Crazy Baked Beans

Well, the ingredients were a little crazy -- and the taste was crazy good!  This batch of sweet, baked legumes were delicious and a strange almost-scratch dish made for a side to bring to an awesome BBQ dinner.  This lady had never really made baked beans before and was surprised to be asked  to make this dish.  Some might think it's dangerous to make something like this the first time around when it's for others -- especially when you know the food where you're invited will be superior.  This cook lives dangerously -- and has a strange food imagination.  That is what explains the corn flakes, fried onion flakes and Canadian bacon...

Apparently pea beans are generally used and I didn't know where to find them.  Gah... turns out that is also what Navy Beans are called.  Instead, I used three large cans of BBQ baked beans purchased from Dollar Tree.  These were drained and rinsed to get rid of extra salt and because I had my own idea of how I wanted the barbecue flavor to develop.  I also added a can of drained pinto beans. 

The basis for the sauce was sauteed onion and chopped Canadian bacon.  To that, I added plenty of spice (one of which was a "Hog Rub" which has an awesome blend of ingredients).  Once everything was good and brown, a third of a cup or so of brown sugar was mixed in.

Don't let a heavily crusted pan scare you.  This mess was intentional!  This residue is where the real flavor came from.  Using some water, bourbon, and maple syrup, this pan was deglazed and the mixture reduced to about a third of it's original amount.  This was mixed into the beans along with about a third of a bottle of Dinosaur BBQ sauce.  Believe it or not, the pan was completely free of gunk once this was done and only needed a quick swipe to clean.

The crunchy topping is not typical of baked beans but it's what I wanted.  This was an easy mix of crushed corn flakes, fried onion flakes, some brown sugar along with  butter and a little bit of sesame oil.  Sesame oil has a nice toasty flavor and is a little sweet.

There were actually two round casserole dishes.  They cooked for 40 minutes at 375, then another 20 minutes uncovered.  The crunchy topping worked so nicely with the sweet baked beans.

This is a dish I plan to make again.  It made a fine side dish to an awesome rib and chicken dinner.  The hosts actually bought the BBQ from a local restaurant that had closed but stayed in business to do catering days.  Knowing that the main dishes were going to be so superbly made put a little bit of pressure on, but the thought was to go wild rather than try to replicate something normal.  Straight out of a can was not an option!

You don't have to worry about being compared to "the best" if you go off the map and make something different.  At least I haven't seen a recipe like this one -- so I'm  going to claim it as unique.  And yummy!