Sunday, August 24, 2008

Five Bean Baked Beans

I love baked beans, but the cans of baked beans have a lot of sugar in them. So I started playing around with some different cans of beans I had on hand. These turned out really yummy!

INGREDIENTS
5 cans of your favorite beans drained ~ I used 1 can each of black beans, northern beans, kidney beans, pinto beans, garbanzo beans. (The different beans all have slightly different textures and tastes. Made the dish more interesting and tasty!)

1/3 cup Splenda Brown Sugar
1/4 cup Sugar Free Maple Syrup
3 TBSP mustard
1 1/2 TBSP Worcestershire Sauce
3 - 6 shakes Tabasco sauce (can omit or add more to your taste)
1/2 onion, finely chopped
2/3 cup ketchup (I used 1/3 regular, 1/3 sugar-free)
2 cloves garlic minced
1 bell pepper, finely chopped
pepper
4 - 5 slices center cut lower fat bacon (optional - Omit for vegetarian dish)

Saute onion, garlic and bell pepper in a nonstick skillet with some nonstick spray until lightly browned.

I mix my beans right in the pan I'm going to bake them in. No need to dirty an extra dish. Spray a 9x13 pan with nonstick spray. Dump all the cans of drained beans in the baking dish, add onion/pepper/garlic mixture (if you are not a fan of any of these feel free to omit - it is your dish!). Add brown sugar, maple syrup, ketchup, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce. Mix well. Season with black pepper. TASTE! You may need to add more mustard or brown sugar at this point. Lay bacon slices on top of the beans. Cook in a 275 degree oven for 1-2 hours (this dish can keep for a while in a warm, not too hot, oven; but make sure it doesn't get dried out!). Can also omit bacon and cook in a slow cooker on low for 7 - 8 hours.

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