Tuscan “Baked” Beans

It’s beginning to look a lot like cookout season!  I love sunny weekends where we can get together with family and friends, enjoy each other’s company while the kids play outside, and enjoy a great meal together.  There’s nothing better.

Cookouts mean hamburgers, chicken, hot dogs, etc. etc. from the grill…and I love that stuff, but I love the sides more.  Give me a plate full of smoky baked beans, cool, creamy potato salad, icy sliced watermelon, and some corn on the cob and I’m a happy girl.  The baked beans are key, though. I love good baked beans.  Thankfully, I married into a family with a killer baked bean recipe, and they were nice enough to pass it on to me as I joined up.  I love those baked beans.  The only problem is, those beans take a long time to make.  They are true baked beans, that need to bake up for a couple of hours in the oven.

They are delicious, but this is not the recipe for those beans.

This recipe is for a different twist on baked beans.  In fact, they aren’t even baked, so disregard the “baked” part of the name.  I ran across this recipe as I was trying to figure out what to have with some steaks one night when my dear cousin, Jessica, was coming to visit.  These beans were perfect!  They are not your every day baked beans, in any way, but a perfect side dish for most anything coming off the grill.  Plus, they were really quick and easy to put together…and they didn’t have to bake for two hours, like my other favorite baked beans.

I started by sauteing some diced red onion in some olive oil, along with some minced garlic and chopped, fresh rosemary.

(Mmmm….smells good!)

Once the onions were soft, and the rosemary and garlic deliciously fragrant, I stirred in two cans of white, cannellini beans, a little bit of the liquid from the canned beans, some shredded provolone cheese, a few chopped kalamata olives, salt, and pepper.

I brought the beans to a simmer, and then let them cook for about twenty minutes on the stove.  I stirred them every few minutes, but that’s it!

When we were ready for dinner, we were treated to deliciously different, hearty beans with amazing flavor.  The cheese melted in so well that they didn’t really seem cheesy at all, just perfectly creamy.  The olives, rosemary, and garlic just made them that much better.  They were so good, Jessica made me promise right then and there that I’d put the recipe on the blog.  So, here you go, Jess.  Although, she already has the recipe because she asked for it the minute she got back home. 🙂

TUSCAN “BAKED” BEANS

Adapted from Cuisine at Home