I have a plethora of recipes for slow cooker beans - "baked," Mexican style, black, you name it. The great thing about these recipes is that you use dried beans, which are super cheap! They are also nice because once the beans are in the slow cooker, they require next-to-no tending.
I have made this recipe for "Slow Cooked Baked Beans" twice recently - once for our Christmas Day mixed-grill dinner, and again last week. I really like the combination of ingredients in this recipe, especially the inclusion of bacon. The apple cider vinegar adds a nice tang to the finished beans. I happened to have quite a lot of dried Great Northern beans on hand, so I used those instead of the Navy beans called for in the recipe.
I did find that it took my beans a loooooong time to cook to the point of fork-tenderness. I know that the beans were fresh, as they softened and began splitting following overnight soaking. I think that they probably need more time on HIGH in the CrockPot. I also found that they required more liquid - at least double what the recipe calls for - in order to have a "sacuy" consistency (which is what we like). If they are cooked longer on the high CrockPot setting upping the liquid will be essential.
Overall, we have enjoyed the flavor of these beans enough that I plan to make them regularly in the future, and hopefully will be able to refine the cooking time and liquid amount. I'm really liking cooking with dried beans lately - they are healthy and inexpensive, and thanks to Mr. Mamie's mom's Chirstmas gift to us (of food storage items), we have quite a stockpile.
Bring on the beans!
~Mamie "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro!" (Hunter S. Thompson)
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