Elevate your Easter baked beans with three simple ingredients: pork ribs, bacon, and a hotdog, for good measure.

By Bethany Mathieu, Bangor Daily News

Baked beans are a New England staple at many, if not all holidays. Leaving them out would be like dis-inviting that annoying cousin that talks about themself way too much and spits the slightest bit on your arm when they laugh. For the sake of tradition, they have to be there. Baked beans are that cousin.

When I look at them, they look good.

When I smell they, they smell good.

When I think about them, they seem like they would be really good.

When I taste them, they are just alright.

Every time.

The fact of the matter is, in a world of green bean casseroles (seriously, is there anyone out there who wouldn’t kill for a French’s onion right now?), baked beans just don’t hold their own like they used to. In fact, I have often sat down to a plate of baked beans and wondered, what is this missing? Come to find out, the answer was glaringly obvious: more meat. More-freaking-meat!

As much as I admire the sentiment behind the bean-eating, animal-saving, Birkenstock-wearing vegetarian lifestyle, I am wholeheartedly in love with meat. Note: I am eating a carrot, holding a cat and wearing Birkenstocks as I type this, so I do not lie to you (wait, the carrot part was a lie).

Nevertheless, I suspect most of my fellow Mainer’s can relate to this love affair I have with meat. So, this Easter, if you are going to spend 18+ hours on your beans, just go for it. Go all the way. The pork ribs. The bacon. The tiny, little hot dogs that are packed so tightly into that plastic that they almost scare you. Don’t sell your dish short. No one is going to miss that space in the pot where more beans went. Except for maybe your cousin. Click here to continue reading.