Canning

I've just spent a few hours canning baked beans in my pressure canner.  I learned to can from my Grandma, wonderful woman that she is, and we spent a fun summer putting all sorts of things in jars.  I started canning beans mainly to cut down on sodium, and because sometimes it is hard to find a certain type of bean (like black).

Canning baked beans started when we lived in the United States, and we couldn't find British style baked beans anywhere.  If you don't know the type I mean, they are small white beans smothered in a lovely tomato sauce.  Not sweet at all like most of the American baked beans.  I had purchased this book Fix-It and Forget-It for recipes to use in my slow cooker.  Let me just say, the book is useless.  I am not a person that likes to open tin after tin, dumping them in the slow cooker and calling that dinner.  So most of the recipes are just no good to me.  Except one.  The sole reason I keep the book on the shelf is page 203, From-Scratch Baked Beans.  The recipe is credited to Wanda Roth, from Napoleon, OH, and she has got it just right!  I double the recipe, tweak it a bit, and then can it.  Here is what I do:


     From Scratch Baked Beans
     5 cups Great Northern dried beans (2, 500g bags)
     8 cups water
     3 cups tomato sauce (passata)
     2 tbs brown sugar
     3 tsp salt
     1 onion (med-large), chopped
     1 tsp chili powder
     dash of cayenne pepper


Combine beans and water in slow cooker and cook overnight or 8 hours.  I always do this at night so I can can them in the morning.  If you don't want to can, the next step is adding the remaining ingredients and cooking for another 6 hours.  If you want to can, add the other ingredients and then prepare your jars.  I usually get 9 pint jars from this recipe.  Can according to your pressure canners instructions.  For me it is 10psi for 75 minutes.  Viola!