Beautiful Bones and BBQ Baked Beans

Growing up in California, the only barbeque I ever had was at Tony Roma's (sad, I know). Then I moved to North Carolina where I got a taste of real barbeque - barbeque pork, that is. And now I live in Texas where if you're going to have barbeque - that means barbeque beef. Regardless of what kind of barbeque I'm having, one of my favorite sides is barbeque baked beans.

This was my first time making my own barbeque baked beans. I sort of 'cheated' by using canned beans as a base, but that is part of what I love about this recipe - how quick and easy it is. I went in search of a good recipe and found so many my eyes starting spinning. Ingredients varied anywhere from mustard to ketchup to Worcestershire sauce to molasses. I looked at several recipes and then came up with my own. It's a bit on the sweet side, but that's how I like my baked beans. I also added bacon to mine because well, everything is better with bacon :)


I'm submitting this to Susan's Beautiful Bones Event, to help raise awareness about osteoporosis and help encourage women to take the necessary steps to protect their bone health. This subject hits particularly close to home, because I know that I am in a high risk group to get osteoporosis, not only because I am Asian, but also because I do not eat very many calcium rich foods (I hate milk) and cannot for the life of me remember to take my vitamins daily. I never knew that beans were a good source of calcium. Thanks to Susan, I am now more aware of what the calcium rich foods are so that I can try to incorporate them more often into my diet. If you want to learn more about calcium rich foods, click here and be sure to visit Susan at Food Blogga when she presents the round up for this event.

The photo below is also my submission to the Click! May Event. Click! is a monthly food photography event that is theme-based (not blog-based), so all you need is a good photograph to participate. This month's theme is beans 'n lentils. I don't have any spectacular photos to submit this month, but since I happened to make something that fits this month's theme, I decided to participate anyway. If you want to participate in this month's contest (or just read some pretty funny stuff about farts), click here (deadline is tonight at midnight!).

Click! Beans 'n Lentils

Barbeque Baked Beans
from Good Eats 'n Sweet Treats

53 oz can of Pork and Beans (I used Van Camp’s)
1/4 cup barbeque sauce (I use Sweet Baby Ray's)
1/4 cup molasses
1 cup brown sugar
1-1/2 cups diced onions (I used red onions)
8 strips bacon, cooked, and then cut into small pieces (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Drain about half of the liquid from the canned beans and remove the chunks of fat from the beans. Add the beans, barbeque sauce, molasses, brown sugar, diced onions, and bacon to a 1-1/2 quart casserole dish and mix well. Bake, uncovered, for 45 minutes.

Note: If you're not too worried about your waistline, you can also add the bacon grease from your cooked bacon to the beans as you're mixing all of the other ingredients together for additional flavor.

Yield: 8 Servings