Favourite Recipes from Old New Brunswick Kitchens’ Bread and Butter Pickles & Baked Beans

These recipes from Favourite Recipes from Old New Brunswick Kitchens may not be fast to make but they were technically easy to do, a great place to start on a Monday. Considering the roof guys will be back any moment hammering my roof, I had better get started before a new migraine blossoms in my brain.

You begin with half a peck of cucumbers. What is a peck you ask? I have no idea. Even my mother-in-law Lorraine didn’t know so I just used what I had: six pickling cucumbers. You are supposed to slice the cucumbers, 8 onions and 1 red pepper. To me, slicing meant slicing lengthwise but I realized later that this type of pickle is usually cut into rounds. Ugh!

I chopped up some onion with the cucumbers and sprinkled with salt and let stand for a few hours.

Then I put everything in a big pot with a roasted pepper. Now this is what the recipe says to do with your 1/2 peck of cucumbers and 8 sliced onions: add 1 tbsp celery seed, 1 tbsp mustard seed, 4 cups white sugar and 60 whole cloves.

Because I had no idea what a peck was, I just guessed my measurements, breaking it down into a fourth of the recipe.

You were supposed to cover with cider vinegar but I used my natural pickling vinegar which according to the recipe was fine, you could use white vinegar instead. Let come to a scald and bottle when hot.

I did not do the traditional sterilizing of jars… I was just going to keep these in the fridge so I let them soak and once cooled completely, put the lids on and kept cold in the fridge.

These are good but holy cow are they ever tart! They needed a lot more sugar. Part of the charm of this book is the old fashioned language and terminology but a little help with conversion would have been appreciated.

Next I made the baked beans. It did not specify what kind so I used white navy beans. The recipe calls for 3 cups of dried beans which seemed like way too many to me so I soaked 1 1/2 cups of white navy beans overnight in a large bowl of water. Then I rinsed them and put in my crockpot.

If you are making the entire 3 cups you will need 1/4 cup molasses, 2 tsp dry mustard, 3/4 tsp pepper, 1/4 cup white sugar, 1/4 lb salt pork cubed (I used turkey bacon), 1 tsp of salt and 1 small onion buried in the center. I should have cut mine in half but I liked how it looked.

Cover with boiling water. To make this in the oven, baked in a 350F oven for six to seven hours until done. The recipe notes in parenthesis: Also may be cooked in crock pot.

Well it was a late supper of eggs, steak and beans that night before they got all thick and creamy but they did! Next time I will definitely use less onion because it did get a little sweet so I added some hot sauce to the mix.

I am not a big fan of canned baked beans but I did like these very much. Beans that come from a can always taste weird to me. These homemade baked beans were rich and quite yummy.

I always appreciate good instructions and although these recipes are tasty, sometimes cooking from this cookbook makes me nervous. I never know if I am doing it correctly. Definitely not for the beginner cook.

Now, where are those roof guys? They are late!