I'd go for the Dutch oven for more use!

I don't have a NE baked bean recipe that I especially like, but for future reference I love this recipe for bbq beans - I'd call it a southern version. It makes a lot of sauce so I usually adjust accordingly, and rather than bacon I love to make it with nice big hunks of smoked ham. Yum! Best bbq beans

I “pinned” that recipe! Thank you.

I’m from northern Maine too (Presque Isle)! I have found the best results with my pressure cooker. I don’t have an instant pot, just a regular pressure cooker. This is the recipe I use:

2# great northern beans (can’t find yellow eye here, but these are good)

1 1/2 tsp. Dry mustard

1 tsp. Black pepper

2/3 cup molasses

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup ketchup

5 1/2 cups water

salt as desired

Soak beans overnight covered with water, 1/4 cup vegetable oil and 1 tbsp. Salt

Drain and place in pot. Add chopped onion and the rest of ingredients and stir. I put in a chunk of salt pork also.

Close cover securely and put pressure regulator on vent pipe. When regulator starts spinning, lower heat enough to keep regulator spinning, and cook 45 minutes. Remove from heat and let pressure drop of its own accord.

These are just like we always had on Saturday night!

Boca Boys Baked Beans with Peaches

• 1 package bacon
• 2 large yellow onions, chopped
• 1 50 ounce can of baked beans (recommended: Bush's)
• 1 can peach pie filling
• 1/2 cup barbecue sauce
• 4 tablespoons Boca Boys BBQ Rub, recipe follows

• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
• Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add the bacon and cook,
  stirring, until somewhat crispy and its fat has been rendered. Using a
  slotted spoon, transfer the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate to drain,
  leaving the fat in the skillet.
• Empty the can of beans into a large baking pan.
• Puree the peach pie filling, barbecue sauce, and dry rub then add it to the pan and mix by hand.
• Add the onions to the skillet and cook, stirring, until softened, about 6 minutes. Transfer them to the baking pan.
• Crumble the bacon and add it as well. Mix to combine and bake,
  uncovered, until hot and bubbly, about 1 hour.

Boca Boys Dry Rub

• 6 tablespoons Granulated Garlic Powder
• 2 tablespoons Chili Powder
• 2 tablespoons Paprika (I use Szeged Hot Hungarian)
• 1 tablespoon Garam Masala - an Indian spice blend, made by McCormicks and others
• 1 tablespoon Cayenne Pepper
• 2 tablespoons Turbinado Sugar

Lordy I feel uninformed... didn't know what a bean pot was, and I make bean-something-or-other almost every week too. I cook my bean dishes in my dutch oven and my stock pot - depending on the bean(s) and recipe. If it's soupy, the stock pot... if it's a thicker recipe, dutch oven.

I once had a vintage black bean pot that I loved and my son managed to knock it off the shelf and broke it. But it was for display, never baked beans in it. I actually don't care for the traditional Boston baked beans, I like BBQ baked beans with lots of stuff in it.

My mother always had the clay bean pot. Then the handles were broken off. The pot was replaced with an identical one. The only beans I’ve ever known were the ones I watched her make- boiled, salt pork, molasses, salt and pepper and baked for hours. Honestly, not my favorite. At a friends house, I remember her mom making a sweeter bean, must have been the brown sugar version. ? I prefer a smaller bean, my moms are large- like I say- it’s a big world of baked beans.

I have 2 vintage bean pots....you ought to be able to find one for not much money....but a good Dutch oven will cost.
My family on my mother's side are Prescotts....you know, Sam who rode with Paul Revere and William who has a statue on Bunker Hill....so I learned beans!
Must be pea beans...smaller than navy beans. And no bacon, only salt pork.
This is how she says to make beans
Buy a pound of pea beans and half a pound of salt pork....soak beans over night in LOTS of water. In the morning swish around in the water and drain and rinse. Return to pot with water to cover and a nice big onion chopped, and the salt pork, which has been rinsed. simmer until the skin on a bean wrinkles when you blow on it. Remove a couple of beans with a spoon and blow on them.
Set the salt pork aside and put the beans and the liquid in the bean pot, add a teaspoon of Coleman's dry mustard, some pepper, 1/4 cup molasses and 1/4 cup brown sugar. Pour in about 1/3 to 1/2 cup ketchup and slice the salt pork and lay on top. Cover and bake at 300 for as many hours as it takes to get them 'just right"....4 to 6 hours. with the lid on the bean pot. Every so often put a spoon down into the pot to allow the liquid on top to go down to the bottom. About half an hour before they are done, move some of the salt pork to the top of the pot, remove the lid and allow the pork to brown a bit.
Even better then next day....or even cold!

Honestly I Don’t know the difference between bean pot and and a Dutch oven. But I do have an excellent recipe that always gets rave reviews. Pretty much the only thing I changed is using salt salt pork if I have it instead of the bacon but beacons fine to make sure the tomatoes are a 28 ounce can . And let them cook longer than what the recipe says. if I have them I tend to use a mixture of dried beans .We like Navy beans kidney beans and black beans

http://www.canadianliving.com/food/recipe/comfy-baked-beans

Hope you like it.

We always go to bean suppers when we are in Maine in the summer.

When we can't get the real thing. B & M bake beans will do. My dad grew up around the corner from the factory. My cousins and I would have baked bean eating contests in the summer.

Great memories.

Love that beautiful bean pot!

Use my crockpot :-)

I will never forget my mother’s Christmas baked beans one year. She used bigger beans and didn’t soak/cook them long enough and they tasted like almonds in tomato sauce :-P

The crockpot was invented for cooking beans!

The quality of the vessel may matter, but I know of no reason why the shape would. Neither cast iron nor ceramic is a good conductor, so retain heat to facilitate the bean cookery. If you're using a dutch oven, go for enamel which is a similar finish as far as the food is concerned to a pottery glaze (both are silicates). Raw cast iron isn't so good as it can react with the acids, fruits and sugars.

Something to remember is that beans cooked in an acedic solution will not soften. So adding ketchup and sometimes even molasses may make you cooking liquid too acid for the beans to soften....depending on the alkalinity of the water you use.
You need to cook the beans before you add them to the pot with things like tomatoes and molasses.

Thank you every one!

I have a couple of dutch ovens, a pressure cooker, a crock pot, an Instant Pot AND a couple of bean pots. I got this one at an auction, with the instructions still inside, it looks like it's never been used. Actually, it came in a box with some other items, including a cake plate that I wanted. I bought the box for $2, got the glass cake plate and the bean pot, tossed out the chipped coffee mugs and other junk and still think I got a great deal, although my garbage man hates it when I do that. :-)

The booklet was still inside the pot, showing that it was available for $1.79 with an additional purchase, so I guess that's probably about what I paid for it. (grin)

Here is the recipe that was included:

I like beans best in the crockpot, though. It's far cheaper than using my electric oven, and I can go away for hours and come back to supper. I also add bacon or smoked pork hocks or leftover ham, and that makes supper with some rye bread or corn bread. Fortunately, both my husband and I like beans in nearly any form, and although Grandma used navy beans and the recipes usually call for "pea" beans, I grow Italian Horticultural and shell them, then freeze them. They are not dried, they are more like fresh shelled beans and that's what I use because I have them. So I think whatever beans you like will work fine. I do like them cooked for a long time, as I think they absorb the flavor and I like them thick, a texture I haven't been able to obtain in the Instant Pot or the pressure cooker. Bean soup comes out well, but not the baked beans, they're too thin. I know there's a "learning curve" with the Instant Pot and Elery just got it for Christmas, so maybe that will be better after some practice.

When I'm short on time I make the "cheater" baked beans with Bush's baked beans or my new favorite, KC Masterpiece with Bacon. I add some catsup, some mustard, some brown sugar and cook them until they are sticky, my grandson will eat a plate full.

If I were to choose between a bean pot and a dutch oven, though, I'd have to go with the dutch oven, those get regular use here. If I wanted an actual bean pot, I'd be stalking the Goodwill and other second hand stores, I occasionally see them there as they are not particularly popular with the younger generation(s) and when Grandma passes away her "weird kitchen things" often get auctioned or go to the second hand stores.

Annie

That's a wonderful bean pot! have you baked beans in it? I think the recipe given may be a little too salty, given the salt pork....and I like them a bit sweeter....so I would add more brown sugar and/ormolasses

Thanks, LindaC, I'm kind of tickled with it. I have used the pot, but not the recipe, but since the recipe was there I'm sure it is authentic, unlike my Grandmother's recipe, who was from Ohio.

I also like them a bit sweeter and with quite a lot more molasses. The recipe I have was Grandma's and it takes 1/3 cup of molasses and 1/4 cup of brown sugar, uses a bay leaf when cooking the beans and wants 1/2 pound of bacon, as well as dicing the onion to mix in with the beans instead of putting the onion in the bottom of the bean pot. I usually add even more molasses than that, because I like molasses.

I definitely need to make some baked beans, and then some Boston Brown Bread to go with them.

Annie

Gwen,

Here’s my two cents…

From my perspective, the most important item in the recipe is the BEAN POT. Forget the pressure cookers, bean roasters, Dutch ovens, crock-pots and the like; the only way to produce authentic Boston Baked Beans is with a bean pot. The best bean pots are crockery with tight fitting lids. I have two bean pots, one I inherited from my Grandmother, the other I inherited from my mother. Grandma’s bean pot is heavy crockery and was produced in the late 1800’s. My mother’s bean pot is lighter weight possibly stoneware. Mom received it as a wedding present in the 1940’s. The two pots produce entirely different beans even if I use the same ingredients AND bake them at the same time. Grandma’s pot produces tender beans with a thick juice while my mother’s produces firmer beans with a thinner consistency juice. I prefer the beans from Grandma’s pot.

Boston Baked Beans

1 lbs. dried beans (kidney or pea/navy beans)

½ lb. lean salt pork

1 large yellow onion, cut in half

1½ cups molasses

1 heaping tablespoon dry mustard

½ cup brown sugar or honey

Hot water

Soak beans in cold water at least 3 hours or overnight. Remove any floating beans or debris. Preheat oven to 250o. Adjust racks to bottom half of oven. Rinse beans in a colander. Rub the inside of the bean pot with the salt pork. Place beans in bean pot. Add molasses, brown sugar and mustard. Stir mixture gently. Place onion halves in beans and press down into bean mixture. Place the salt pork on top of bean mixture. Add enough hot water to just cover beans completely. Cover bean pot and place in oven. Bake beans for 8 hours, checking beans every 2 hours and adding water as needed. If the top beans appear very dry, you may stir the beans very gently. During the last 2 hours, you should just barely be able to see the juice in the beans. Don’t add too much water toward the end or you’ll end up with soupy beans.

To serve, remove the salt pork from the top of the beans, stir the beans, place the bean pot on a trivet on the table and serve. The finished product freezes well for later use.

ruthanna_gw,

I love Salmon Falls Pottery! That bean pot was a great find!