Crowd Pleasing Baked Beans

I think Leslie in Tennessee gets credit again for the original version of this one. She's a fantastic cook and I terribly miss living in the same city with her. We have many fun memories of dinner parties at her downtown loft or at our place in Southside. Sigh...time marches on....

This recipe is great for barbcue get togethers. It's super easy, and has sausage AND bacon- so boys tend to lick this one up!

1 BIG can of baked beans (it doesn't really matter what kind because your going to doctor them up anyway)
Yellow Mustard
Brown Sugar
Syrup
1 package of lower fat Sausage (I like Jimmy Dean)
Salt
Pepper
Tabasco

In a large baking dish add can o' beans, about 1/4 cup yellow mustard (I just squirt, squirt, squirt so this measurement is an estimate) 3 TBS of brown sugar, 1/4 cup syrup, a bit of salt & pepper and 1 tsp of Tabasco. Stir to combine.

In a separate pan cook sausage thoroughly, breaking it up into really small pieces. When sausage is finished, I like to make sure I get as much of the fat out of it as I can. Take a colander and line with paper towels. Add cooked sausage. Cover with more paper towels and squoosh. It's really gross how much more grease you can get out. Here's a tip: when you are working with any ground meat that has fat, you can place it in the colander and run super hot tap water over it to get even more fat out. Of course, this only works if you are seasoning the meat after cooking it, otherwise all your seasoning will go down the drain.

Add the sausage to the bean mixture and stir to combine. Give it a taste test and add more of anything it may need. Take two slices of bacon, cut in half and place the four striplets on top.

Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees until bacon is cooked and beans are bubbly.