BBQ Baked Beans

Happy Soul Food Sunday! I hope whatever you ate today was good for your soul (most food is, right?). Our day started with an awesome breakfast my mom made.

(Don’t worry, I had a lot of fruit before breakfast in anticipation!)

And for dinner we barbecued this guy:

Almost every time we do traditional barbecue, we have baked beans on the side. I happen to be famous for my baked beans, and you are lucky enough to get the recipe! 🙂 Really this is one of those things you can make to taste and adjust the flavors the way you like them. I don’t actually use a print recipe, I’ve been making these beans since I was probably 11 or 12 years old. If the only way you’ve ever had baked beans is straight out of the can…you are MISSING OUT on something. You must try these.

Barbecue Baked Beans

The Beans:

• 2 large cans of baked beans (doesn’t matter what kind, just no crazy flavor)

The Sauce (you can add or remove from these according to your taste):

• 1/3 c. brown sugar (you can add more to make it sweeter)
• 1/2 c. ketchup
• 2 t. Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 t. liquid smoke
• 1/4 c. molasses
• 1 T. apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 c. of your favorite prepared barbecue sauce
• 1 c. sauteed peppers and onions sauteed in 2 T. vegetable oil (or…errr…bacon fat…yes, I said it! it’s delicious!) , I use the frozen variety:

(I LOVE these, Publix has one with the complete Holy Trinity (onions, bell peppers, celery) and you absolutely cannot get this up North…trust me, I know)

-DRAIN THE BEANS WELL. This is the most important step! You want as little of that syrupy stuff in the beans as possible, so empty the cans out into a colander and let them drain well.

-In a medium sized bowl, combine the beans with the rest of the sauce ingredients.

-Mix gently with a rubber spatula until the ingredients are completely combined.

-Pour beans into a lightly greased casserole dish and bake at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes, or until the beans are nice and brown on top and bubbling in the center.

Delish! It perfectly compliments any kind of barbecue.

I am in the process of making my first ever laminate dough! My mom has been teaching me how to make Danishes! But we won’t be finishing them up until late tonight, which means probably no pictures, so I may just have to make them again some other day and do a post then. I’m so nervous about them turning out, but my mom is guiding the way so I should be fine.

Thanks for reading! Enjoy the last tiny bit of the weekend!

-Lauren

 

 

Double the Birthday, Double the Fun

Today we continued the celebration of my husband and brother’s birthday!

There was a special kind of cake that Jason’s family in New York would get for birthdays, so my mom worked her magic and re-created the cake for him! The process started the night before, and then we assembled the cake in the morning.

It’s a yellow cake with whipped cream icing and banana slices as a filling, whipped cream and chocolate whipped cream icing on the outside, adorned with chocolate covered creme puffs, chocolate covered strawberries, and walnuts! All of the flavors make an awesome combination and a very pretty cake.

We put the cake in the fridge to chill and headed out to the establishment of choice, Three Dollar Cafe. They are famous for their wings in Atlanta, and they just opened a location near my house, so it was a perfect fit for these birthday boys. My uncle even came to join the party!

We split lots of good eats and drinks and everything was amazing! The wings were awesome, appetizers were awesome, even their fries were exceptional!

Everything was delicious, but I think my favorite thing was the fresh chips with blue cheese sauce…MAN they were awesome. The chips themselves were amazing, but the blue cheese on top just brought it to a whole new level. I got a house salad to go along with the other things we had on the table (side note: I made my goal of 5 fruit and veggie servings today!).

We left feeling full but we all had to leave room for dessert! We headed back home for the delicious treats that awaited us.

David requested a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie cake, and he’s the birthday boy so his wish was our command! My mom whipped up a delicious cookie cake. The lights were dimmed, the candles were lit, the songs were sung, and the boys officially blew out their birthday candles.

And the cakes were cut!

Present time!

I got Jason some spiffy new loafers, and my family got him a sweet new watch. The watch then inducted him into the Men’s Club, which required some snapshots of the family men and their accordingly manly watches.

Watch out. (Haha, get it?! Cuz of the watches? I can never resist a lame pun…) My dad looks beyond awesome in this picture.

David made out with some pretty sweet gifts, too!

As you can see, it was an awesome night and we all had a great time. I don’t think I’ll be hungry again for another week at least.

And to make the day even better I got this sweet surprise in the mail from Helen!

Isn’t she awesome?! Thanks so much Helen, you’re the best! 🙂

Mmmm my two favorite Larabar flavors! She must be psychic.

Thanks for reading! There are murmurs in the air that my mom’s going to teach me puff pastry tomorrow so I’ll have to tell you all about it!

-Lauren