Category Archives: Recipes

Super Bowl Party

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Every year, Dad and I have a Super Bowl Party. It’s a joke. It’s just me and Dad. I make hot wings and some other game-day food. This year, I made a bean dip, Bacon Jalapeno Popper Egg Rolls, and hot wings. The food was good but all I wanted to do was eat and eat and eat some more. Ugh.

About the Super Bowl…I am not a football fan at all. I despise football. I don’t care who wins or who loses. I always take a side though, just for shits and giggles. This year, I chose The Eagles. Yeah, I know. The Chiefs are closer to home but what does that matter? Maybe The Chiefs need to be knocked down a notch or two. Too big for their britches, you might say. So, I chose The Eagles. We know how that game turned out! 22-40 Eagles! Anyway, I didn’t really watch the game. I only watched while we were having our hot wings. In the past, I have only watched for the commercials but somehow in the past few years, the funny or at least amusing commercials have declined. It’s no longer fun to watch.

Anyway, I thought I might share a recipe since I haven’t done that in quite some time. I hope you like it!

Bacon Jalapeno Popper Egg Rolls

8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 c. shredded cheddar cheese
8 strips of bacon, cooked and crumbled
4 jalapenos, seeds removed and chopped
1 tsp. garlic powder
10 egg roll wrappers (I used more than 10)
Oil, for frying
Ranch, or other dipping sauce

Mix all ingredients until well combined. Working with one wrapper at a time, place a spoonful or two of the jalapeno mixture onto the center of each wrapper. You decide the thickness of your egg rolls. You will get more egg rolls if you use less of the cheese mixture in each roll.

To roll, lightly wet the edges of the wrapper with water. Fold up the bottom corner of the wrapper to cover the filling. Then fold in the right and left corners to the center, pressing lightly to seal. Roll the wrapper tightly until the filling is completely enclosed and the edges are sealed. Fry in hot oil, watching carefully to prevent burning. Drain on paper towels. Serve hot with dipping sauce of your choice.

Well, that’s all for today, friends. Have a great week! 

 

 

Hallelujah!

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My cookbook is ready for final printing! I’m excited and a little nervous at the same time! I’m 99% satisfied with the final result. The 1% is an issue I had no control over using the programs I was using. That issue is that some recipes will continue on the backside of the page. I don’t know. Maybe the “issue” is just an “issue” for me, and me alone. You know, OCD considered and all. Haha. I’m too much of a perfectionist. The important thing is that I have all of my recipes in one place and even if no one buys a copy, I will give copies to my children so they have all of our favorite recipes in one place!

This cookbook is not perfect. It has no photos. There are 184 recipes that I hope you will enjoy! I tried to keep the price down but I have to cover printing and shipping, too. Your cost is $30.00 and that includes shipping. Everything is so expensive these days. Anyway, it’s done and ready for printing. They are print-to-order, meaning they will be ordered as your orders come in. I can only accept personal checks and money orders at this time. Please allow time for printing and shipping. If paying by check, your check must clear before your copy is ordered. If you are still interested, please contact me here or use the contact link found on each page of this blog. and I will email you my mailing address. Include any questions you may have. Thank you!

Thanks for your patience as I completed this task! It’s been 30+ years in the making! Now, I can get back to blogging and that short story/novel I began many moons ago. You remember “Spike” don’t you? Yeah. That’s my next goal. Wish me luck!

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First Copy!

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Well, friends, I am here to say that I have received the first printing of my cookbook and I am about to embark upon another couple of weeks of editing and proof-reading, and then even more proof-reading and more editing!

My goal is to have this done and ready for final printing sometime in July – of this year, of course! I’m excited but a bit hesitant. Hesitant because I want everyone to like what I have done and not be too critical of it. I don’t mind a little constructive criticism but in this day and age so many people don’t know how to be nice anymore! I know my cookbook isn’t perfect. It doesn’t have photos, and some of the recipes continue to the backside of a page. I had to work with the programs I had to keep the cost of the cookbook down. Anyway, a LOT of work went into it and I hope you will like it!

Here’s a sneak peek at the first, hard copy:

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The cookbook is spiral bound, so that it lays flat while cooking! There 184 recipes. The cost will be around $30.00 each. This covers the cost for printing, and includes shipping. As soon as the book is ready for final printing, I will send order details.

Thank you all for being patient during this long, drawn-out process! You are very much appreciated!

Have a great week, friends!

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A Freebie For You!

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Some of you may remember that I have been working on a cookbook…for several years now. Ugh. Actually, it’s been in the back of my mind for 30 years or so! I’ve been collecting recipes, making notes, and saving the best since I was around 17 years old!

Over the years I have tried and tried to make a homemade sweet and sour sauce and I have a stack of recipes with notes all over them! None of them were ever quite right. One was too sweet, or one was too tangy. One might have had too much ketchup (for color) and one might have had too much onion and not enough bell pepper. You get the idea.

Today, I decided to give it another shot. I took all the notes I wrote on all the other recipes and put them all together in my feeble mind. I wrote my own recipe and made Instant Pot Sweet and Sour Meatballs. I even made a batch of sauce to save for later! The sauce was the best I’ve ever made!

It may be a bit too sweet for you, or it may have too much onion or too many chunks of pineapple. But the thing about recipes is that you can tweak them to your own taste!

Here’s my recipe and I hope you like it. Call it a freebie before my cookbook is finished!

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Sweet and Sour Sauce

1 (20 oz) can pineapple chunks, undrained
1 green red or green bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
1/4 onion, cut into 1-inch pieces
3/4 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup rice vinegar
4 tbsp ketchup
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch in 2 tbsp water, to make slurry

Add all ingredients to a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Let simmer until the vegetables are tender.

Add cornstarch slurry and stir constantly, until thickened to desired consistency. Let the sauce cool before storing it in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Use it as a dipping sauce or with your favorite sweet-and-sour recipe.

If you want to make Sweet and Sour Meatballs, just add frozen meatballs during cooking but in the end, you may need a bit more cornstarch slurry. If you want to make this in the Instant Pot, add everything to the pot except for the cornstarch slurry. Cook on manual or high pressure for 7 minutes. Manually release pressure when the timer goes off. Add the slurry to thicken. Serve over rice.

If you like Sweet and Sour Chicken, add cooked (and still hot) breaded chicken bites at the very end and stir until coated, then serve over rice.

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Well, I hope you like this recipe! Let me know what you think if you try it!

aunt-debbie

Russian Beans

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I made my great-grandmother’s Russian Beans the other day. I wish I knew the specific origin of this recipe. My great-grandparents were German citizens who migrated to Russia to take advantage of the offer of free land. At least, that’s what I have heard since I was young.

What’s funny is that as I was growing up, all of the German recipes I loved were possibly not even German at all. Some were probably German dishes but many had other origins completely. I wish I had more details about those recipes. I had asked my grandmother many times the name of some of those things. She would tell me the name in German but she didn’t know how it was spelled or what it meant in English, or even where it came from. Now I have these recipes that I’ve had to call something – something I had to make up! For example; she made little potato filled pockets that I can only call pierogis. She called them something else in German that I can’t recall. Many recipes I wrote down many years ago because I knew my grandmother wouldn’t be around forever. She didn’t have them written down! They were only in her head.

I have searched and searched and searched some more to find a Russian Beans recipe online and in cookbooks. I wanted to compare it to my great-grandmother’s recipe. I can only come to the conclusion that my great-grandmother must have adapted a Russian recipe to what she had access to or that she possibly just made it up and called it Russian Beans because she was in Russia! Haha! Maybe she made it up after they migrated to the United States. I haven’t a clue. In any case, this recipe and more from my great-grandmother Yunker, will be in my cookbook!

Yes, I’m still working on that blasted cookbook! I had hoped for it to be ready for print by Christmas 2022 but I never even made it to the recipe testing phase! I’m back to work at it and I will be asking for recipe testers this year. That is, if things don’t get in the way like last year.

By the way, Happy New Year! I hope 2023 is a good one for all of us!