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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
Rating

From Detroit Times Cookbook, 1935

Tested Recipe!

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 1 pound dry lima beans
 3 tbsp brown sugar
 3 tbsp butter
 4 strips bacon
 1 tsp salt
 ½ tsp pepper
 5 oz marshmallows

1

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.

2

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.

3

Remove cover and put marshmallows on top of the bacon. Brown marshmallows under the broiler. Serve in the casserole.

Ingredients

 1 pound dry lima beans
 3 tbsp brown sugar
 3 tbsp butter
 4 strips bacon
 1 tsp salt
 ½ tsp pepper
 5 oz marshmallows

Directions

1

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.

2

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.

3

Remove cover and put marshmallows on top of the bacon. Brown marshmallows under the broiler. Serve in the casserole.

Lima Beans and Marshmallows

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.

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