For a novelty cookbook I’m getting a lot of mileage out of Cooking with Regis & Kathie Lee.   I picked up the cookbook out of a sense of nostalgia for the old Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee daytime show.  I’d still say the book is more fun to read than it is to cook from, but I’ve been impressed by the variety of dishes represented.  The recipes all fit in a five minute TV spot, so the dishes are generally low-stress.  Nearly every recipe is suitable for weeknights.  Which is why I chose Riverbank Barbecue Baked Beans to accompany my tri-tip taco feast last weekend.  I’ve got a couple of reliable baked beans recipes for when I run the smoker.  But if I’ve got to futz around making taco toppings I want to keep the sides simple.

Which is why Riverbank Barbecue Baked Beans seemed appealing.  Instead of soaking beans and frying bacon and the whole nine yards it relies primarily on canned commercial Pork and Beans.   Like most recipes in Cooking with Regis & Kathie Lee, Riverbank Barbecue Baked Beans is prefaced with a short profile of the celebrity guest or chef who presented the recipe on the show.  This particular recipe comes courtesy of sportcaster Curt Gowdy who, for reasons that are not made clear, was on the show to pitch Nieman Marcus’ Pure & Simple Cookbook.  The set was decorated like an outdoor scene – trees, tent, the whole shebang – with Regis wearing a bandana around his neck to boot.  This is, apparently, a dish for the outdoor kitchen.  Thus the simple preparation and the eponymous riverbank.

The beans were indeed as convenient as the recipe suggested.  They are also impossibly sweet, which I should have surmised from the ingredient list.  Add the sweet relish, pineapple, brown sugar, and molasses to the already high-sugar sauces in the prepared Pork and Beans and you’ve crossed a line from hint-of-sweet to might-be-a-dessert.   The Worcestershire and vinegar cut the sweetness, but I wouldn’t call it balanced.   You’re not going to want to eat a bowl of Riverbank Barbecue Baked Beans straight.  But they work well as part of a larger meal.

As mentioned above, this was a perfect side dish for my Santa Maria-style tri-tip taco feast.  Some of my family added the beans to their taco, more sauce than side dish, and others preferred to cut it with yellow rice to offset the sweetness.    The side-dish-as-sauce approach would also work well with smoked pulled pork or chicken. perhaps with dark collard beans.   I still can’t recommend it as a standalone dish.  Maybe, maybe if you tossed in a half a pound of cubed ham.  But it works great as a sweet and tangy foil to any number of rich and smoky mains.  Enjoy!