I have been craving a big old pot of baked beans, its just a thick hearty dish perfect for winter, I just can not learn to like the local maple flavoured beans, I want the deep rich bacon tomato based ones from my childhood

first I put the navy beans out to soak overnight (if you don’t want to soak, just boil them in fresh water, changing it twice and rinsing to cut down your time) but for a energy saver, soak the beans overnight, then bring them to a boil in a large pot and gentle simmer till just tender.

Then I took my cooked beans, drain them and put them in that cast iron pan full of hot bacon fat, and drippings, added one qts of homecanned crushed tomato’s, a pint of homemade Chili sauce, 1/4 a cup of molassies, some black pepper and some keens hot dried mustard powder to the mix, at this point the bacon was cool enough to handle and I cut it into small peices and stirred it in, covered and baked, I would guess that it would be about another hour or hour an half at a slow simmer in the oven till close to done, at which point, I uncovered it and gave it alittle extra brown time for another 15 min or so.. and then I eat two bowls piping hot from the oven.. it was fabulous.

Now lets try that for folks that don’t home can

• 6 cups of Navy Beans-Soaked and cooked, which will double to triple in size
• One large can of V8 Tomato Juice
• One can of Tomato Paste
• One large onion diced fine
• 1/4 cup of fancy Molassies
• 1/4 cup of brown sugar or maple syrup
• half a pd of the best bacon you can get-cook, diced in peices, keep the fat in the beans.
• 1/2 tsp of black pepper and 1/2 tsp of dried hot keens mustard powder

Follow the directions listed above in the order and how to put it together.. Add a bit more tomato juice if you want more sauce.  Now if you are wondering about the difference, my homemade Chili has the onion, brown sugar, spices in it already.