NEW YEAR'S BAKED BEANS

                          

Today’s recipe was created because I had so many black eyed peas left over after our traditional Southern New Year’s menu.  The beautiful dried peas looked so innocent in the bag before I cooked them, but boy did they swell up!  I think they multiplied 3 times over- after an hour and a half of cooking.  They are so good though---I served them with boiled pork roast (posted on October 28^th), sweet potato soufflé (posted on November 8^th , collard greens, cornbread and delicious cole slaw (posted on November 5^th).  So I’ve been threatening my family to serve the leftover black eyed peas for breakfast, lunch and dinner until they’re gone---but we had them last night with steak, salad and scalloped potatoes (posted on November 2^nd).    I reintroduced them in the baked bean conglomeration posted below.  I think they turned out pretty good and I hope you enjoy trying it out.

Ingredients:

One 14 ounce can of maple style Heinz white beans

3 cups cooked black eyed peas

1 medium onion, chopped

2 large stalks of celery, chopped

1/4 cup mustard

½ cup ketchup (or more)

¼ cup brown sugar

½ cup french’s fried onion rings (chopped) (or more)

Black pepper to taste

Instructions:

*Spray a square pyrex baking dish with PAM.

*Stir all ingredients together in the baking dish as you add them in.

*Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 45 minutes or until hot and bubbly.

VARIATION:

**I often use 2 cans of small navy beans with the maple white beans instead of the black eyed peas.  You may also add chopped up cooked bacon.