When camping or planning a bean supper when no oven is available, try this version of baked beans, which is cooked over a camp fire or on a barbecue.

Prepare beans using quick soak method. Combine soaked and drained beans in a heavy saucepan with 5 cups water. In small skillet fry bacon until crisp. Drain and crumble. Saute onion and garlic in bacon drippings. Add crumbled bacon , onion mixture and salt to beans. Bring to boil; reduce heat. Cover and simmer until tender, approximately 1 hour. Drain beans reserving liquid. Combine remaining ingredients with 1/2 cup bean liquid. Add to beans mixing well. Cover and simmer additional 30 minutes.

To make beans darker, add 1-2 tsp browning sauce. Browning sauce may be used to darken any bean casserole...add a little at a time until desired colour is obtained.

Pointer: At high altitudes, beans take longer to rehydrate and cook. Cooking times will increase substantially at 3, 500 feet or more, above sea level. Difficulty in cooking beans to desired tenderness within specified cooking times is usually caused by hard water. Some cooks add a small amount of baking soda to counteract the problem, hovever, this is not recommented as it will destroy the thiamin and reduce the nutritional value. One solution to the problem is to use purified bottled drinking water for soaking and cooking.