Experimenting with Baked Beans

Tonight I made an attempt at making baked beans - the lazy way. Using a can of Bush's Baked Beans, adding a few extra ingredients (and bacon), and letting it cook in the crock pot.  This was my first attempt at this, and it definitely needs some tweaking, but it has some great potential!

Here's what I started with: Worcestershire sauce, Rice Vinegar (mistake #1), pre-cooked bacon, S+P, light brown sugar, onion, Bush's Baked Beans, ketchup and mustard.

Because I was using pre-made baked beans, I was a little reluctant to add too much to the mix. Next time I think I can totally skip the brown sugar, use cider vinegar instead of rice vinegar (for kick factor), and use more onion. My husband isn't exactly a fan of onions, so I tend to go easy - he doesn't seem to mind when it's onion flavored as long as there's no bits of onion in each bite.

In the crock pot is:

1 large can of baked beans

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tbs ketchup

1 tbs mustard

About a 1/4 cup chopped onion

Salt & Pepper (few good dashes)

2 tsp Worcestershire Sauce

2-3 tsp rice vinegar

Mix well

Then I tossed a bunch of pre-cooked bacon on top.

However, next time I think I might cook it up first and crumble it in - along with adding a few strips in the pot.

This way the bacon flavor would really seep in more - and we like that. And if you're the type of person who prefers to use the real deal and not the pre-cooked stuff - I'm sure that would taste even better, but I'm lazy.

So here's the finished product. It pretty must tasted like regular Bush's Baked Beans with a hint of something + bacon, and the occasional piece of onion. Like I said, this recipe has room for lots of potential, it just wasn't achieved tonight. 

And on a side note, if you plan on making beans & dogs, go the New England route and add a side of brown bread. You know, the stuff that comes in the can. Yes, canned bread is delicious. I usually warm it up in the microwave (wrapped in papertowel) for 2 minutes. Then slice it up with string, because a knife will just moosh it all up. Then slap a little butter on there and enjoy. 

See how complete the meal looks with brown bread in the picture?

Yeah - it's a thing of beauty. ;)

-Shasta