Baked Beans

One of the most difficult aspects of a fat-free vegan diet has been finding healthy convenience foods. Some people may see that phrase as an oxymoron, but I keep searching for prepared foods that I can eat. Let's face it, our lives are busy and full. We are either working many hours and cramming in a few hours of leisure or we are at leisure and cramming in the work of meal preparation. Either way, needing to prepare meals every day means that even those of us who enjoy cooking prefer spending fewer hours in the kitchen.

I know that on a regular basis after a full day of play, I don't want to stop playing early enough to prepare a meal from scratch in the healthiest manner. A couple of days a week I do cook using the healthiest, freshest whole foods. Those days I am happy to spend many hours in the kitchen. I try to make enough to have leftovers, so four days a week we are eating really good food.

The other days I try to cook meals that take advantage of convenience foods and still follow these basic guidelines:

no added fats or oils
no added salt
no unnecessary sugar
nearly vegan ( I use fat-free yogurt and honey)

And that brings me to the recipe for Baked Beans. This recipe uses canned baked beans, yet manages to reduce the overwhelming sweetness of those commercially available. The sugar is all still there, of course, but it is spread over more servings.

Baked Beans

1 16-ounce can Bush's vegetarian baked beans
2 15-ounce cans navy beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 can water
2 teaspoons grainy mustard (Batampte is good if you can find it)
1 tablespoon ketchup

Empty the baked beans and the drained navy beans into a medium size saucepan. Fill one of the empty cans halfway with water and stir in the mustard and the ketchup. Stir the water mixture into the beans in the saucepan. Heat over medium-low heat for 20-30 minutes or until the beans are as thick as you like them.

Makes 6 or more servings.