Daddy's Girl

As I was making supper last night, a new thought (or at least a new perspective on a thought) occurred to me. I have always given my mom the most credit for inspiring my love of cooking (and she deserves it) but I have never really considered my dad’s influence.

My parents have been divorced since I was little and I lived with my mom for the majority of my up-bringing. However, I was still a daddy’s girl. Although I don’t remember, I have been told that my dad would take me out on the tractor when I was a toddler and I would fall fast asleep on his lap while he cut hay. I do remember that as I got older, I always looked forward to “dad’s weekend” and going “bummin’” with him. To clarify, “bummin’” seemed to be driving around without a real plan, stopping at any garage sales that looked promising, visiting anyone you knew that looked like they were home, usually getting a burger somewhere, and just hanging around the family farm. I loved it! I still can’t pin-point why I loved it, but I did!

One of my biggest food memories from being a kid with my dad is that he used to take us through the drive through at the place with the secret sauce. He would order like a dozen hamburgers “plain with ketchup and pickles” for us and whichever of my cousins were around. Getting fries was a real treat and if we did get them, he would ALWAYS say “eat your burger first cause I don’t want to hear ‘Daaaaad, I’m hungrrrrry’”. My cousins and I could (and did) imitate that phrase perfectly!

When we weren’t out bummin or having drive through burgers, my dad did cook. He grew up on the farm and he prefers meat and potatoes. He’s not really big on a lot of seasoning or spices and I don’t think he tries many experiments in the kitchen, even to this day. But what he does cook, turns out pretty good and he inspired last night’s supper.

I am not even sure what we used to call this supper when I was growing up but I’m going to call it goulash now. Dad’s version was a can of tomato soup, a can of Veg-All mixed veggies, ground beef and wagon wheel pasta. I have to admit, I’m thinking the reason why I liked this so much as a kid was the wagon wheels… I loved pasta then, I love pasta now, and there are few pastas that are more fun than wagon wheels! Now, some of you who have read this blog may be thinking (as I am writing this) that this recipe calls for a lot of cans. I didn’t exactly follow dad’s recipe, I was just taking a lovely stroll down memory lane while I was preparing my own version!

I happened to have had some homemade tomato soup in the freezer that I chose for this, along with some frozen tomato puree from the end of the growing season here. I am also not a fan of the consistency of canned veggies in my food-snob adulthood so I opted for frozen peas and carrots as well as frozen corn. Last, but not least, I added a bit of bouillon for that salty, brothy, base and sadly, I did not have any wagon wheels so good ol’ elbow mac had to do. Just to round out the memory for myself, I buttered a slice of bread to eat alongside this, just like dad would have!

My kids gobbled it up, my husband had a hot meal in his thermos today, and I had a very satisfied belly and heart remembering supper with dad as a kid!

Dad’s Goulash

1 lb ground beef

15 oz tomato soup (canned or homemade)

15 oz tomato puree (canned or homemade)

1 cup water

1 cup frozen peas and carrots

1/2 cup frozen corn

2 beef bouillon cubes (start with 1 if you are using canned soup and taste-test for salt before adding 2^nd cube)

Salt and pepper to taste

1/2 lb dry pasta, cooked per package instructions

In a 6-quart pot, brown ground beef over medium heat until cooked through. Add all remaining ingredients except pasta. Bring to a simmer and cook 10-15 minutes until bouillon cubes are dissolved and veggies are tender.

Stir in pasta and serve immediately.

Holiday Hustle

My apologies to any of you who have been waiting on a new post from me. I truly appreciate each of you who read this! This time of year is my absolute favorite but I have a tenancy to bury myself in projects. From decorating to handmade gifts to entertaining to cookies, I love it all! But I am finding that all of that leaves very little time for blogging.

Honestly, it doesn't leave a lot of time for cooking either. I tend to do a lot of quick and easy things or pull things out of the freezer while I run around like a crazy elf. I did try to make braised baby back ribs this past weekend. It is a recipe that I have made before and the first time I did it, the ribs were fall-off-the-bone tender and the flavor was amazing! I have tried the same recipe probably six times since then and still have not achieved the same results. I keep trying to get the best cut ribs, cooking a little longer, different varieties of white wine... I can not figure out why I'm not getting the same results. The flavor is good, my ribs are just not getting even close to as tender!

One recipe that always turns out though is my sugar cookies! This is pretty much the only kind of cookies I make at Christmas time even though I have seen (or tasted) hundreds of other delicious Christmas cookie recipes. I stick to rolling out homemade sugar cookie dough and cutting out all of our favorite shapes. Then I whip up some of my mom's buttercream frosting in a bunch of colors for decorating. Sometimes I add candies on the Christmas trees and chocolate chips on the snowmen but, for the most part, I'm completely good with straight up frosting!

What is your favorite type of Christmas cookie to make? Or eat!

Tradition Addition

What a wonderfully busy weekend! It seems that every weekend from now until New Years is always wonderfully busy. This is my absolute favorite time of the year! My husband works crazy hours during the holidays and then I fill basically every one of his non-working hours with Christmas traditions (new and old)!

Yesterday we upheld an old tradition; we went Christmas tree hunting with some really great friends of ours. This tradition started as “Sunday, Funday” before we had children and was an entire day of mimosas (and other concoctions), Christmas trees, snacks and hot soup when we got home with the tree. The first year, we got home with our tree and added tortellini to the soup we had in the slow cooker. We figured we would play a round of cards while the pasta cooked so we all sat down at the dining room table. The next thing we knew, there was a slow soup waterfall flowing out of the slow cooker, down the cabinet and forming a lovely pond on the floor. Tortellini in the slow cooker must me supervised at all times…

These days we do things almost the same way but with our children and without mimosas. This year, our soup was even the same flavor as that first year. But what I wanted to share with you today was the meatball appetizer we dug into this time.

I believe I made mention in a previous post that I was popping some leftover sage stuffing in the freezer. If I had to guess (because I didn’t measure of course), I would say I had 3 cups of stuffing or so. As it turns out, that is enough stuffing to mix with 3 pounds of ground beef and 1 pound of pork sausage to make enough meatballs to feed an army… I’m thankful my friend offered to roll meatballs with me or I might still be doing it! Lucky for us, they turned out delicious and almost a dozen of them were eaten before I even got the sauce together!

For the sauce, I wanted to keep playing off of the Thanksgiving flavors of the stuffing. I decided to add cranberries to my store-bought honey barbeque sauce. I can remember my mom adding grape jelly to barbeque sauce when she made cocktail wieners for holidays and parties when I was a kid. They were ALWAYS a hit. My thoughts went like this; cranberry sauce is a little like grape jelly in sweetness and jelly consistency, cranberry sauce is as much of a Thanksgiving staple as stuffing is, cranberry barbeque sauce and sage stuffing meatballs makes complete sense!

I think these meatballs were good enough to be added to the annual tradition roster. The cranberries gave the sauce just the right about of tartness but didn’t over power the tender, savory meatballs! We all ate so many meatballs and cheesy bean dip that we barely had room for the soup in the slow cooker (and tortellini that we cooked separately on the stove top this time).

 Holiday Cocktail Meatballs

For the Meatballs

3 lbs ground beef

1 lb pork sausage

About 3 cups cooked sage stuffing

3 eggs

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

2 Tbsp low sodium soy sauce

1 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp dried thyme

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease 4 baking sheets.

In the largest bowl you can find, combine all ingredients. Scoop roughly 2 Tbsp for each meatball and roll into balls. Place meatballs on baking sheets about 1 inch apart so they have a chance to brown in the oven.

Bake for 30-40 minutes. Allow meatballs to cool on pan at least 10 minutes before transferring to vessel with sauce.

For the Sauce

3 cups honey barbeque sauce

3 cup fresh cranberries

1 1/2 cup apple juice

Place all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth. Pour over cooked meatballs and simmer until sauce thickens slightly (about 5-7 minutes). Serve warm.

*Meatballs freeze well in case you are not trying to feed an army. And sauce can easily be reduce to 1/3 of the amount written.