Well, hello again. Welcome back to another installment of “recipe tests that are chosen for me by patrons”. This week we have this lovely girl.
And yes, under that perfectly browned, melty marshmallow-goodness IS a pile of lima beans!
This is Lima Beans and Marshmallows. Let’s do this.
AuthorRetroRuth
From Detroit Times Cookbook, 1935
Tested Recipe!
[cooked-sharing]
Soak the limas in cold water for 5 to 6 hours. Drain off this water and add fresh water until beans are covered. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cook for 30 minutes until tender.
Melt the butter and add the sugar, then salt and pepper to taste. Turn the beans into a greased casserole, leaving about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of cooking liquid. Pour butter and seasoning over beans. Lay strips of bacon on top. Cover and bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees. Add more cooking liquid while baking if beans seem too dry.
Remove cover and put marshmallows on top of the bacon. Brown marshmallows under the broiler. Serve in the casserole.
Ingredients
Directions
Soak the limas in cold water for 5 to 6 hours. Drain off this water and add fresh water until beans are covered. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cook for 30 minutes until tender.
Melt the butter and add the sugar, then salt and pepper to taste. Turn the beans into a greased casserole, leaving about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of cooking liquid. Pour butter and seasoning over beans. Lay strips of bacon on top. Cover and bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees. Add more cooking liquid while baking if beans seem too dry.
Remove cover and put marshmallows on top of the bacon. Brown marshmallows under the broiler. Serve in the casserole.
Notes
This recipe comes from The Detroit Times Cook Book from 1935. Now, before we get too judge-y on this, remember that this recipe is part of the marshmallow craze. For a couple of decades, marshmallows were trending hard in food and culture, thanks to the discovery that you can roast a marshmallow over a campfire (1892) and the inclusion of lots and lots of marshmallows in the very popular gelatin concoctions. So it makes sense that people starting randomly throwing them into other dishes. At least I think it does.
But on to some really fun stuff: A major “Thank You” to the patrons over at Patreon for making this all possible! They voted on what recipe to make for Tom this week (my vote was for the Apricot Brandy Ice Cream, for totally self-serving reasons). So thank you for pushing me out of my content comfort zone with this one. AND their support makes this blog ad-free for everyone! Win-Win!
I also got to do a fun live-posting thing on Patreon while I was making the dish so they got to keep tabs on what was happening AND got to see the tasting result early. (I’m not brave enough to do a Patreon live stream yet, but who knows what the future might bring?) So if you want to get in on the fun next time, please head over to Patreon and contribute. And thank you for your support!
But back to beans.
I realized as I was doing the lengthy prep for these that I didn’t think I had ever prepared lima beans from dry before. I’d only ever made canned or frozen, which aren’t my favorite. So as they began getting softer and softer, I began to actually look forward to these. I mean, if the topping sucks you can always scrape it off, right?
The butter/sugar seasoning smelled great!
And bacon!
“Oh sweet! We get to have bacon on…wait. Are those lima beans?”
“Yeah, but I think this is going to work.”
“I think so, too. It smells really…”
“…and you just ruined it.”
“We can always pick off the marshmallows.”
“Not off the bacon.”
But we soldiered on. And soon, we were ready for the taste test.
“Weren’t one of those recipes for brandy ice cream?”
“Look, I tried. The people want you to eat lima beans. So eat up. ”
“I think…I think these are good.”
“Ha ha ha ha ha! I knew it! They smelled amazing.”
“They taste like something you would have for breakfast. Like breakfast beans.”
The Verdict: Breakfast Beans
From The Tasting Notes –
Good! But sweet. They tasted like you made yourself a fancy bowl of oatmeal with crazy toppings, except instead of oatmeal you used…lima beans. Honestly, the beans were soft and well-seasoned, and the smokey bacon and the sweet from the marshmallows really went together well. Oh! Maybe that can be the new trend. Instead of oatmeal, eat beans. Anyway, the marshmallows were very, very sweet, but I’ve had very sweet baked beans before. I feel like the marshmallows in this recipe took the place of maple or corn syrup. The only tweak was that it needed lots, lots more bacon. But in the end, it tasted similar to the very sweet cowboy or trail beans at our local BBQ place, but without the tomato element that all traditional baked beans seem to have. These would be fun to cook while camping, or for a side dish at a brunch buffet. Or if you want to feed your kids beans for breakfast. Just…you know. Because.
Yay! I’m so glad he actually liked it. That’s more fun for everyone!
I stand my my original Patreon vote for the ice cream. On the other hand, it was really fun getting to vote and follow the cooking process. I can’t wait for the next one!
Thinking these would be great without the marshmallows….
and of course more bacon never hurt anything.
Your hubby is a very very brave man.
You are a brave, brave man, sir! I salute you.
I think the bacon is good but diced smoked ham would also be good stirred into the beans. I may have to make this one.
He was a brave man to try that…it looks awful but I am glad to hear that it was actually good – who would have guessed?
Haha, this was really fun to participate in. “And now you’ve ruined it” is about what anybody would say to dumping marshmallows on bacon and it’s a hoot it came out well.
One question about the bacon strips – this seems like a fork or spoon dish, but a baked strip of bacon doesn’t usually cut too well. Do the strips get in the way? I was thinking it might be good to cut the bacon into pieces first.
This is indeed a disturbing universe.
Glad you had fun!!! Yeah, we were thinking the strips had to go as well. They did get in the way and were pretty floppy. I think I would put chopped raw bacon on the top, and then add more cooked bacon after it’s finished.
I see what you did there! Ha ha!
Tom is certainly a brave one! 🙂
I wonder if crumbled cooked bacon mixed in with the limas would give you the flavor and a little less floptastic texture.
So I tried this, minus the marshmallows, and it was indeed very good. I was intending to put the marshmallows on, but I lost my nerve (I don’t normally like sweet-savory casseroles anyway). I chopped the bacon before laying it on top, per suggestions. The beans need to stay moist; at the end I broiled it 5 minutes (trying to crisp up the bacon a bit) and the beans on top dried out and got a mealy texture. Underneath that the beans were nice and creamy.
Both my son and husband liked it even though neither is a big fan of beans, and my husband is paranoid about bacon.
So glad you tried this! That is really interesting about the beans drying out. I’m thinking you can remove the limp top bacon, and stir in bacon you cooked separately on the stovetop, and then maybe this thing will have its final form.