susanscooking.com

An easy dish for a BBQ, camping, or a potluck is baked beans.  However, most recipes call for molasses or other sugars and tons of salt.  Here's an easy, very healthy alternative I first heard about in the discussion forums of Dr. Joel Fuhrman's website.  It was created by a member there, Barb (who also writes a great blog about healthy eating ).

The key to the sweetness of these beans is soaking them and cooking them in carrot juice.

Ingredients:
1/2 lb of navy beans
1 onion, chopped (sweet ones like Videlia or Texas would be good here)
4 cups fresh carrot juice (more or less, see method)

Method:

Pick over and rinse the beans.  Put them in a crockpot or slow cooker.  Top with diced onions.

 

Pour carrot juice in to cover the beans plus one inch. 

 

Cover and soak overnight.  In the morning, cook on high in the slow cooker for 4 hours, then turn down to low for another 4 hours.  If you need to leave the house, you could also cook them on low the whole time.

These smell and taste like baked beans, but have no salt, no sugar, and no additives.



For a less sweet version, you can substitute no salt vegetable broth for half the carrot juice.  Barb says these are great with parsnips cooked in with them.  I'll have to try that.