Down-Home Baked Beans with Ground Beef

My job requires me to attend many evening events involving food, but perhaps none were as special as the dinner I attended two nights ago.

The hot new chef in town prepared us a wonderful Italian-influenced meal, topped off by a rich slice of chocolate citrus cake.

It was fun, because Chef B, as I will call him, was at my table a few months back when we tasted the work of another chef at a menu sampling. That chef, Chef S, also cooked Italian. It's interesting to compare approaches to cooking and meals and then dish about the food. Every chef I've encountered has his own style. While I prefer some more than others, I know that it's just a matter of taste.

I don't think I ever met a food style I did not enjoy, from whatever is in vogue at the moment to old church-supper favorites. That is why I am no longer the size 5 I was at age 18.

Ah, back to the dinner. Driving along the river at twilight to a sprawling country home fronted by a stand of birch trees is a warming experience. Clever and animated conversation, a roaring fire, wine to warm the palate and a good meal - such riches.

I drove through Frenchtown at sunset the other day, toward the western sky and its layers of lavender, salmon and pink. Grandma Annie's house, now the domain of the Ostineau-Smithson family, was ablaze with lights. My heart lurched and then leaped with pleasure. A family is there, once again. We believe the old house has its origins in 1863, the year the lot was parceled out to someone named Deroucher. Now it is sturdily standing in its third century. The kitchen, always the heart of the house, is filled with spacious cabinets and a frieze of grapevines. It is warm and welcoming. How Grandma Annie would love it!

Annie's second daughter Jane, left at age 20, eloping with a theater usher in those headlong days before World War II. Like her mother, grandmother, aunts and sisters, Jane was an excellent cook and baker who favored simple down-to-earth fare. In later years, she came home to the old house, a widow now. About 18 years ago she died there in the same bed and room our Mémere died in. (I dream of that room often. It is now a sunny, two-story stairwell.)

On cold winter nights, Jane often made a dish with baked beans, ground beef, onions, ketchup, mustard and a dash of brown sugar. I do not know the exact measurements, but I tried the casserole recently, and enjoy it reheated for several nights during a brutal cold snap.

I used:

2 cans of baked beans with onions
1/2 pound ground beef, browned
1 small onion, chopped
1 tablespoon mustard
1/3 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon brown sugar

I combined all the ingredients and baked in a preheated, 30-degree oven for about 45 minutes. It's best served with coleslaw and cornbread, but I had only bread sticks on hand that week.

I like these homey dishes when the weather turns brutal, as it has here in Wisconsin.

What's your favorite down-home dish?