Healthy Southern Baked Beans

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HEALTHY SOUTHERN BAKED BEANS

These smokey, sweet healthy southern baked beans are totally good for you! Plus they make the perfect summer cookout or potluck side dish. 

Course Side Dish

Cuisine American

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour 5 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 15 minutes

Author Brewing Happiness

Ingredients

• 1 sweet onion, diced
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 1/2 yellow bell pepper, diced
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 15 oz cans navy beans
• 1/2 cup coconut sugar
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 1 tablespoon liquid smoke
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/2-1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2-1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1 tablespoon flour, any kind

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 350.

2. Dice your onion, bell peppers and garlic. Heat a small-medium sized dutch oven pot over medium heat. Add in olive oil, onion, bell peppers and garlic and toss for 5-7 minutes. 

3. After 5-7 minutes and the onion is beginning to become translucent, take your dutch oven off the heat. Add in all other ingredients (except flour) to the pot. Stir the pot until well combined. 

4. Add the lid onto your dutch oven, and bake for 50-60 minutes. 

5. Take your beans out of the oven and stir in 1 tablespoon of flour while the beans cool. 

6. Serve with bread or eat as a side dish. EAT UP. 

A blogger tweeted this a few months ago and I’ve been pondering it ever since…

“fellow food people: how do you continue to put your head down & work w/ all that’s going on in the world rn? i genuinely want to know.”

It’s a question that goes beyond just food people. It extends to anyone doing anything right now. It’s a question I’ve been tossing around for a while in my own life. In my personal life, 2017 is unfolding to be a really beautiful, adventure-filled year. Yet, globally 2017 is a time of great unrest – left versus right, black versus white, etc. How does one hold both of those realities in one brain, in one heart?

I had a conversation with one of my friends recently where we talked through our current anxieties… Will I make enough money to live this year? Am I not doing enough? Am I trying too hard? How do I make relationships last? Will I ever feel settled? How do I adult? Etc. (Insert your anxiety here.)

We paused, took deep breaths, and somewhere the thought arose : What if we just allowed our personal lives to be beautiful or easy? What if we saved our anxieties for the big problems, the global problems? I know we can’t fix Allepo just by reducing our anxiety about making money. And we can’t control what North Korea will do with their nuclear weapons, but we can make more room in our lives to think of ways to help. We can give ourselves more space to be proactive.

Now if your own life isn’t a beautiful rose garden and you’re putting the middle finger to your screen right now, then my words for you are – heal yourself first. Do what you need to do. Hold your heart close, tend to it, do everything you can to patch it’s wounds. You can take my privileged words and toss them in the trash.

But if you are privileged like me, if  you have a pretty good life most of the time and you just tend to stress over dumb shit, then maybe this is the time we need to forget about ourselves. Give up on the small worries and turn our attention to a larger scale. Focus on what’s important. There’s enough darkness in the world, don’t add more to your world if you don’t have to.

Today Lab Noon is hosting a Virtual Midsummer Potluck for Peace with a bunch of bloggers from all around the internet. We were all tasked with making a dish that represents our cultural background and “bringing it to the potluck.” It’s a beautiful way to be reminded of all the unique cultures and backgrounds we have within this world of ours. The internet is an amazing way for people to come together and recognize that.

Bringing healthy southern baked beans to a virtual potluck won’t change the world for the better, but it can be the start. Bringing yourself and your background to the world is so vitally important, especially now. If you are lucky enough to feel like your life is safe and peaceful already like me, then lift your eyes up and start asking how you can protect the stories of others. Peaceful potlucks only continue if we fight for them – if we make space for them.

I have added links to all of the other delicious meals at this potluck. Take a look at them, they might be culturally unfamiliar to you and you might learn something! I know I have. xoxo

Adventures in Cooking: Strawberry rhubarb pie ice cream sandwiches

An Edible Mosaic: Middle Eastern Spiced Green Beans with Olive Oil and Tomato

Cloudy Kitchen: Earl Grey blueberry pie

Cook Til Delicious: Cold Sesame Peanut Noodles

Delicious Not Gorgeous: No Mai Fan

DisplacedHousewife: Strawberry Scone-Cakes With Fresh Orange Blossom Whipped Cream

Donuts, dresses and dirt: Tahini Pavlovas

Floating Kitchen: Blistered Green Beans with Apricots and Chive Blossoms

Ginger & Toasted Sesame: Walnut Bread with Boursin and Prosciutto

Harvest and Honey: Chasing Summer (drink)

Hortus Cuisine: Panino with Roasted Peppers, Pesto & Arugula

On The Plate: Sriracha Scotch Eggs

Ruby Josephine: Halwa d’Tmar (Moroccan Date-Stuffed Cookies)

Tasty Seasons: Grilled Mojito Chicken

Tending the Table: Roasted Cauliflower with Pine Nuts, Parsley and Currants

TermiNatetor Kitchen: Strawberry Shortcakes with Gluten-Free Yogurt Biscuits & Mint Whipped Cream

The Little Epicurean: Halo-Halo (Filipino Shave Ice Dessert)

This Mess Is Ours: Simple Tomato & Avocado Salad

Twigg studios: roasted beet leek and feta quiche

Vermilion Roots: Tofu Salad with Spiced Peanut Sauce

Wood and Spoon: Strawberry Almond Skillet Cake