I wonder how many of us on here think of their signature meals and come back to things we’ve made forever. After all the great foods we share on here, some very complex, we often return to our homebase. Mexican beans and rice is something I’ve made since Adam, and, now that I’m not as financially limited as I was when I made it more frequently, I think I enjoy it even more. They always take me back to a place I fondly remember. Been power!
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I made a blinged up version of these, with more bacon, more onion, some garlic, celery and carrot. https://tourismnewbrunswick.ca/molasses-baked-beans-touch-sass
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I love “blinged” baked beans. This is a recipe that appears at my mother’s Ohio church potlucks - I’ve never made it but always make sure I get some…along these lines (every cook has their variation)
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I will make this one next! 
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I made some Portuguese beans with Rancho Gordo pink beans this morning
Based loosely on this recipe, and I added carrots and celery.
I also made some Polish Breton beans with marjoram, allspice and paprika.
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Ma Po Beans
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What does food ambassador for Prince Edward Island entail?
I like the idea. 
“I’m a FoodTV host, cookbook author and official food ambassador for Prince Edward Island, more importantly I’m a Dad and passionate home cook!”
Does every province have one?
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Michael Smith is a popular TV chef / cookbook author.
The other provinces don’t really have ambassadors like that!
Newfoundland has another chef I’d consider to be similar, Mark McCrowe. I’ll find a bean recipe from his cookbook later.
I can’t think of a food ambassador for Ontario.
Maybe Martin Picard and Ricardo for Quebec.
Julie Van Rosendaal for Alberta.
What’s nice, is that Michael Smith’s recipes allow flexibility, even invite flexibility, when it comes to substitutions, omissions and additions.
He isn’t one of those fussy recipe writers.
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Thanks for posting these. I skimmed the Breton recipe because I’ve got some kielbasa I need to use. I was nodding along with the ingredients but pulled up short when I got to the ingredient “2 tablespoons dried marjoram”.
To me marjoram has a pretty strong, characteristic scent and I do use it, but usually with a light hand. When you make this do you use the 2 Tbs instructed? I’d be concerned it might be overpowering - do you find it to be a heavy presence in the dish or does it blend right in?
Thanks again.
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I wouldn’t use that much.
To be honest, I don’t measure my herbs or beans that carefully, and I never make a full pound of dried beans- so my Breton Beans recipes so far have been using the ingredients, with my own gut instinct in terms of how much.
Let me look at the recipe. When I make beans, I usually use 1 or 2 cups of dried beans, and 1 tsp of dried marjoram would be plenty for that.
The recipe calls for 400 grams of dried beans or 2 large cans of beans (800 g cooked beans), as well as around a lb of meat. I think 2 tsp dried marjoram might be the right amount, to start, but if you find dried marjoram strong, try 1 tsp.
(Or substitute 1 or 2 tsp dried oregano, if you like it better)
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Thanks, I very much appreciate you taking the time to look back at it and offering your thoughts.
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Here’s one I posted in another thread but it belongs here, too. Brazilian “Trooper Beans”.
I posted this over 6 months ago saying I was going to make this dish, but I still haven’t gotten around to it. I first had it from a Brazilian churrascaria food wagon in central Florida and really liked it.
I need to buy one of these, then I can get on it.
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Remind me of the Navy. Hold up twp fingers and rotate them back and forth. Time to “turn to.”
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Interesting name. I believe it refers to Cattlemen that moved livestock around Brazil. They also traded along the way and dispersed news and gossip.
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I just soaked and cooked a big pot of black chick peas. Someone in our household purchased them dried form a health food store. But I don’t know what to do with them aside from using them in a normal recipe instead of regular chick peas. Any ideas?
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