Before I became a geographer of coffee, brewer of beer, trekker of wine, and sipper of scotch, I often called Tabasco my favorite beverage.
The famous red sauce is still right up there, so for dinner Thursday, I turned once again to Tabasco Brand Cookbook, which has fueled a number of this blog's more savory entries. Because beans are healthy and keep well, I prepared a full recipe of Trapper's Camp Beans, though the quantity from a full pound of dry beans may have been a bit much, and the healthfulness compromised by the inclusion of bacon and sausage. The latter is ameliorated somewhat by the small quantity of bacon (1/4 pound) and the choice of the turkey variety of Polish sausage.)
This recipe begins with soaking a pound of beans overnight (I used great northern, which is the basis of Boston baked beans, but pinto and yellow eye are also suggested). The next evening, I added cooked bacon (again from Fresh Catch), chopped leeks and onions, vegetable broth (in place of chicken), and a whole onion studded with cloves. I brought this to a boil with marjoram, thyme, sage, bay leaf, garlic (frozen from our farm share last summer), and sliced carrots. I then simmered this on the stove for an hour, then stirred in diced tomatoes and sliced sausage before baking for another hour. A bit more time would have been better, actually, to thicken the mixture.
Oh, yes, several glugs each of regular Tabasco (called for) and Chipotle Tabasco (my idea). Tabasco is another of those ingredients -- like wine and most spices -- for which I generally eschew careful measurement.
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