Chuckwagon Beans

[cracker39]

Chuckwagon Beans

Here's a great potluck dish. This is practically a complete meal in itself. I love to sit down with a bowl and a couple of pieces of garlic bread and pig out…oh yeah, and a cold beer adds to the enjoyment. At work, this was what everyone wanted me to bring to pot lucks. This may be more cooking than you’d like to do camping, but it takes only about 30 minutes to prepare and it uses only one pot if you precook the bacon before you leave for camping. I guess you could even cook the bacon in that same pot. Condiments are measured only to your taste, so experiment with them while cooking.

Ingredients:

1 lb lean ground beef (or turkey)
A half dozen strips of bacon (pork or turkey)
1 large can of B&M baked beans (Bush’s are good also, but are sweeter)
2 or 3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 medium onion, chopped or finely sliced
Ketchup
Yellow mustard
Dark brown sugar or molasses (or both)

Directions:

I you didn’t precook the bacon, cook it now, drain, and chop or crumble into small pieces. Put aside for now. In a large pot, add some oil and put in the onion, and let it sauté in the oil, stirring to keep it from burning. When it is about half cooked, add fresh minced garlic as it sautés faster. When both are sautéed, remove, drain, and put aside. Brown the ground beef or turkey in the pot. When done, remove, drain, and return to the pot on medium heat. Add the beans, bacon and sautéed onions and garlic and stir well. Add a few glugs of ketchup, a couple of squirts of mustard, and some brown sugar or molasses (or as I said, some of both) and stir. Don’t overdo any of these ingredients at first. There are no “proper” proportions for these…just taste it as you go and adjust to your liking. Everytime I coon this dish, it tastes a little different, but always tastes GREAT. If you get it too sweet, just add some more mustard. When it tastes right, stir, turn down the heat, and let it simmer for at least another 15 minutes to get the sweet and tangy flavors blended. Put some garlic spread on some bread and brown in a skillet for camp garlic bread. Or, if you have a stove top toaster, toast the bread then spread on the garlic. Serve with anything else that strikes your fancy, but as I said, I like just with garlic bread and a beer. Enjoy