Well Preserved

Cheap Tuesday Gourmet continues with another vegetarian option this week – after a month of pork I feel like we are paying our karmic duty.    I suppose that baked beans challenge the definition of gourmet but this was not a series emphasizing gourmet – it was about trying to eat healthy home cooking without burning a hole in your wallet.

Learning to work with dehydrated (“dried”) beans can be a massive help for healthy, affordable living if you live in a cold climate.  With local food at their lowest availability, dried beans make a lot of sense.  They don’t contain the additives that cans do, use less packaging, ship in lighter quantities and are ridiculously affordable.  The tradeoff comes in patience as you rehydrate the beans before cooking (not always necessary – most can be cooked without this step though you will have firmer beans that some don’t like).

rehydrating beans is a simple process – soak them in water for a prolonged period and wait for the water to absorb and soften them.  Baked beans are typically done with navy beans that take 5-12 hours of soaking to properly soften.  Once that’s done the rest is smooth sailing in a slow cooker (you could use a pot on a low simmer if you would rather)…

Ingredients (you can double this with ease):

1 pound of dried navy beans (soaked)
1/2 an onion
Small bit of oil – canola, olive, vegetable or any of your choosing
2 cups vegetable broth (we cheated with bouillon cubes again)
1 cup water
1/2 tablespoon salt
1/2 can of tomato paste
1/2 cup of ketchup
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1 tablespoon dry mustard
1/4 cup molasses
Garlic powder (as much as you’d like)

Directions:

Fry the onions in the oil.  Drain and rinse the beans.  Place everything in a slow cooker on high for 8 hours (or until soft) or on low for about 12 hours.  TADA!

There is a lot of sugar to my liking but also a ton of fiber.  I really must pledge to work with dehydrated beans more through this winter – any favourite recipes out there?

Cheap Tuesday gourmet is a series of posts on eating more affordably and has been running for several weeks..  The full details are here but the premise is simple – creating good, wholesome food at affordable pricing as a means to support and create a dialogue in which we can share how to eat wholesome food at a fraction of a price of fast food alternatives.  The terms gourmet and cheap are relative – the term Tuesday is not.  Click on the tag Cheap Tuesday Gourmet (below this paragraph) will link you to all of the articles.