Short Cut Baked Beans

I've tried out a lot of homemade baked beans recipes on my family.  None ever hit the yum spot, we all just ate it out of duty.  Today however, I just winged it and there were mmm's all around.

If you're not into cooking dried beans, I'm sure that the canned variety would work just fine.  I would however, rinse the canned ones before saucing.

Never tried cooking your own beans?  Nothing could be easier!  Set them in a bowl of water the night before.  If you plan far enough in advance you can soak them for a few days just changing out water at night for fresh.  I've soaked beans for two days and was able to enjoy them with no digestive discomfort.  Put them in the crockpot with fresh water in the morning on low for a good 5-6 hours, a tablespoon of baking soda to help the softening process.  Check for doneness (is that seriously a word?  Seems so strange, doneness!), and drain off cooking water.  Proceed to sauce those babies.

Here's the secret sauce 'recipe' that I will gladly shout from the mountaintops so no one will have to pay a premium for Bush's (because we're baked bean snobs and don't care for the off brands that we've tried).

Half salsa and half barbecue sauce.

Do you feel a bit let down at how simple it is?  I'll admit I was rather shocked at how well it turned out, and that there were delighted people over fussy ones being served homemade baked beans.  I have mentioned how many times I've tried making my own, right?

For my friends who really need more details than that: I used Hunt's Salsa (my dad brought it up from colorado, not sure if it's sold here) about 3 tablespoons of Kraft's Roasted Garlic Barbecue (don't recommend alone as it's very overpowering on the garlic taste) and Famous Dave's Rich and Sassy Sauce.

Now that I've got a main staple of our spring/summer/fall diet finally figured out--Let grilling season commence!