Baked Beans

These are beans baked from scratch. Fairly labor and time intensive, but really good. Individuals should decide if it's worth the effort. I can guarantee that the smell of it cooking should be at least some incentive to give it a try. This is not a recipe to be tried while camping unless you have a lot of time and utensils on hand, and somebody to clean up after you. However, it's an item, when brought already cooked, that would be welcomed at any campsite.

Ingredients: [Attempt on 04-Jan-2010]
1 lb Dry Great Northern Beans
1 Cup Budweiser BBQ Sauce
1 Cup Ketchup
¾ Cup Molasses [tried ½ Cup]
1 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
1 Tbsp Yellow Mustard
2 Cups Brown Sugar, packed firmly [tried 1¼ Cups] Still a little too sweet!
1 Medium Yellow Onion
6 Thick Slices Bacon
1 Tbsp Minced Garlic

OK, so here's what to do: Dump the beans into a really large sauce pan. The beans expand during this (eventually they nearly double in volume) and you'll need the room. Add enough lightly salted water to cover the beans by at least 2 inches. The beans will absorb quite a bit of water at this point. Soak the beans for at least 10 hours! I told you it was time intensive. Overnight is good. Drain and rinse the beans and put them back in the sauce pan. This time be sure to cover the beans with at least 3 inches of water. Bring to a boil and then simmer for about an hour. Test the beans for tenderness at this point. If tender, then they're good to go. If not, simmer a little longer.
While the beans are simmering, chop the onions into about ½ inch pieces. Cut the bacon slices into about ¾ inch pieces. Set these aside. In a fairly large bowl, mix the BBQ sauce, Ketchup, Molasses, Brown Sugar, Worcestershire Sauce, and Mustard.
Just before the beans are done (guess about this), preheat the oven to 350°. Fry up the bacon pieces in a heavy frying pan (cast iron of course) to get them just brown (not crispy) and the fat fairly translucent. Remove them and set them on paper towels to "de-fat" them (HA!). Drain excess fat from the frying pan, but not all of it. Put in the garlic and onions and cook them stirring often until the onion becomes slightly translucent as well. Set this business aside until the beans are done.
When the beans are tender (but before they all split apart) retrieve 2 cups of the water from the pan and add it to the mix in the bowl. Then drain the beans well and add to the mix as well. Add the bacon, onion and garlic to the mix also. Stir enough to get it well blended. At this point it should hopefully start to look something like Baked Beans.
Pour the mix into a baking dish (9 X 13 X 2 at least), and bake it until it's been bubbling for about 10 minutes (about 45 minutes overall).
A little annoying to clean up after with the sauce pan, frying pan, mixing bowl and baking dish, not to mention the mess that surrounds all these things, but it is an amazing flavor. Worth it, I'd say.