Hey, WBL friends! It’s the second Friday of the month….and this particular month, that means a half dozen different things, including a race to the finish line for final week of the One Room Challenge (this week’s update here and here).
But first, the opportunity to remember the sacrifices of our Veterans and their families. Thank you, WBL team member Daenel, who served our country in the uniform of the US Army; Leslie, who moved herself and small children 8 times (including to Panama) as an Army wife; my Pop, a USMC veteran; and all who serve or have served this exceptional nation.
The second Friday of November is also when I officially allow myself to begin unpacking the Christmas Dec. I know, it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet! But there’s too much decorating that happens here, and I find a jump start is an excellent way to keep me from yelling at everyone throughout the season.
A second Friday also means a “Where Bloggers Live” post, this month’s prompt via fearless leader Bettye is “favorite recipe.”
Let’s get this out of the way: NO. ONE. EVER. asks me for a recipe. I mean, I eat ice cream or cheesecake for breakfast, my favorite food is pizza, take out, or a bowl of tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich cut in to dipping strips.
Conversely, taste buds aren’t wasted on me, and I do love to watch the Food Network, but, like Jodie‘s style advice It’s new to me every time I see it.
To be honest, if I lived alone, I would likely skip dinner altogether. A tuna salad sandwich at 3:00pm and I’d be good.
I posted a recipe for an easy, elegant dessert once, so I CAN cook, but in general I lack the key ingredient, confidence. Clearly, I am confident in other things (“Sure, I bet I can take apart and rebuild that chandelier”) but not so in the kitchen. I am completely beholden to recipes or to my limited litany of regular dishes when it’s time to make a “nicer” meal. One of my favorite cookbooks was Peg Bracken’s “The I Hate to Cook Cookbook” which includes a chapter called “The Daily Grind.” And that, I’m sorry to say, was an appropriately named chapter.
The truth is I DON”T hate to cook. Early on in our married life, I did put in all the effort (classes, etc) to become a decent cook. I made MANY, MANY delicious things (or so I tell myself). But once the kiddos outgrew their high chairs, I started to feel more like a dishwasher serving slop to a food critic. Four little pairs of eyes just looking at me with disappointment. distrust, and dismay that they had to eat what was on their plates. You don’t believe me?
Actually, I’d like to make a correction. Doschie has never made me feel like I made a bad meal. To this day she has eaten nearly everything I’ve served with gracious and grateful enthusiasm. She was a joy to cook for. Mr has likewise been supportive but he definitely deserves better, and that’s exactly what he delivers when he cooks
The thing I most like to cook?
But… my “favorite” recipe. hmmm. I have a huge Pinterest board filled with them, and not so ironically, the board is named “I Need to Cook More.” But choosing my favorite recipe is easy, because any time I make it, the kiddos almost always drop everything to come home for dinner or for leftovers.
If you are Italian, please stop reading and go do something else because this is a travesty to your Sunday sauce heritage. Are you gone? Okay. My kids love when I make spaghetti and meatballs. I’ve tried the Sunday sauce route and using all the traditional ingredients for a “proper” iteration; but years of experimentation yielded that their level of palate sophistication was a step above Spaghettios… and so you can count on me to deliver! It hardly qualifies as an “actual” recipe, because it started as a recipe for meatballs until it was dumbed down over the years to accommodate their collective dislikes.
Meatballs;
1 lb ground mixture of Pork, Veal, and Beef
1 egg
1 half cup of milk
1 half cup of seasoned breadcrumbs (don’t tell my kids that they’re seasoned)
Mix together, section off and roll into small golfball-sized portions
Are we SURE the Italians have left????!!!! Last chance!
Drop the meatballs into a pot of your favorite jarred sauce; at our house it’s Prego or Ragu. (If you just passed out it’s your own fault; you were warned). Cook at medium low temperature for an hour, stirring regularly lest the bits of burn from the bottom of the pot will dot your jarred sauce and your family will scatter like they’ve been asked to put out a new roll of bathroom tissue.
Serve with pasta of choice. Those of my clan that speak “cheese” will allow their dishes to be parmed and broiled.
I usually triple the “recipe”.
Happy spaghetti pusses, no complaining.
I bet there will be wonderful, ACTUAL recipes you can pin by visiting
Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Bettye at Fashion Schlub
Leslie at Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After
Sally at Within a World of My Own
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Welcome to “Where Bloggers Live.” It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers!
Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes? The second Friday of each month is when this group of six bloggers links up to share their workspaces, homes, towns… or whatever our fearless leader, the fabulous Bettye, proposes.
Make sure you visit everyone to see where the magic happens!
Yeah, I don’t know why we’ve all been brainwashed into thinking we should LOVE to cook. We HAVE to EAT, but…a can of tuna, peanut butter on a piece of bread, salad from a bag…all do pretty much the same thing – Keep Us Alive.
It’s HGTV’s fault.
Bettye
It was that darn Emeril Lagasse that started it for us. We kept throwing ingredients in our food and yelling “Bam” as if it made us better cooks. Worked for Mr, not for me. I would clear the plates and yell “bam” when I tossed their leftovers in the trash…
But you’re right…all those cooking shows make it look so easy, and elevated expectations to a place I can’t deliver. But uber eats can!
Kinda relieved that there is an area in which you are not vastly outshining the rest of us. I have loved reading your ORC posts but putting 2 chandeliers together….. really? Now I am reassured that we can be friends; I would happily eat your spaghetti and meatballs anytime.
Kinda feeling that I somehow have you bamboozled, kind Anne. I feel more like a huge overreacher/faker than that person you described. Having a mild panic attack today over the whole DR thing and am feeling relieved that I have until the weekend to work my way through it. The chandelier shade is gorgeous, now I just have to pick and stack the pieces to make it all work….yep, no overreach there, haha.
No Italian heritage here, so I was able to stick it out, haha. Sure, you use a jarred sauce, but you make your meatballs from MEAT instead of using frozen, so that’s like a 6/10 right there! It’s funny, I have spaghetti with meat sauce ingredients waiting for me in the kitchen right now to cook into lunches to heat up for several days. But I do make a very simple sauce from canned tomato in various form factors + spices + some sauteed veg + garlic + cooked ground beef. It was one of the first things I started cooking when I was a kid helping out so it feels easy to me. But in a pinch, I will certainly grab a jar of sauce! There are some good ones out there. They just always feel a bit on the sweet side to me (since I grew up eating homemade sauce with no added sweetener.)
Ah, Sally, grateful for your glass half-full perspective on the meatballs! I think that’s the one thing that makes it look like I put in the time, haha.
Sweet sauce seems to be a thing locally…most of the pizza joints around here feature sweet sauce…mmm when it burns a little at the edges. I do tend to reach for the sugar on the rare occasion that I’ve actually made sauce. Mr is in your camp and doesn’t love the sweet version.
I can so relate! I grew up in south Louisiana, where ALL of the women in my extended family could cook. I mean, like win prizes at fairs! At holidays, the men in the family would create contests of who made the best dish. Both my mom and dad were excellent cooks–they owned restaurants my entire life! So, for me, can I cook? Yes, and I can cook some slap-down good gumbo and etouffee. But do I like to cook? No! But we do like to eat, so I cook every night. 😒 Funny thing, my only daughter loves to cook and tries new recipes all the time. Then she sends me pics of what she just made! HA! Love your posts. Look forward to seeing your email in my inbox. Can’t wait to see the finished DR!
Oh Louisiana fare! There’s a restaurant we love to visit in PA called “The Bayou.” We both said it’s top tier of the best meals we ever had…. Crab beignets, shrimp and grits, brisket and po’boys.
What style of restaurants did your family own? Did you cook there? Can I come to your holiday dinners as a guest judge?
It’s funny how flexible my eating standards become if someone else is preparing the meal, haha. I had thought that I might’ve enjoyed cooking if I really learned how…but you have thankfully disproven that theory. So, now I can proceed guilt free.
Fingers crossed on that DR…. the things I get myself into. 🤦🏻♀️
You never cease to make me laugh Em. It really does make a difference to who you are cooking for. I used to think I was a good cook, but now, I realize Rob is even better (he has that talent at being able to taste it without tasting it).
Anyways, thanks for the shoutout because that’s how I feel about home decorating some days. Don’t ask me to decorate the Christmas tree any differently than I did when I was 10, haha.
XOOX
Jodie
There’s something very reassuring about Christmas decorations that have a set place.
I do want to shake things up a little, but i don’t think this is the year that will happen. We’ll see where i end up after Thanksgiving.
Not sure why, but I would’ve guessed Rob was a good cook, btw. Having a strong sense of how things would taste, though, is very next level!
Okay, I thoroughly enjoyed your post. Perhaps we are related in the spirit. That sounded a lot like the spagjetti that I made back in the day – complete with the Ragu sauce. And I’m with you – I “can” cook, I just hate to.
Iris
Yay! I keep inching forward, Iris. I’m going to win you over yet!