will be the first one we try), the rest of the recipes also look wonderful. The cover says it's a "National #1 bestselling cookbook!" I believe it. Highly recommended by Bean Bible!
Easy Beans: Fast and Delicious Bean, Pea, and Lentil Recipes, Second Editon Now in a new and improved second edition, this easy-to-use and highly popular cookbook makes cooking with beans as easy as it can possibly be. No soaking beans, no complex recipes with wild, improbable ingredients. The book lives up to its promise of easy, tasty, fun recipes. Highly recommended by Bean Bible!