Nana's Pigs in a Blanket ...p47

Perhaps to you, pigs in a blanket conjure up "Pigpen" from Peanuts...or little teeny sausages swaddled in biscuits, but that's not what I see.  I see a full kitchen table, populated with my lovely family - think the 1960s (yes, there was still a semblance of family in that decade - not everyone was drinking the Kool-Aid, and many of us didn't camp out at Woodstock, but on the family farms...in our dresses and pearls).

Think mom in her cigarette pants, hair done up in a bun, dad coming home from a hard day's work, and "cabbage rolls" waiting to be dished up on nine empty plates.  Happy times.

Simple ingredients.  Cabbage, beef (not pork as the name infers), rice and tomato sauce.

Mix beef, onions, egg, s&p together

Parboil a head of cabbage

Place beef mixture on leaf, fold sides over and roll up

I make any extra beef into meatballs

Cover with tomato sauce and extra leaves, then bake!

I've assembled pigs in a blanket countless times just by remembering what mom did, but this time I followed her recipe, and wished I was doing it in cigarette pants. 

I'm sure you know nana's opinion without even clicking on "recipe."  We all agree, these are wonderful. 

Hardy Appetit!

Peel a Pound Soup ...p21

Once upon a time, I thought I could literally peel away the pounds on this soup and made way too much.  After weeks, it sat in the fridge, it filled up the freezer and it was a long time before I dared make this soup again.  But like all fears, they must eventually be faced, and blogging this cookbook has made me face mine:  the cabbage soup diet!

Well, I won't do the diet again, but I will continue to make this soup.  More delicious than I remembered and the nutrients contained therein are numerous!  Instead of onion soup mix, I added Knorr's Vegetable Soup Mix - experiment with your own additions.

As a sidenote, a neat trick my mother-in-law taught me when making big batches of soup:  Fill your soup bowls with soup, fast freeze in the freezer until solid, then pop them out into zip-lock bags.  When you want a bowl of soup, just pop it back into your bowl and microwave.

Critic's opinion?  Eat your soup!  It's really yummy.

Hardy Appetit!

CABBAGE CASSEROLE ...p66

If you're not one to fool with assembling cabbage rolls, make this easy mixed-up variation of the theme.  The critic enjoyed it, but suggested diced up tomatoes would make it more flavorful.  Jon modified his serving with lots of ketchup, but we others enjoyed it with nothing added but more pepper.  Accompany with something zingy like pickled beets or cucumbers and sour cream. 

I used brown rice which gave it a slightly nuttier taste.

Hardy Appetit!

Cabbage/Hominy Corn Soup ....p21

Of course I had to start off with one I knew was a Nana favorite:  cabbage/hominy corn soup.  Also because I just happened to be making it when the cookbooks arrived - how coincidental!

Certainly one of the easiest soups to prepare, and from its prep, you actually get two meals (spareribs & soup) - or use the soup to stimulate your appetite before chowing down on ribs. 

My daughter hesitated about eating the hominy, "isn't it chemically altered?  or genetically-altered?"  I couldn't explain the process of turning corn into hominy, so I had to look it up.

I always knew it was processed using lye - which sounds awful - but I was glad to read that it must be "food grade lye" as lower grades of lye are used as drain openers (and here mom thought it was the cabbage!)  The process actually yields nutritional benefits - removing the hard outer shell (germ) converts the niacin into a more absorbable form, improves the availability of the amino acids while making the corn easier to digest.  To my daughter's liking, hominy had a past:  Cherokees used it.  If it was good enough for them, well, it must be native.

Hardy Appetit!