Maple Baked Beans

Happy New Year!

Remember I said I planned to do more with maple syrup this year?  Well, one of the things on my agenda was maple baked beans.  It just took me several days to make them because I had to leave the house too often.  I soaked them overnight on New Year's and then didn't boil the beans until last night.  Then I had the beans in the oven overnight last night; my husband turned the oven off around 1 am at my request and then this morning I added more liquid and started them again for another hour.  Now ten pints are in the canner.  And the kitchen smells awesome.

Here's the recipe, copied here for record keeping:

2 pounds golden Jacob's cattle beans, soaked

1.5 cups maple syrup

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. dried mustard

2 onions

2 slabs of pork fat-back

After the beans are boiled, drain but save the liquid.  Put the beans into a casserole dish (I had to use 2) with the onion on the bottom and the fat back on the top.  Mix the syrup with the salt and mustard and pour over the beans then add the bean liquid until the beans are just covered.  Bake at 325, covered, for up to 7 hours (less if canning) and then remove the cover and bake another hour (skip this last step if canning, too).  Add bean liquid as needed to keep the beans from drying out.  

When I put the beans into the pint jars, I topped each of them off with more bean liquid, as my beans are sometimes drier than I'd like.  We'll see how that turns out.