VeganMoFo Day 29 - Barbecued Bean Sauce

More beans, Mr. Taggert!



Be glad you weren't around our home this month, not with all the bean-heavy recipes I've been making for VeganMoFo!

This is another new one for us but another favorite of Mary McDougall's, posted in the December 2007 newsletter:

Barbecued Bean Sauce

Preparation Time:  10 minutes
Cooking Time:  20 minutes
Servings:  6

1 onion, chopped
1 teaspoon minced fresh garlic
1/3 cup water
1  15 ounce can fire roasted chopped tomatoes with green chilies
1 teaspoon chili powder
¼ teaspoon chipotle chili powder
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
1  15 ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
1  15 ounce can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
1  15 ounce can white beans, drained and rinsed
1  10 ounce package frozen mixed vegetables, thawed
½ cup vegetable broth
¼ cup barbecue sauce
dash or two of hot sauce (optional)

Place the onion, garlic and water in a large pot.  Cook, stirring occasionally for 5 minutes.  Add tomatoes and seasonings.  Mix well, then add the remaining ingredients.  Cook, stirring occasionally for 15 minutes.


Another dump-and-heat recipe - my favorite kind!

Changes? Well, I didn't bother pre-cooking the onion, nor did I use the hot sauce. I used water instead of broth when adding the BBQ sauce, too. 

For the BBQ sauce, nothing beats good old Nathan's Famous Coney Island barbecue sauce. Not too spicy, not too sweet, and nothing but good, wholesome ingredients. Many of the other sauces had all sorts of chemicals, even added oils and plain white sugar, but not Nathan's. I always have a jar in the refrigerator.

I couldn't find low-sodium fire-roasted with chilies so just tossed in a 4 ounce can of chopped green chilies when I added a can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes.

My husband and I had a debate over whether this should be served over brown rice or cornbread. The rice won only because the the temp outside is hovering around 90 again the day I made this and I refused to light the oven.

It was tasty enough, but nothing special. It's not really liquidy enough to qualify as a "sauce" though, just flavored beans and veg with watered-down BBQ sauce. 

One thing I'll do differently next time is cook the frozen veggies ahead, not just defrost them. Some of those green beans were still so hard they bruised my gum!

This meal will be good for a quick workday dinner. Toss the rice in the rice cooker, nuke the veggies, toss everything else into a pot and mix, add the veggies when done, heat until the rice is ready, and there you have it.