Baked Bean Soup

Hi Everyone! I hope you're having a great new year!

I have been holed up in the basement all day today, sewing away.  Trying to bust out a UFO (Super Mario), but thanks to all of you who encouraged me to enjoy the process, I'm just really having fun with it.  Thanks for that reminder!

Papa Pea just made a delicious dinner, and since I saw so many people were having ham and beans for New Year's meals, I thought I would share it.

It is baked bean soup.  Now, I know.  You might be thinking what I thought when I first heard that.  "Eeeewwww.  That's sounds gross."  But, it's really, really good.

It is from the book The Frugal Gourmet Cooks American.  "The Froog" (say the o's like /oo/ as in woo or coo), as Papa Pea refers to him, is Papa Pea's favorite chef.  We have a lot of his cookbooks, and Papa Pea likes to try a lot of his recipes.

Get it on Amazon here:  http://www.amazon.com/Frugal-Gourmet-American---1995-publication/dp/0783812094/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1294011799&sr=8-1

This is from a section in the book called The Immigrants, and specifically a chapter called "The Shakers."  Here is what The Froog has to say about the soup (the book is so educational, too...we enjoy that):

"This is a great way to use up leftover baked beans, and the regularity with which this soup was served in Shaker communities indicates that they had a lot of leftover beans.  The dish was an absolute staple, and I think it is really very good...and certainly hearty." (p. 143)

Baked-Bean Soup

Serves 6

3 C cold baked beans (we make our own baked beans from Grandpa's old recipe, but you could use any kind; we make extra baked beans when we make them just so we'll have leftovers to use for this soup!)  Postscript:  I had a question about whether I mean the dried beans or the actual beans you cook up in a sweet sauce and serve with a hot dog.  Yup, I mean the kind you cook in a sweet sauce and serve with hot dogs!

6 C cold water

2 slices onion

2 stalks celery with leaves

1-1/2 C stewed canned tomatoes

1 Tablespoon chili sauce

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 teaspoon sugar

2 Tablespoons butter

2 Tablespoons flour

Put the beans, water, onion, and celeray in a saucepan and bring to a boil for 30 minutes.  They would rub this through a sieve, but I put mine through the food processor.  (This is The Froog talking, not me.)  Do the same with the totmatoes and add to the soup.  Add the chili sauce and seasonings.  Melt the butter and cook with the flour for 2 minutes to form a roux.  Sitr the roux into the soup and keep stirring over medium heat until the soup thickens a bit. 

The Froog adds, "You might also try mustard or hoseradish for variation.  These additions were common in the Hancock Shaker community."  (p. 144)

We didn't have any chili sauce, so we substituted 2 T Pace Picante Sauce, 1 t chili powder, and a couple dashes of tabasco sauce for that.

I hope you enjoy this recipe.  I REALLY like it for a great dinner or lunch.

Enjoy!

Until next time,

Mama Pea

 

Comments

[sisLH]

Looks good; sounds good. How'd you get a recipe from Grandpa? Which Grandpa? Send to me please.

[Reader]

This looks delicious! To clarify, by baked beans do you mean just dry beans that have been cooked, or do you mean the type of beans that are cooked in a sweet sauce and are usually served with hamburger and hot dogs?

[Melissa]

I LOVE BAKED BEAN SOUP. And I have had that very same cookbook since my soph. year in college. I knew which book exactly when you mentioned the chapter titled "Shakers".

[Susan Ramey Cleveland]

That looks so good. Never heard of baked bean soup, but I think I'll have to try it. I'm a big-time soup lover.