Bonner Bean's

Ingredients

• 3 large jars of Great Northern Beans

• 1 ¼ lb of ground beef

• 1 ¼ lb of ground sausage

• 1 ¼ lb of chorizo sausage (Mexican sausage) You can get this at the Meijers meat department.

• 1 green bell pepper

• 1 red bell pepper

• 1 yellow or orange bell pepper

• 1 large onion

• Brown sugar

• Cider vinegar

• Dry mustard

The secret to the recipe is to cook each of the ingredients separately before mixing them together. This makes sure that each ingredient retains it's own individual flavor. If you cooked the chorizo with ground beef, beef would just take on the chorizo flavor.

1. Pre-heat oven to 325 º.

2. Begin by browning each of the 3 meats (separately) and set aside.

3. Dice the onion, chop the peppers into small pieces approximately 1/4 inch x 1 inch. You may want to cut a few rings of pepper for decoration and save for later. Sautee these in virgin olive oil until they are partially cooked and set aside.

4. Drain 2 of the jars, do not rinse and dump into large roasting pan, add the 3rd jar of beans juice and all.

5. Add the all the meat and vegetables. Mix well

6. Stir in about a table spoon of dry mustard, more if you want the beans spicier.

7. Stir in the brown sugar and vinegar to taste.*

8. Place into oven and let cook for at least 2-3 hours. You can set the temp lower, say 250º and slow cook over a longer period or set it to 425º and cook in an hour and a half. Just depends on you time frame.

 * The brown sugar and vinegar are the key to the flavor, it is not an exact science as to how much to add. It's a balance between the 2 to achieve the sweet and sour flavor.

For the LAN parties I usually make a larger, meatier batch. I use 2 lbs of each meat and 4 large jars of beans. I use about ⅔ lb of brown sugar and 2-3 cups of vinegar. I also use red, green, yellow and orange bell peppers.

Note: I have never done this, however my Mom and Grandmother used to use this trick. They would add baking soda to the beans. This is supposed to help with keeping the intestinal gasses to a minimum. We can call this the Dilligaf preventative.