This is a real gem of a recipe from the Joy of Cooking. It’s a snap to make, and surprisingly delicious. Even better, it still works great if you toss in various other veggies (sliced and diced to match the carrots, of course). I’ve made it with celery & carrots and brussels sprouts & carrots.

Parslied Carrots

from the Joy of Cooking

Take 6 carrots and slice them into rounds. Steam or boil until tender. In a large saucepan, sautee 2 T diced onions in 2 T butter. Add the cooked carrots with a squeeze of lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste. Toss with 2 T parsley.

I am all kinds of excited because my mother in law brought me a scale when she came over. Now I can bake things without struggling/approximating badly the pounds to grams conversion!

The problem is that I cannot for the life of me find baking soda. That’s okay. I can still make biscuits, muffins, scones and bread.

When I came across these Mississippi Delta Cathead Biscuits in an article from the Houston Press celebrating Elvis Day, I just had to try them. They just looked so dang fun and authentic.

I excitedly mixed up the dough early one morning only to have it turn into a gloppy, wet mess with no chance of kneading in any way, shape or form. Unhappily, I dumped a little more flour into the dough-cum-batter but kept myself from mixing it more, remembering past biscuit failures. I decided to just pour the whole thing into a pan and hope for the best (my life philosophy, come to think of it).

What I got was a tender, moist, not really flaky but still tasty giant biscuit with an additively crunchy bottom crust. It was, in fact, delicious, sliced in half and slathered with butter and cane syrup. So give the recipe a shot, and don’t despair if it doesn’t form a dough. Just pop it in the oven and keep going!

This year, I have so dang much to be thankful for.

I had the most amazing summer traveling across the country and fulfilling a life long dream of visiting America’s National parks.

I gave birth to the most amazing baby (to me anyway 🙂 )

I moved to Spain, fulfilling another life long dream of living in Europe.

I quit a job that I hated.

I have a wonderful, supportive, ambitious husband who loves me dearly.

And I have awesome, amazing friends who ship me cans of French’s Fried Onions so I can make a very special Christmas dinner for my little family!

I’ll assume you already know how to make green bean casserole. If not, just pick up a can of French’s Fried Onions and read the recipe on the back! Here’s the steak & guiness pie I served with the onions. Delicious!

Steak & Guinness Pie

Toss 1 kg of beef stew chunks in flour, salt, and pepper and brown in the oil of your choice. Set aside. Add 2 chopped onions, 3 chopped carrots and brown. Add the beef back along with a can or bottle of Guinness. Add cider to cover. Simmer, cover, and cook until beef is tender, about 2 hours.

Remove beef, onions, and carrots from the broth with a slotted spoon and put in baking dish. Using a flour slurry, thicken the remaining broth into a rich gravy and pour over the meat. Top with the pastry topping of your choice and bake until done.

A grilled ham and cheese sandwich with a fried egg on top.

Yummeroos!

I have two, faithful, “leave on the stove all day” tomato sauces that both came from Saveur magazine, a Sicilian meat sauce and a Ragu a la Bolognese. But, being without my magazines, I decided to try the Joy of Cooking’s Classic Italian American Tomato Sauce I, which the book promises to be “the sauce Italian grandmothers had simmering on the stove for half a day.” The recipe intrigued me, as it called for a hunk of pork or beef to be cooked in the sauce, then shredded and used to make meatballs.

With no food processor, the shredding took considerably more effort than I would have liked, and I considered leaving the step out, not being a huge fan of meatballs personally. Still, I thought I would cook it as directed this once and was surprisingly pleased with the results.  The sauce was rich and thick, with a deep, caramelized, beefy tomato flavor, studded throughout with dense meatballs that were nothing like their ground beef predecessors. Instead of being light, crumbly and relatively flavorless, these meatballs are intensely meaty, crusty on the outside and rich.  They complete the sauce perfectly.

Best. meatballs. evar.

Classic Italian American Tomato Sauce I (Neopolitan Ragu)

from the Joy of Cooking

Brown a hunk of beef (bottom round) in a large pot over medium high heat. Add 2 cups diced onions, 4 oz chopped prosciutto and 2 minced cloves of garlic. Cook until soft. Deglaze with 1 cup of water and cook until it’s almost evaporated, about 25 minutes. Stir in two 28 oz cans whole tomatoes with juice, crushed with your fingers, 1 cup of red wine, and some basil or oregano.

Simmer until the beef is falling apart tender, about 3-4 hours. Remove the meat. At this point in the original recipe, it calls for the addition of sweet Italian sausage, which I don’t have. So… moving on…

Chop or process the hunk o’meat until finely chopped but not a paste. Mix with 2 eggs, 3/4 c breadcrumbs, 1/2 c grated Parmesan, salt and pepper to taste. Form 1 inch meatballs and brown them in a skillet, about 1 min per side. Add the meatballs to the sauce.