This Week’s Recipe: Crockpot Baked Beans
This week’s recipe owes its origin to a craving for a full English breakfast. However, because my husband and I are watching our pennies, going out to eat to our favorite tea room isn’t in the cards. But purchasing a bag of dried beans is, and that’s precisely what I did.
Of course, when looking up the recipe, I made a slight strategic error. Instead of looking up British baked beans – I looked up baked beans. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but there is a subtle difference between the US and British baked beans. Whereas the British version tends to be in a lighter, brighter sauce – the US version tends to have a darker, sometimes spicer, sweet/savory sauce.
Unfortunately, I didn’t ping to this difference until after I added all the ingredients to my crockpot. Meaning, there’s another Cooking With Christie in the offing with the recipe closer to the one I’m craving!
In any event, here’s the base recipe I used…(Thanks to Spruce Eats for the recipe.)
…and being me, I did fiddle around with it: I crumbled in four strips of bacon, switched the called for hot sauce with Harissa paste, swapped the chopped onion for 1/2 tsp of onion powder (which I like better), added 1/2 tsp granulated garlic, 1/2 tsp black pepper, 2 tsp spicey Worcestershire sauce, and 1 Tbsp of apple cider vinegar.
(The extras, other than the bacon and Harissa, aren’t pictured. After taking the photo, I decided the beans needed a few more layers of flavor!)
Christie: The Christie detective I can see as most likely to trying and enjoying a darker, spicer version of the traditional beans found in a full English breakfast is Colonel Race. Mainly, due to his adventurous, globe trotting and espionage filled exploits. Miss Marple or Poirot might try them on their travels – but I can’t see either truly enjoying them…or any sort of spicy food for that matter!
My 52 Weeks With Christie 