Tag Archive | family

Recipes: Bite Size Beef Bites

Aug23

Vickie’s Bite Size Beef Bites

We came up with this recipe for a cold February Super Bowl game. It’s quick and simple to fix. And they adds a whole a lot of Italian flavor at the table.

Beef Bites are my version of Gary’s Speedies, which can be a little spicy for me. I call these the plain version for beef. But you can make this with any meat. Chicken, pork, or even venison.

They can be served as a main dish or as a warm appetizer for that fall football game. They’re even good for that summer tailgating at the races too.

Preparation Time: 15 minutes, plus 1 hour in the fridge
Cooking time: Approx. 20 – 40 minutes Continue reading →

Recipes: Jack Daniels BBQ

Aug23

Kevin’s Jack Daniels BBQ

Gary’s cousin Kevin, makes some of the best bbq I’ve ever had! He mostly uses beef, but you can use this recipe with pork or chicken as well. It tastes best with beef though.

Preparation time: 15 to 20 minutes
Cooking time: 4 to 5 hours

Ingredients

  • 1 Beef Roast
    3lbs will serve 5 *
  • 1 tspn Celery Salt
  • 1 cup BBQ Sauce **
  • 1 shot Jack Daniels Whiskey ***
  • 1 large stew pot

* You can use pork or chicken for this recipe as well, just make sure it’s at least 3 pounds of meat.
** Kevin uses Stubs BBQ Sauce. We use Masterpiece Original. You can use your favorite brand.
*** Gary adds 1 additional shot of Jack to spike the flavor. So that would be 2 total. Continue reading →

Recipes: Beef BBQ

Aug23

Grand Daddy Holland’s Beef BBQ

Grand Daddy Hollands Beef BBQ recipe was lost when he left us. But Gary’s cousin Kevin,  has been perfecting his version of that recipe as he remembers it. It’s pretty close to the original. But even if it’s not exactly the same, it’s still fantastic!

Every time we make this, Gary remembers a weekend on the Lake in Love Valley, NC where Grand Daddy built a cabin. The whole family would gather there during the summers and enjoy the water, the woods and the many cook outs. I hope your family can make your own memories with this yummy family tradition. Continue reading →

Table Talk: Talking To Your Kids About White Supremacy

Aug16

White Supremacy Propaganda, Extremism and Online Recruitment Tactics

Yesterday I read an article about parents talking to your “white sons” about how white supremacists are using the internet to recruit kids (White supremacists are recruiting white teens online). The article included a link for how to talk to your kids about this topic and why it’s important to do so (Propaganda, Extremism and Online Recruitment Tactics).

What struck me deeply was the article included a story about a Virginia family, who dismissed the signs of their son’s interests as he just had a deep interest in history. Until he killed two people and was charged with a hate crime.

We’re from Virginia, and my son has a deep interest in history and he’s a great kid. But as a Mom, I worry about that balance between protecting my teen son, while giving him a sense of trust and privacy in his own home. Plus this issue is impacting unsuspecting families all around the world. Whither it’s Islamic Extremists, or White Supremacy groups. We have to talk to our children and make them aware of the dangers. Continue reading →

Bangers and Mash

Jan23

Bangers and Mash

Garrett’s Bangers and Mash

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Bangers and mash, is a common British dish consisting of sausages (“bangers”) and mashed potatoes (“mash”). And is traditionally served with onion gravy.

Bangers and mash is a staple of the country’s overall cuisine and is a popular pub dish. The term bangers supposedly originated during World War I, when meat shortages resulted in sausages’ being made with a number of fillers, notably water, that caused them to explode when cooked.

The sausages may be pork, beef, or lamb, but one of the most traditional meat sticks is Cumberland sausage, a coiled pork sausage from northwestern England.

This is a traditional recipe that we’ve tweaked just a little to our own Americanized taste. Continue reading →

Virginia Beach Creamy She Crab Soup

Jan21

Virginia Beach She Crab Soup

Virginia Beach Creamy She Crab Soup

I LOVE She crab soup and have a bowl any time I can get it when we eat out. I’ve had many versions of this soup all over the east coast, a few places in Texas and California. I’m sorry folks, but no one makes She-Crab soup like the east coast does.

In 2004, Gary and I went to Waterman’s Restaurant in Virginia Beach, where we had the most delightfully tasty she crab soup. It is by far the best version I have ever had! So if you ever go to Virginia Beach, head south on Atlantic Avenue and visit Waterman’s! Everything they have is wonderful.

Unfortunately we were not able to get the recipe from the restaurant. Can’t blame them. So we’ve been trying to recreate it on our own the best we can. It’s under gone a lot of tweaking, but we’re getting pretty close. It’s not exactly the same, but we need to go back to the beach for another visit and another taste testing to figure out what we’re missing.

Here’s our current very tasty version so far. Continue reading →

Tuna Salad

Jan21

Papaw’s Tuna Salad Sandwich

Papaw’s Easy Tuna Salad

My dad loved meat salads. Tuna, chicken and ham salads were his favorites. And he made each one from scratch and usually during the spring and summer months.

This is how I remember his tuna salad dish. He usually had these with crackers. But he’d make them into a sandwich for lunch now and then too.

Preparation time: 15 to 45 minutes
It depends on what you put into the salad mix. If you’re going to add boiled eggs, it’s going to take a little longer. Continue reading →

Irish Potato Soup

Jan21

Vickie’s Easy Irish Potato Soup

Gary and I have been delving into our Celtic roots and trying some of Scotland and Ireland’s dishes.

This is a recipe I stumbled on one day from a BBC cooking show. We’ve tweaked the ingredients a little, just to update it for our own taste. And that allowed us to modify the original preparation and cooking process to make fixing this soup a little easier and less time consuming.

I guess you’ll have to call this an Americanized version of Irish potato soup, for busy families.

Preparation time: About 1 hour
Serves: 6

Continue reading →

Garden Salad with Chicken

Jan21

Garden Salad with Grilled Chicken

Vickie’s Garden Salad with Seasoned Chicken

Everyone in my extended family had a vegetable garden. It wasn’t unusual to sit at my grandmother’s dinner table and see a plate of freshly cut tomatoes, or cucumbers next to the main meal.

There was always room for a salad on my Maw Stoots’ table for lunch. She loved garden salads and always fixed one for me when we were in Tennessee for a visit.

As you grow older, your taste buds change. You learn to enjoy the variety of flavors in foods of all kind. And that’s how my Garden Salad with Chicken came about. They’re scrumptious for dinner or lunch.

Preparation time: 45 minutes  Continue reading →

Cucumber Sandwiches

Jan17

Cucumber Sandwiches

Vickie’s Cucumber Sandwiches

What’s high tea if you don’t have some traditional English treats. I’ve always been fascinated with Queen Victoria, not sure why, just one of those very odd interests people sometimes have in life.

In 1840 the originator of afternoon tea, Anna Maria Stanhope, the 7th Duchess of Bedford, was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria. She created Afternoon tea to ease the grumbling tummies of polite society in the mid-afternoon. With lunch at noon and dinner at 8pm, mid-afternoon was a perfect time for a mid-day tea with light sandwiches.

One of the most common or traditional tea time sandwiches has always been the cucumber sandwich. Because these are designed to be small, they’re created more for flavor than nutrition.

This is my recipe, it’s plain and simple and nothing like the long involved preparation of a traditional cucumber sandwich. So if you’re looking for a traditional cucumber sandwich, this is not it.

Preparation Time: 20 minutes Continue reading →