Calico Baked Beans

To me, a happy meal isn’t the kind you buy at the fast food joint; it’s the “make-do” kind that comes together rather effortlessly when you’re at the cottage, with a cupboard-ful of odds and ends, and the grocery store miles away. This excellent rendition of baked beans came about one day at a cabin on Lake Michigan. My sister and I were dreaming up a dish for dinner to complement the walleye pike her sweetie had recently caught. She had brought the fixings for baked beans—a recipe she had gotten from a friend and played with over the years--and I had some smoky beef jerky to add to the mix.

While the beans bubbled lazily in the oven and the fish fillets thawed on the counter, the group of us went kayaking on water that was the color of the Caribbean Sea.

You can serve this stew-like dish as a main course with some sturdy whole grain bread and Organic Valley Pasture Butter, or as a side dish with grilled burgers or hot dogs--or pan-fried fish, of course.