Nana’s Baked Beans - tweaked

These beans are a staple from my childhood. My Nana used to make these every time we had a picnic, cookout or summer family gathering outdoors. They are delicious. Once you have them you will never go back to canned baked beans again when you realize how good and how easy it is to make these! The great thing about it is that over the years I have begun to tweak the recipe a bit, using flavors that I feel really complements her original recipe. But I give you first HER original recipe, and then how I have modified it over time. What really make these beans special are the canned mushrooms. I am not usually a fan of canned veggies, but for some reason they go great in this dish. Sometimes I have sauteed fresh shrooms and used those instead, but I prefer the canned – must be nostalgia. Often times I cannot find Heinz baked beans, so get whatever you like best. My grandfather and his family, when they came over from Sicily, grew tomatoes for Heinz, so we were always loyal to that company for their tomato products!

INGREDIENTS:

1 small Heinz baked beans
1 TBS brown sugar
1 tsp dry mustard
some ketchup and a little water
pieces of bacon or ham
cut up green pepper
cut up celery
cut up onion
one can of mushrooms
salt and pepper to taste

(All of these ingredients are to taste, you may use as much of the vegetables as you like! Nana, like her grand-daughter was an eye-baller when it came to cooking. So this is her original recipe as she wrote it down for us.)

Now to tweak it, I add another can of beans, either pinto, navy or kidney work great. Butter beans are great too- pretty much any kind of bean you have in your pantry (although I have never tried black beans!). I also add equal parts BBQ sauce to the ketchup, and some smoked paprika and coriander. Sometimes I use maple syrup, especially when we lived in Vermont and got it fresh.

METHOD:

Mix all the ingredients together in a baking dish. Bake at 350 F for one hour. If you don’t want it as liquidy, bake for a little longer. That’s it! How easy is that? Then as Nana used to say:

Mangia!

Serves: varies