Family Recipes

[Klark]

Even if a recipe is widely known, there are some that were a staple of your family dinner nights. Let us all join in the revel of the tastebuds by submitting recipes our families have used or that you've at least tried.

I"ll start with my family's recipe of LIttle Dogs and Sauce.

You'll need:
Cocktail weiners
Strawberry Jelly
Heinz Chili Sauce

Believe it or not, that's it for ingredients. I know the list doesn't look like a tasty combonation, but it creates a candied barbeque sauce for the dogs.

Fire up the stove, and empty two bottles of Chili Sauce and one medium sized jar of Strawberry Jelly into a medium sized pot. Stir continuously until sauce comes to a boil. Add the dogs and reduce heat. Allow to cook for 20 minutes or more to marinate the dogs. Serve it up!

It's an easy recipe to make, and one I know other people know, but it was always my birthday dinner favorite. By the way, the sauce will stay for a very very very long time when refrigerated, so you can find other uses for it.

[GhostBat]

Looks a lot like this (http://www.recipezaar.com/Appetizer-Grape-Jelly-and-Chili-Sauce-Meatballs-or-Lil-Smokies-73362) recipe my mom and grandma both used a few times as I was growing up.

I tried making it with Chriz, but for some reason it turned out to be more watery than I had anticipated. Still tasty, though.

I strongly suggest making your own meatballs if you go that route. Even without the sauce, they're absolutely delicious!

[Klark]

My older sister uses Grape Jelly in her dog sauce. I always preferred the Strawberry. Never added cayenne pepper. I might wanna try that.

[GhostBat]

My older sister uses Grape Jelly in her dog sauce. I always preferred the Strawberry. Never added cayenne pepper. I might wanna try that.

I've never used the cayenne pepper, either, but I'm always up for more heat.

This deviled egg recipe is one I've made several times with Chriz, and they go very fast.

1/4 cup mayo
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon yellow or dijon mustard
1/8 teaspoon salt
ground black pepper, to taste
paprika for garnish
(this makes 6 eggs, 12 egg halves)

Peel 6 boiled eggs, cut them in half lengthwise to scoop out the yolk, and mix the yolk with the ingredients above (besides the paprika) into a paste.

Now what comes next requires a bit of creativity. Originally, I used a spoon to scoop up some of the mixture and fill the egg halves, but I've started filling plastic baggies with the mixture and cutting off a corner to pipe the yummy goodness into the egg halves like decorating a cake.

When that's all set, sprinkle some paprika and let them sit in the fridge overnight. This is very important as the flavors need to meld. Otherwise they'll taste very mustardy!

Here's my first (and very sloppy) attempt at this recipe:

http://photos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v260/116/87/10738944/n10738944_38994673_1110.jpg

Yes, I like paprika.

[Chriz]

Growing up, my mom made something called "American Chop Suey" (well, she called it that, anyway). It's a pseudo-Italian pasta and tomato casserole thingie. It's my ultimate comfort food, and I could eat it endlessly.

Ingredients:

Large onion: 1, finely chopped
Green peppers: 2, sliced into thin strips and about 2" long
Celery stalks: 3, chopped thin
Garlic: 3 cloves, minced or pressed
Crushed tomatoes: 28oz (usually a single can)
Tomato paste: 6oz
Ground beef, lean: 1lb
Salt: 1tsp (you might want more, I go light on sodium)
Sugar: 2tsp
Pepper: 1tsp or so, but really to taste
Oregano and Basil: to taste, about 1tbsp each
Elbow macaroni: 1lb
Olive oil: shouldn't need more than a tablespoon or so

Get a big deep pan, one that you might boil up a pound of spaghetti in (that is, something like a 2-gallon pot). Drop in a bit of olive oil and put on med-high heat. Wait 30 seconds or so until the oil is hot, then put in the onion, garlic, and pepper. Stir until the onions start to brown, might take as long as 20 minutes.

Once the onions start to look cooked, put in the celery and peppers. Mix with the onion and oil and let it cook until the new veggies start to soften. Slicing the celery thin will speed this up.

Once the veggies are softening, add the ground meat. Break it up with a spatula or long cooking spoon and let the meat brown. You'll need to stir it relatively often to prevent burning and to break the meat up. This should take about 10 minutes.

Once the meat's browned, turn the heat down to medium and add the crushed tomatoes and tomato paste. The paste will be like a solid object, so break it up with your spatula and mix it in with the rest. Add the oregano and basil and mix in. Then cover and let this simmer over medium heat for 20 minutes. You might want to check on it halfway through and give it a stir.

Twenty minutes later, the tomato paste should be well integrated and the sauce bubbling happily away. This is where you'll need to exercise some judgment. If you want the peppers a bit crunchy, move on to the next step now. If you want them broken down more, let the sauce simmer for 10, 20, or even 30 more minutes. It's up to you.

Here's where things get strange. Add 2 cups of water and stir to mix. This will drop the temp of the sauce, so it'll have to build back up. While it's doing that, add the salt and sugar and stir it in. Then add half of the elbow macaroni -- that's right, add the pasta right to the sauce itself. Mix that in gently and get the elbows distributed. Then add 2 more cups of water and mix in the other half of the pasta. Basically, you're adding water and pasta but doing it stages to help smooth everything out.

At this point you should have what appears to be a very watery sauce with hard, uncooked elbow macaroni swimming in it. That's fine.

Leave it uncovered and let it simmer for 20 more minutes. You definitely want to give this a stir every 5 minutes or so. The pasta is going to drink up that excess water (which is now flavored with the meat and oil and salt and other stuff), and it'll do that on the bottom before it does it on the top. So stir to get the extra water down to the bottom every few minutes.

It might look like the pasta isn't absorbing the water. It tends to look like that right up until the last 5 minutes, then a metamorphosis happens.

After 20 minutes, turn off the heat but let it sit on the stovetop for another 10 minutes or so. You want to give each piece of pasta the opportunity to gobble up the residual water it needs. I've made this a number of times and it's never watery in the end.

Makes like a million servings. Put grated parmesan or romano cheese on it, have some garlic bread, some red wine, and you have a good romantic meal (except Kat just eats the macaroni... ah well).