8 ounces (preferably home-made) bacon, cut into ¼ inch long slices
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 pound (2 ½ cups) small white beans, navy beans or great Northern beans – soaked overnight and cooked, reserve some cooking liquid
3 tablespoons brown sugar
3 tablespoon molasses
3 tablespoon maple syrup
3 tablespoons of your favourite BBQ sauce
3 tablespoons ketchup
1 ½ tablespoons of dry mustard
1 ½ tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 ½ tablespoons cider vinegar
½ teaspoon liquid smoke
Coarse salt and black pepper
2 to 3 jalapeño peppers, seeded and cut into large chunks
Place the bacon and onion in a large non-reactive saucepan over medium heat and cook until the bacon fat renders and the onion is golden brown, about 5 minutes. Pour off any excess fat.
Stir in the beans, brown sugar, molasses, maple syrup, BBQ sauce, ketchup, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar and liquid smoke. Gently simmer the beans until thick and richly flavoured, 10 minutes, adding 2 or 3 tablespoons water if necessary to keep the beans from burning. Taste for seasoning, adding salt and pepper as necessary. Stir in the jalapeños during the last 5 minutes of cooking,.
Render the bacon in oven proof pot or Dutch oven, drain fat and dump in all the other ingredients, no need to brown onions. Add back about 1 cup cooking liquid. Stir, cover and bake at 300 degrees for about 4 hours. Stir every hour and add more liquid if needed.
NOTE: You can doubled the recipe and put
them in pint containers – canned at 10 lbs pressure for 70 minutes. It
makes a canner full. Whether you make a single or double batch,
remember, this makes more than one serving. Beans contain
oligosaccharides which are complex carbohydrates. These are not
absorbed by the small intestine so are past to the large intestine
where your micro flora happily break them down and produce large
quantities of hydrogen. While these beans are delicious, do not
eat the whole batch at one sitting. Your digestive system and
neighbors will thank you.