Home Made Baked Beans (Let's try to make it vegetarian)

2 cups navy beans
2 onion, finely diced
3 tablespoons molasses
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 cup honey mustard
1/2 cup tomato sauce
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 pound thick bacon

Soak beans overnight in at least 2 inches of cold water. Simmer the beans in the same water until tender, approximately 2 to 3 hours. Do not refrigerated too cool. The beans will be too hard if you do this. Once the beans are the consistency you want , drain and reserve the liquid.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Combine molasses, salt, pepper, honey mustard, tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce and brown sugar in a pot. Bring the mixture to a boil and set aside. Arrange the beans in a casserole dish by making layers of uncooked bacon and onions in a casserole. Pour mixture over beans. Then pour in just enough of the reserved bean water to cover the beans. Cover the casserole.

Bake for 3 to 4 hours in the preheated oven, until beans are tender. Remove cover halfway through cooking. Only add more of the reserve liquid if necessary. This will enable the beans to not get too dry.


VEGETARIAN VERSION: By substituting all organics in the mixture items will not only bring the calories down but should be rid of animal products. I have substitute Morning Star Farms Bacon. The trick here is to marinate this bacon the nite before (while the beans soak) in a little virgin olive oil, low sodium soy sauce, or BaconSalt (http://www.baconsalt.com/). Any one of these will work. If you use the soy you might want to increase the sugar. The soy and worcestershire sauce may compete with each other.