Quicker Boston Baked Beans

With Memorial Day fast approaching, the aroma of grilled food will be soon wafting all over our BBQ loving neighborhood-- I'm excited!  We enjoy grilling.  We also love baked beans as a side dish, and I usually buy my favorite commercial  brand-- Bush's Baked Beans.  Until now, I've never attempted to make my own Boston Baked Beans.  I was intimidated, I think, because I envisioned having to cook the beans for long hours-- and I wondered if I needed a special pot.

When my issue of the  June/July 2011 issue of Cook's Country Magazine arrived, I read it from cover-to-cover.  This magazine belongs to the family of America's Test Kitchen and Cook's Illustrated.  I love their recipes, so I read every article from start to finish.  According to the Boston Baked Beans article, "most recipes call for at least six hours of cooking time in the oven.  The test kitchen decided to develop a version that would cook in two hours!   After reading the ingredients list, I realized I had everything on hand.   My husband was making pulled pork, on the Weber.  I planned to make the Carolina Red Slaw (also in this magazine issue) and I liked the idea of having baked beans as a side dish.  For ingredients, I began with a one-pound bag of Navy Beans, picked through and rinsed.

The test kitchen researched baking soda, and realized that, by adding 1 Tablespoon, it would cut the cooking time of the beans in half. Better yet, I didn't have to presoak the beans!  The beans were brought to a boil in a Dutch oven, and then briskly simmered on medium-high for 20 minutes; then drained.  Meanwhile...

I cut six ounces of salt pork into 1/4" pieces...

...and measured out the remaining ingredients; then preheated the oven to 350F.  (A printable recipe card is at the bottom of this post.)

The salt pork was cooked over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until browned, about 10 minutes. Next, I added chopped onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. I stirred in 3 cups of water, the beans, brown sugar, 1/4 cup molasses, Worcestershire, 1 tablespoon mustard, vinegar, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper-- then  brought it to a boil. I transferred the Dutch oven, covered, to the oven  and cooked them  until beans were  nearly tender, about 1 1/2 hours.  They smelled so good, while they were baking.  I was anxious to try them...

Whoops!  The water had pretty much evaporated.  I should have heeded the recipe note to increase the water by an extra cup, since I used a heavy cast-iron Dutch oven.  I added a bit more water and then gave the beans a stir-- problem solved. It was time to taste.

TASTING NOTE #1:  The beans were perfectly cooked, thank goodness.  To me, the flavor was was very savory.  I wasn't sure if it was the Worcestershire sauce, or too much Dijon mustard.   Personally,  I was sorely tempted to add tomato paste. But, the article said, "Although many recipes call for tomato products, native New Englander's assured us that they had no place in an authentic Boston baked bean recipe."  I reconsidered what to do, as I much prefer a sweeter version of baked beans. Hey, I'm from California!

I decided to add an extra 1/4 cup of brown sugar and some honey. Yes, honey!  I'm sorry if this offends anyone from Boston, but this did the trick for me.

FINAL TASTING NOTES:  I have to be honest with all of you. On a scale from 1-5, 5 meaning that the beans were out-of-this-world great, I give this recipe a 3.5... only because I think Bush's Beans have spoiled my palate. HOWEVER, my husband and son loved these beans!  They were completely devoured by day #2, and my son asked me to make them again.  Therefore, my suggestion is that you can either adapt this recipe if you like a less savory version of Boston Baked Beans.  Just to be a bit rebellious, I might go ahead and add some tomato paste, next time.  I can't help it, but I love the tang of some concentrated tomato.  Just don't tell anyone you know, who lives on the East Coast!  I'll just rename them "California Baked Beans", okay?

Here's the recipe:

Cheers!

Ina Garten's Braised 4-Hour Lamb & Provencal French Beans

I have stubbornly held on to Summer, even though Labor Day has come and gone. I still have summer tomatoes to pick, and I'm still wearing shorts and flip-flops on the weekends!  Just last weekend, we grilled Rib-Eye steaks and were sipping cold beer, while watching the Salinas Air Show from the top of our neighborhood hill. Finally, I surrendered my grocery budget to a beautiful display of pears, apples, squash and root vegetables at Whole Foods.  With that said, today we are waiting for our first rain shower and I have a log in the fireplace, waiting to be lit for a cozy night at home.  Yes, I'm beginning to let go of  summer melons and iced teas-- slowly, but surely.

Hello, Fall!  Welcome.  I really mean it. My pressure cooker and slow cooker are ready for soups and stews.  Bring on the root vegetables, squash and bread baking! So with that said, I present to you my first offering of a delicious way to prepare lamb.   I know, I know.... some of you don't like lamb.  Neither does my husband.  Stick with me, and I will show you how my husband changed his mind.

I caught this episode on the Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa show.   This recipe was adapted by Ina Garten from a traditional French 7-Hour Lamb.   However, Ina says that she tested the recipe a few times and found that 4-hours was the perfect time to braise a leg of lamb in white wine, lots of garlic and herbs-- the end result being tender meat that can literally be removed with a spoon.  I was drooling while watching Ina spooning mounds of Provencal French Beans around the finished lamb.   That was it!  I was inspired to make this. The very next day, I bought a leg of lamb at Whole Foods--

 

The  butcher was kind enough to cut a leg of lamb to 3 pounds.  This is New Zealand Lamb... grass fed.  $21.00 might seem pricey, but this will feed at least 8 people. Here we go:

Season the lamb with coarse salt & fresh cracked pepper.  Now for lots of fresh garlic, thyme and rosemary...

After reading the reviews from folks who made this, some said that "it lacked flavor".  I used a LOT of garlic, and then I decided to add one onion to flavor the braising liquid. Think that will work?

Sear the lamb, on really high heat with olive oil. Set the lamb aside.

Add white wine to deglaze all that tasty brown stuff.  Ina adds water, but I added homemade chicken stock,  into the Dutch oven.. Now, add the herbs, garlic and onion...add the lamb and cover. Place into a 300F oven and let it cook for 3 hours.  Next, make the beans (which I soaked the night before):

Rinse Northern White Beans and prepare a mire poix (chopped carrots, onion and celery).  Next, I add fresh parsley, thyme, garlic and rosemary.  I added more chicken stock and simmered the beans for more than Ina says she did-- like over an hour.  How's the lamb doing?

Oooh... falling off the bone!

Remove the lamb, the herbs and drain the liquid...

Push the garlic through a sieve, for more flavor. Discard everything else. Reduce the liquid until thick-- about 15 minutes. Time to serve! Add the sauce over the lamb, and serve with the beans.

Did four hours do the trick?

You bet!  Tender!  No, that's not a spoon.  But that would have worked, too.

VERDICT:  The lamb was tender and flavorful.  The braising liquid had plenty of flavor, just the right notes of garlic, without being overpowering.  I'm glad that I added an onion, because the broth had plenty of flavor. The beans..oh, the beans!  This is French comfort food that served 8 people.  Um, only we are only three in the family.  Suffice it to say that this was delicious the next day. I had to fight over it with my boys, who loved it.

The printable recipe is at the bottom of this post.  Thanks Ina Garten!

Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit-- Red Beans & Rice, My Way

So... since August, every foodie magazine has front covers with all kinds of fattening food & desserts. January rolls around and it's a whole new picture! Low-fat this, Diet That.... Food Blogosphere is chock full of "healthy recipes".   Does that mean that now isn't the time to post my puff pastry, butter-ridden, sinfully good Christmas Evedinner recipe?  Fine. I'll wait. Valentine's Day is just around the corner!  Okay, I admit it-- I over-indulged with the rest of you.  I've been cooking healthy! Honest! I made a gorgeous pot of vegetable minestrone soup. Did I photograph it? No!   Just this weekend, I had a craving for beans.  The Latina side of my genetics loves beans, just as the German side of my DNA adores potatoes.  I make a pretty tasty batch of refried beans, if I do say so myself.   Since I cook meatless at least once a week, I stock up on Trader Joe's black beans. We love them.  My cravings were being very fussy, though-- I wanted Red Beans & Rice and had not soaked any beans overnight! No problemo! I love my Digital Pressure Cooker.

A quick soak is easy peasy to do.   There's a debate, I've read, whether or not to salt beans before or after cooking them.  I always salt them at the time I cook them, and it works great for me.   You can easily do all of this on a stovetop.   I keep preaching that, once you realize that pressure cookers do not explode (they're much fancier nowadays) you will fall in-love with pressure cooking. I promise you that!  I covered the beans with water, and two teaspoons of kosher salt--closed the lid and turned the digital timer to "two minutes".  A quickie lesson on pressure cooking-- once the trapped heat/steam builds up inside (because of the tight seal of the gasket and lid) the pressure cooker cooks for 2 minutes.  Essentially, it took about 15 minutes for all of this to happen.  I simply press the large button, to release the steam and let the beans sit for up to 1/2 hour.  I drained the beans and now, it's time to get the aromatics going--

Garlic! I used two big cloves of garlic and 2 small onions, chopped.  My digital pressure cooker has a "brown" feature-- love it! So I added a little olive oil, and cooked the onion until tender...then I added the garlic.  Now, what kind of spices should I use?  I looked at "Creole Seasoning" at the supermarket, but I didn't like the preservatives and M.S.G. in them.  I figured I could make my own seasoning, since I hoard spices anyway.

So, here they are-- dried oregano, paprika, cayenne pepper, Lawry's Seasoned salt, dried basil & celery salt. I liked to "bloom" my spices by cooking them for a couple of minutes. I really think it packs more flavor.

I also added about one tablespoon of tomato paste, which I cooked for 1 minute longer...

I added about a quart of water to the pot, the quick soaked beans and some smoked ham that I had diced, and two bay leaves.  (Many recipes use sausage, but this ham was leaner.) I added just enough water to cover everything by no more than an inch.  I turned the digital timer on to 25 minutes of pressure cooking. Stovetop, I'd guess you'd want to cook these for at least 90 minutes.  So.... don't you think pressure cooking is a "microwave slow cooker"?!

More traditional pressure cookers require that you pour cold water on the lid, so that you can release the steam.  My version has a button that I press.  My cats scatter when I do this! (It does get a little loud.)

Done!  The only thing that I wanted to adjust was the thinness of the beans. Granted, cooking beans on a stovetop for a long period of time does thicken liquid-- but that did not deter me. I thought about it, and...

Using a slotted spoon, I removed the beans from the liquid; then, I decided to drain the beans to remove all of the liquid.  I whisked cornstarch and water and used it to thicken the liquid.  Perfect!

Then, I returned the thickened liquid to the beans...

I tasted the beans and I did my "Happy Dance". I've been to New Orleans a few times, and I love to order red beans-- followed by beignets at the Cafe du Monde.  I might not have true Southern roots, but I think I nailed it!

All I had left to do was to fluff the brown rice...

All you need is to add extra hot sauce, if you want more heat to this!

This is healthy, I tell you!  All that fiber...brown rice...  I ate two bowls of this, without any guilt and it really makes you feel full for a long time. ( I made sure that my husband ate two bowls so we could make music together.)  Detox or toxic? Hmmm.... I guess this isn't totally "meatless", because there's ham in here. Are you ready to buy a pressure cooker? I bought this model on QVC, about ten years ago. It's made by Cook's Essentials.

I've got some great recipes to post, but they aren't exactly "diet food".  I figure that the non-diet, detox recipes should be slowing down in another week or so?  In the meantime, I'm making meatless dinners, more fish and cutting back on red meat-- just like most of you! How's it going?

(Now, I'm totally craving beignets. Great...)

Chunky Split Pea Soup with Ham & Childhood Memories -- and I won a prize!

When my brother and I were little, my father would drive us to Oxnard, California-- where his family lived. We'd pack into the back of his small Red Volkswagen Bug (we're talking in the early 60's) for the road trip. In between dad being the refereee between squabbles from the kids in the backseat, he started a tradition to ease the boredom. In the city of Buellton, California, there's a restaurant called "Andersen's Pea Soup". We'd eagerly look for the billboards that had the logo of their mascots, Happea and Pea-Wee that comes up every 100 miles, or so. Countdown... the games begin to see who will spot a bulletin board first!

 The drive from Monterey, California to Oxnard took about five hours-- but to us, that felt like a week! The reward was that Dad would stop for us to enjoy a meal at the restaurant. I still remember ordering "The Traveler's Special". I always chose a bowl of pea soup, a vanilla milkshake and the onion bread.  What a weird combo!  When my son was little, I carried on the tradition, when we'd head south to visit Disneyland.
To this day, my son and I still love pea soup.

When Deb, at Kahakai Kitchen, posted her Chunky Style Pea Soup, I felt childhood memories coming back.  I had to make it!  I've made split pea soup before, including a crockpot recipe that's pretty good.  What I liked about Deb's version, was that you needed to make a ham stock ahead of time.  I also liked that she added Yukon Gold potatoes to the soup-- Yukon's are my all-time favorite potatoes.  Let's begin:

I was really pleased to find these ham shanks at my "Mom and Pop" grocery store.

I was even more pleased to see how much meat I got for less than $3.00! I'm definitely going to buy another one to keep in my freezer.

I proudly wear the tiara for "Gadget Queen".  I'll take it!  I am particularly fond of my digital pressure cooker-- especially when I don't want to make the stock one day ahead (because I was craving the soup).

After adding 3 quarts of water, to the ham hocks (these were shanks, actually), I pressure cooked them for 30 minutes. See how easy it is to release the steam? I push the button and it's "Old Faithful"!

Perfect ham stock in 30 minutes!

 I remove the ham and let is drain and put the ham stock in the refrigerator-- then into the freezer for a quick chill.  That way, the fat is easier to skim off.   Now, for the rest of the soup preparation...

The ham is easy to pull off the bone.  I did a rough chop and set it aside.

I am a soupaholic. I haven't bought a canned soup in ages.  I've learned that soups are so forgiving, in that I really don't measure that often. As long as I have a mirepoix (celery, carrot and onion), some herbs and homemade chicken stock-- I'm in business!  Sometimes I chop the mirepoix by hand, but another of of my favorite gadgets, a Cuisinart Food Process does a great job!

I like to pulse/chop the carrots and celery first and then the onion (I don't want mushy onions).  Easy!

Now for the peas-- I used a whole package, picked through them and washed and drained them.

I've made six quarts of homemade chicken stock just a few days earlier.  I grab 3 quarts, according to Deb's recipe. The rest of the quarts are in the freezer.

In some olive oil, I begin cooking the mirepoix, then I add the garlic at the end, so it doesn't burn.

I grab some fresh thyme from my backyard, and two bay leaves. Instead of using kitchen twine, I save those wonderful bands that are used to wrap celery.  Then, I add the package of split peas.

Last, I add the ham and chicken stock and let this come to a boil and cook for about 30 minutes. I didn't photograph adding the diced Yukon Gold potatoes-- I was a bit distracted at how thin my soup seemed. I double checked Deb's recipe and it was a total of six cups of stock... okay...

I send a "tweet" to Deb and mention that 6 quarts sure seems like a lot. She tweets back that, "yikes", she'd made a mistake! I need 3 quarts of stock total-- not 3 quarts of each! (Deb has, since, edited her recipe for the rest of you.)  Rescue 9-1-1 is pictured above. I quickly scoop out about half of the stock and add one more bag of peas (I bought an extra one, thank goodness) into a small pot with about 1 quart of stock.  On high, I cook the peas and in 30 minutes they are soft and ready to be added back into my Dutch Oven. End result-- four quarts of beautiful and chunky pea soup.  I used my immersion blender, just like Deb did.  I don't like my pea soup to be completely pureed-- it's purely texture. If you like it that way, go ahead!

Now that I got the texture of the soup the way I wanted it, I hesitated on adding smoked paprika (like Deb did).  You see, I'm a big fan of Old Bay Seasoning.  I uploaded this photo on the Old Bay Seasoning Facebook page and I won a prize!  I have no idea what it is, but I'd be happy to get more of this. I use this in my egg salads and in most of my soups.  This was the perfect choice to compliment this soup!

On the left is the fresh bowl of soup.  The next day, I thought that the soup was even more flavorful and super thick.  On Day #3-- it was gone.  My son took some home with him, and he just loved it.

I served this with the King Arthur Flour Buttery Pull Apart rolls.  However, next time, I make this-- it's definitely going to be served with Pioneer Woman's Rosemary Skillet rolls with whole wheat.  That would be the cherry on the sundae, so to speak.

I give this recipe two enthusiastic thumbs up!  Thanks, Deb, for the lovely recipe.  I forgive you for the typo, because I've done that myself. In a way, you did a big favor for me.  The stock that I scooped out became the most delicious lentil and sausage soup-- that I have, yet, to blog about!  Come see what Deb's Souper Sundays has posted tomorrow, including this one.  If you've recently made a soup, salad, stew or sandwich, send it off to Deb. You can be included in her weekly Sunday roundup!

As soon as I receive my prize, from Old Bay Seasoning, I'll share what I got with all of you.  The recipe, with my minor adaptations is posted below. If you're receiving this via email or Feedburner, please JUMP to my blogsite to print them.

Enjoying Saturday,