One of my new favorite vegetarian dinners is slow-cooked baked beans — you know, the sweet kind with molasses and maple syrup — Boston brown bread (more maple syrup in that), and veggies, preferably including cabbage of some kind. We had it last night. I stir-fried the cabbage with onion, and steamed green beans to serve on the side.
The baked beans take some planning. The small white beans have to be soaked overnight, then cooked for a couple of hours in plain water in the slow cooker. Then I drain the beans and put them into the slow cooker — at about 9 pm — with ketchup, maple syrup, molasses, a peeled onion studded with a few cloves, salt, 1 tsp baking soda, and pepper. I top it off with boiling water from the kettle, a half-inch past the top of the beans. It cooks on low all night and all the next day. By dinner time — twenty hours after I started the cooker, and two days after I put the beans in to soak — the top is crusty brown caramel and the middle is soft and mushy, and it's sweet all the way through.
I suppose I could serve it with meat, and my choice would be a grilled ham steak, but why bother? The kids eat the brown bread and the beans, and everyone's full and happy by the end of the evening.
Today I'm going to have a baked bean sandwich for lunch. Some yummy ideas in there. I can't decide — should I mix it with celery, onion, and walnuts, and eat it cold, or warm it up and spread it on bread and eat it open faced with a fried egg on top? The bacon sounds good, but I'm not planning on bacon today. Whatever — I intend to enjoy it.
UPDATE: I went with the celery/onion/nuts version, using pecans. Indeed, very yummy. I think there is no way I will be hungry again before dinner.
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