Broder's Baked Beans

 I'm told every baked bean baker worth their salt has a preferred dry bean. The beans for this recipe are recommended to be Jacobs Cattle or Soldier beans. I couldn't find Jacobs Cattle in the stores, but I found Soldier beans at the local health food store.

My new-to-me bean pot is getting a good workout with this cookbook. This is baked bean recipe #3, not counting the "Gloria" beans (B&M canned!), for which I did not need the bean pot. Only one more bean recipe to go, as we move into the home stretch of fourteen more days til the end of the Bicentennial and the end of the recipes in this cookbook. Look for that recipe to go into my bean pot soon!

I did not have salt pork on hand, so substituted three thick slices of bacon, cut into chunks. And, after consultation with my uncle in Vermont, who sugars off every spring and knows all-things-maple-syrup, I decided to add a bit of maple syrup to flavor these beans. Why? Just because I had some syrup on hand and spur of the moment, it occurred to me that it might taste good! And, it did! I think next time around, I might add more.

Funny thing, this recipe gave no temperature for the oven, nor did it even say "a moderate oven." I chose to bake it for 3 hours at 300, and to let it go longer if needed.

There is nothing like the smell of baked beans in the oven during a winter's day when the snow is softly (but steadily) falling outside, and you complete your day with a meal of red dogs and baked beans (and Aroostook County Biscuits, see blog). And the weather report says you have a foot of snow on the ground. Well, we do live in Maine, don't we? The way life should be.