Howard's Baked Beans

My dear friend Andrea was gifted the best baked beans recipe from her step dad. You will never use another!! 

3-15oz cans of pork & beans, drained

1 lb bacon

1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 cup molasses*
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 T Dijon mustard
Coca Cola

Cook the bacon reserving 2 tablespoons of the bacon grease.  Saute onions in bacon grease until tender.  Pour onions and grease into a large baking dish.  Add drained beans, molasses, brown sugar, and mustard to the baking dish.  Stir the ingredients together.  Crumble the cooked bacon and stir into the bean mixture.  Add a small amount of Coca Cola.  I usually start with about 1/4 cup.

Cook covered at 300 degrees for approximately 2 hours watching to make sure the beans do not get too dry.  Add more Coca Cola if the beans get too dry and stir.  The beans can be eaten right away or made ahead.  If you make the beans ahead of time, just add more Coca Cola to the beans when you reheat them.

Found here http://thecrosseyedblog.blogspot.com/2014/05/howards-baked-beans.html

Poppy Seed Chicken

5 cups chicken breasts, cooked and cubed

1 cup sour cream

2 cans condensed cream of chicken soup 

2 cups crushed Ritz crackers (about 1 1/2 rolls of crackers)

1/2 cup melted butter

1 T poppy seeds

Additional Ingredients to make it fancy:

1 tsp Worchestire sauce

1 tsp minced garlic

1 T lemon juice

1/4 tsp pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Boil raw chicken breasts with salt and pepper until done. Let chicken cool slightly and cut into one inch cubes. Place cubed chicken in a 9X13 casserole dish.

Stir together the condensed soup and sour cream. If you wish to add the additional flavorings stir in theworchestire, celery salt, garlic, lemon juice, and pepper to the soup and sour cream mixture. Pour over the chicken.

In a separate bowl, stir together the crushed crackers, poppy seeds and melted butter. Sprinkle over the chicken and sauce.

Bake for 30 minutes in the preheated oven, until the top of the casserole is browned and the sauce is bubbly.