Recipe: Cajun Baked Beans UPDATED

UPDATE (6/17, 8am-ish): Mr. Big Food sent me an email this morning letting me know that he had made some changes to the recipe as he was preparing it yesterday. He said the beans, "turned out great so I made the change permanent to the recipe." I agree, so I deleted the previous version. Here's the new and improved recipe:

Make sure the beans are tender before you start baking them. This recipe can easily be doubled

CAJUN STYLE BAKED BEANS

¼ lb bacon, cut into squares

1 lb dry white beans

1 C dry white wine

Water

Tabasco, to taste

1 tsp dried thyme, crushed

2 tsp dried parsley

3 drops bitters

Salt

½ C honey

1 C good catsup, chili sauce, or barbecue sauce (preferably homemade—see recipes in Basics and Grillin’ … sections)

¼ C good mustard (preferably homemade—see recipes in Basics section)

1 Tbsp steak sauce (preferably homemade—see recipes in Basics section)

2 tsp mustard seed

Fry off bacon squares lightly, drain, and set aside. After washing beans, cook in a mixture of wine, water to cover, Tabasco, thyme, parsley, bitters, and salt. Cook beans until tender, drain (saving liquid), and place in a roaster. Preheat oven to 350^o. Mix together honey, catsup, chili sauce, or barbecue sauce, mustard, steak sauce, and mustard seed and blend into beans in roaster. Add some of the reserved bean cooking liquid to make beans a little soupy. Top with bacon squares. Bake covered for about 2 hours, stirring two or three times during cooking time and adding more reserved bean liquid if beans get too dry. After 2 hours, stir, and continue cooking uncovered if beans are still too soupy.