Eating on a Budget

Following comments by The Crone and Molly regarding eating well on a budget, I thought I'd share an old-time family recipe with you - home made baked beans. These are infintely superior to the tinned ones and if you have a good supply of tomatoes on hand, pretty cheap to make.

Baked Beans
2.5 cups unsoaked dried navy beans or haricot beans
3.5 cups tomatoes
2 teaspoons salt
0.5 cup tomato paste
0.25 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons oil
1 large, whole onion (peeled)
1 teaspoon dried sweet basil

Soak beans for a few hours or overnight and cook in salted water until tender. Drain the beans and put them in a large baking dish. Add the tomatoes, salt, tomato paste, sugar, honey and oil. Mix well. Place onion in the centre and bake, covered, in a moderate oven for 1 hour. Add basil, stir well and bake uncovered until the liquid is thickened.

This recipe will feed a tribe of six. Depending on how sweet you like your beans to be, you can add only the sugar or only the honey, rather than both. You can also add other things, if desired, like more onion or bacon or chorizos.

love and light
naturewitch