I love Stove Top Stuffing. If I had my choice, it would be considered a main dish. Alas, my family does not agree with me. So, the next best thing is to stuff something with Stove Top. I’ve had this recipe for sausage stuffed peppers since I was married almost 23 years ago and it’s…
My Italian grandmother made pasta e fagioli with fatback (picture a giant slice of bacon without the meat), kidney beans and pasta. Nothing more, nothing less. Matter of fact, she made most of her meals with fatback: scungilli and fatback, swiss chard and fatback pieces, chicken fried in fatback, fatback cooked in fatback. It was…
My cranberry craze continues! Only this time, I’ve added some hooch. Refrigerate overnight or let it sit for a few weeks to mellow. Either way, it produces quite a kick! Please enjoy responsibly – too much moonshine can make the toughest of men lose what sense God gave them. Just like the time I found…
My husband’s grandmother used to make “roast-a-beef” every Sunday. She would boil the roast with some salt and pepper. The result was a grey, tough lump of meat that needed to be cut with a chainsaw. Never in my life did I ever hear of someone boiling meat! She also ate raw onion sandwiches and…
Take the wonderful deliciousness of baked beans and the spicy heartiness of chili, simmer them together and the result is Baked Bean Chili. Enjoy!
The wonderful aroma from this sauce, as it’s bubbling on the stove, brings me right back to my Gramma Josephine’s kitchen. She would make this simple sauce and pour it over everything, from pasta to gnocchi, chicken and even fish. It’s a great sauce to can, but it also freezes well.
There’s not much to say about this recipe, except that it’s delicious. DAMN delicious. It’s one of those desserts that makes you sneak away with the last piece and hide in the closet so you don’t have to share (yes, I’ve done that – I’m not ashamed. I refer you to the Tastykake Chocolate Junior…
My grandfather pickled garlic scapes long before they were a “trendy” food. He was an Italian who grew up in the depression and nothing went to waste in his household. As a kid, opening the refrigerator door and finding pickled pigs feet was not surprising to me. Tripe, smelt, head cheese (yes, it is what…
I L.O.V.E. pie. Bake me a good apple pie and I’ll be your friend forever. This recipe contains the unusual step of partially cooking the apples before they’re put into the pie. But that’s the secret. The apples are always perfectly done – no half-cooked or mushy apples here. Another perk of this recipe – the…
While spending a few days in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, I happened upon a little farm stand, on a back road, in the middle of nowhere. Among the usual jars of chow-chow, blueberry jam and apple butter, I spied a small jar of violet jelly. After striking up a conversation with the lovely Amish woman who made…
While the spring equinox is just around the corner, winter refuses to completely give up its icy grip in this part of the country. Although the weather has managed to creep up above freezing during some of the days, nights are still filled with unseasonably cold temperatures and raging winds. Even as I sit here…
The weather around here has been officially breaking records. This morning my thermometer registered fifteen BELOW zero. The only relief for this nonsense is soup! One of my favorite soup recipes is Martha Stewart’s Mushroom Barley Soup. The original recipe calls for 1lb cremini mushrooms and 3 strips of bacon. I use 8oz of mushrooms…
I have to thank my neighbor for this recipe! This is a SWEET pickle brine, which brings out the wonderful taste of the peppers. I use a mixture of green and red bell peppers from my garden. They’re delicious with Italian hoagies, tuna sandwiches, omelets or just straight out of the jar. Pickled Sweet…
Another winter snowstorm is upon us. Most of us have gone from BRING IT ON to Dear Mother Nature, if I have to be stuck in this house one more day with these kids, I may seriously lose the little bit of sanity that I have left. So, in a salute to warm days of…
With the temperature hovering around zero and the winter wind whipping fiercely enough to take your breath away when you step outside, I decided that there’s nothing better to do than to can some carrots. I stored some carrots in a friend’s root cellar back in the fall which were a mixture of Saint Valery,…
The Farmers in the Dell 