Cook by the Book: Chuckwagon Beans

My daughter’s 18th birthday was this week and for her birthday meal she requested BBQ pulled pork with baked beans and hashbrown casserole. This girl loves baked beans and has eaten them since she was a baby! I don’t always use a recipe, but usually just throw together all the typical ingredients without measuring to make a sweet, sticky dish of beans. However, this week I wanted to try a less sweet but beefier recipe and decided to make Chuckwagon Beans from Dining with the Pioneers, Vol.1, a cookbook given to me for a wedding gift over 26 years ago!

I was working at the sweetest baby and children’s boutique through college and when I got married called The Name Dropper. There were actually three of us girls working there that got married in one summer and all our dear ladies at the shop gave us a lovely bridal shower. I loved these women! They were several years ahead of me into their marriages and were just the best examples of Godly women, wives, and mothers. I learned so much from them plus they were all great cooks! One especially, Marsha, brought the most delicious dishes and desserts for special days and she always had the scoop on the latest recipe trend. She was the Pinterest recipe lady before there was Pinterest, ha! So, it was quite appropriate that she would gift me a cookbook when I got married which I still use today. And what made it even more special is that she highlighted her favorite recipes throughout the book!

Ok, so back to the cookbook! Dining with the Pioneers, Vol. 1 is full of the BEST home cooking recipes! I’ve used the same squash casserole recipe from this book since I got married—oh, it’s so good and cheesy. So, when I saw the recipe for the chuckwagon beans, I was quite confident it would be a good one. And as I said before, I wanted beefy, and this recipe listed both ground beef and beef bouillon in the ingredients list. That’s beefy.

Plus, just the name “chuckwagon” alone gives me a picture of a bearded cowboy “cookie” ladling full steaming bowls from his wagon. I’d spend a day corralling some cows just to be able to get in line for that!

I had to tweak mine a little from the recipe according to what I had on hand so what I post here is how I made them.

Chuckwagon Beans

Ingredients:

1/2 lb. bacon

1 1/2 to 2 lbs. ground beef

1 medium onion, chopped

2 beef bouillon cubes

2/3 c. boiling water

1 Tbsp. minced garlic

1 c. ketchup

1/2 c. Carolina BBQ sauce*

1/2 tsp. salt (+ more for browning the beef)

1/2 tsp. pepper (+ more for browning the beef)

2- (29 oz) cans baked beans

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a Dutch oven, fry the bacon till crisp; drain the fat and set aside. In the same pan, cook the ground beef, onion, and a generous sprinkle of salt and pepper. Cook until beef is browned, and onion is tender. Drain the fat off the beef. Dissolve the beef bouillon in boiling water; add to the meat mixture with the bacon, garlic, ketchup, BBQ sauce, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. pepper, and baked beans. Pour the bean mixture into a casserole dish. Cover and bake for about an hour to an hour and 15 min.

*If you don’t have Carolina sauce, just use any BBQ sauce and add a couple of Tbsp. of prepared mustard to give it the tanginess that’s in the Carolina sauce.

My daughter came in that night from her “speed school” so needless to say she was hungry! I had everything ready, and we enjoyed our chuckwagon beans with pulled pork, slaw, hashbrown casserole, and sweet tea. After dinner she opened her gifts, and we ate cookie cake and ice cream. Oh, it was all so good, annnnd it was our last junky meal until Thanksgiving as we’re all going to clean eating, no sugar, etc. until Turkey Day!

More on my daughter’s birthday in tomorrow’s post. See you then! Happy Friday!