It's BEAN a great holiday! HAR HAR HAR

Oh lowly, baked bean. You are a poor, underappreciated side dish. But how I love thee.  When made properly, you can be the star of the show, at least for a vegetarian!  Who wants a dry, chewy veggie burger, when you can have sweet, spicy, smoky, savory baked beans with cornbread?  And how could anyone, carnivore or herbivore, possibly have a 4th of July cookout without baked beans filling one of the divisions of your paper plate?  They're great on hot dogs and they give you something which to dip that dried out bbq chicken...

 Seriously, beans and coleslaw on a hot dog is my summer equivalent of the Thanksgiving sandwich.  Every great flavor of a summer bbq packed into one = SummerBun.  Look at that glorious mess!

Just leave that can on the store shelf. Beans beans, good for your heart!  Leave the cans out of your cart! 

What? I want you to cook your own beans?? You'll have to start them, like, a week ago.  You have to soak them OVERNIGHT!  You have to cook the beans for FOR-EV-ER!  Then you have to BAKE them AGAIN?

No. You don't.  I didn't.

There are myths about cooking beans that have been passed down by the unscientific.  "Never salt your beans until they are done cooking" and "You have to soak the beans overnight prior to cooking".  The former has been busted by my food scientist crush, Kenji Alt-Lopez, formerly of Cooks Illustrated, currently of Serious Eats and Food Lab. Check out the results here.  He says you need salt in your soaking/cooking water to maintain the structural integrity of the bean while still achieving fully done, creamy beans.  You don't want "bean blow-out"and you don't want hard beans.  You will get neither. You will get beans that won't humiliate you in front of your Puerto Rican friend ;).

 I have also heard that you do not actually have to soak your beans overnight.  I don't want beans tomorrow.  I want beans today.  For today's bbq, apparently three people said they were bringing beans, but in the end, only mine were on the table.  I BET you it's because nobody wanted to start beans yesterday.  I know you don't do actual work for over 12 hours for beans, but it's on your mind and on a hot July three-day weekend, that really is too much to ask.

Please don't interrupt my nap on the couch. 

I did a search for no-soak beans and I found a post by the Paupered Chef.  You can skip the soak by covering the beans in and inch and a half of salted water and bringing it to a boil.   For all you folk who don't measure, it's the same as rice cooking: enough so that the water level above the beans comes to the middle of your middle finger. Then put the tightly lidded pot (a Le Creuset if you've won one, ha!)  into a 250degF oven for about 75 mins (my larger-than-pinto cranberry beans needed about 90-100 minutes) and your beans should have no bones, a.k.a they're done.

Since I saved so much time with my first successful attempt at from-scratch bean cooking, I decided to make my own BBQ sauce for the very first time!  I had hopes that this would be simple enough to use as a go-to BBQ sauce instead of the cloyingly sweet supermarket stuff that have HFCS as the first ingredient. 

Oh, Cooks Illustrated, how could I live without you?  I followed the recipe for their Simple Sweet and Tangy BBQ sauce.  Well, I did make a couple substitutions (Chris Kimball, don't hurt me!).  HOWEVER, it was still fantastic and lots of people liked it enough to ask for the recipe.  I will include the recipe at the end, unadulterated.  You can adulterate it all you want.  Have fun.  Just be aware that Chris Kimball might be shaking his head in disapproval whilst looking quite smug.

The beans and bbq sauce come together in this post from Serious Eats. Just mix two cans worth of beans with a cup of sauce, a little water, a little brown sugar, a little Worcestershire sauce and stick it in the oven until the beans have soaked up all that sweet, smokey goodness.  It couldn't be simpler, and if you don't want to make your own sauce, use your favorite from a bottle.  Fast(er) baked beans.  What a concept!

Simple Sweet and Tangy BBQ Sauce

Makes about 1 1/2 cups.   Published July 1, 2000.  

Ingredients

1	medium onion , peeled and quartered
1	cup ketchup
2	tablespoons cider vinegar
2	tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2	tablespoons Dijon mustard
5	tablespoons molasses
1	teaspoon hot pepper sauce , such as Tabasco
1/4	teaspoon ground black pepper
1 1/2	teaspoons liquid smoke (optional)
2	tablespoons vegetable oil
1	medium clove garlic , minced (about 1 teaspoon)
1	teaspoon chili powder
1/4	teaspoon cayenne pepper

Instructions

1. Process onion and 1/4 cup water in workbowl of food processor fitted with steel blade until pureed and mixture resembles slush, about 30 seconds. Strain mixture through fine-mesh strainer into liquid measuring cup, pressing on solids with rubber spatula to obtain 1/2 cup juice. Discard solids in strainer.

2. Whisk onion juice, ketchup, vinegar, Worcestershire, mustard, molasses, hot pepper sauce, black pepper, and liquid smoke (if using) in medium bowl.

3. Heat oil in large nonreactive saucepan over medium heat until shimmering but not smoking. Add garlic, chili powder, and cayenne pepper; cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Whisk in ketchup mixture and bring to boil; reduce heat to medium-low and simmer gently, uncovered, until flavors meld and sauce is thickened, about 25 minutes. Cool sauce to room temperature before using. (Can be covered and refrigerated for up to 7 days.)