4 cups cooked navy beans
1/3 cup molasses
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 large onion, sliced

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine beans with molasses, water, brown sugar, mustard, ginger and salt and place into a baking dish. Cover and bake for 30 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat and add the onion slices, separating into rings and sautéing until browned.
4. When the beans have finished baking, remove from the oven, top with the onions and bake, uncovered, for an additional 10 minutes.

Makes 4 servings

Shannon asked me to barbecue wieners tonight, so I made franks and beans. It's something I foresaw back in the month of January, but I thought I could avoid the inevitable. What was I supposed to do? I have to make use of the barbecue at all opportunities and I couldn't let good wieners go to waste! Shannon's like the ying to my yang (or is it the yang to my ying?) and I often like to shift the blame for these kinds of things on her. These kinds of things being allowing myself to indulge in guilty pleasures when I'd rather be eating bulgur wheat and tofu and drinking purified water. If I ever eat dessert or get drunk, it's always her fault. Even if she's not around to tell me to do so. What I'm saying is that I wanted to make franks and beans and I was just waiting for Shannon to go and buy hot dogs. I tried to dress up the plate with ketchup, but that sort of failed miserably.

Anyhow, wieners can serve useful purposes. They add an air of mystery to any plate. Adults and children love them, especially when they are flayed to look like an octopus. They're also one of the few tofu products that I actually think does a decent job of tasting like the real thing, as long as they're boiled and not barbecued, which kind of leads me to expect that Soylent Green would've tasted something similar. While I find the origins of wieners, in fact and in fiction, a little disturbing, I have to admit that I do enjoy them. There, I said it; I like wieners.

I set out in search of the ultimate franks and bean recipe that didn't involve 1 can beans plus 1 serving franks. I wasn't about to figure out how to make a wiener myself, and I don't know anyone that actually makes their own. Frankly, I'm not sure how anyone could associate with a person that dedicates their time to making use of entrails. So, the only part of franks and beans that I can see being adjustable is the bean part. I looked through several recipes for Boston Baked Beans and picked the one that looked fastest and simplest because I was hungry after searching for franks and beans recipes for so long. Then I cooked them on the stove top because it was faster than baking. So, really, I just ignored the directions from the original recipe altogether and threw everything into a pot.

Now, these baked beans weren't as good as the Holy Smokin’ Beans, but that'd be tough to beat. Actually, they weren't even very good compared to the canned variety, which was a tad disappointing. It's not that they were bad, but they lacked what I'd typically look for in baked beans. The flavor was predominantly ginger, with a bit of heat from the mustard, and then the molassesy undertone that holds it altogether. If you're looking for a lower calorie version as a typical side dish, or maybe cold with barbecue or something, I could see this working out well, but it's definitely not something I should've made for the one day I made wieners. Perhaps it's just my fault for rushing the whole process. Anything involving wieners should not be rushed.