Pork and Beans

Today’s adventure started out as a simple task … make pork and beans. Five hours later, I have pork and beans! It started out fine with the pork loin cooking and I had the beans soaked for 24 hours. Then, the pork decided that it didn’t want to get to temperature when I baked it at 400 degrees for 45 minutes. So two hours later it was done. In the mean time I made bread, scones and the rest of the ingredients below.  While making the BBQ sauce I found that the recipe that I had was not good at all… nasty!!!! So I began to google more BBQ sauce sauce recipes and found one that I liked.  The only problem… it required Worcestershire sauce (contains soy) and ketchup. Now, the ketchup I have from the last night making the meatloaf, so that was no biggy, but Worcestershire sauce?!?! OK, back to google… BINGO! a soy free alternative to Worcestershire sauce!!! woohoo!  So I was off making these new found treasures. The Worcestershire sauce recipe made about 1/3 cup which was about 5-6 times more than I needed, but didn’t know that until after it was made.  To make the story short I started at 10:30 AM, and it is 5:00 pm and I have Pork and Beans! (Discrepancy:=I took a lunch break and played with my son :-))

Ingredients

1.5lbs    dried Great White Northern beans or other white beans
1              onion
1              clove of garlic
2              cans of tomato sauce
1lb          pre-cooked pork loin
1 cup      BBQ sauce
1/2 tsp  cayenne pepper
4 tbsp    brown sugar

Directions

1. Start preparing your dried white beans a day ahead of cook day by soaking them in water for at least 24 hours. Many people seem to have great success in soaking beans for 12 hours, but soaking for 24 results in a softer, plumper bean for the recipe.

2. Shred 3/4ths of your pork loin and cut the remaining 1/4th pound into small cubes.

3. Chop your clove of garlic and onion finely.

4. Place your prepared beans, pork loin, vegetables, tomato sauce, cayenne pepper, dark brown sugar and vegetables in a pot, then cover with water.

5. Cook your homemade pork and beans for at least two hours on medium low to allow the flavors to meld with one another thoroughly. Add water as necessary, being careful not to add too much. You want this mixture to get slightly thick toward the end and might need to add a little corn starch if needed to obtain this consistency.