Friday Friend Recipe #206 - Easy-Schmeesy BBQ Beef

Come with me as I continue to countdown my Friday Friend Cookbook!

What is it, you may ask?

In a nutshell...
About 19 years ago, 50 of my closest friends and family, who had been on an e-mail forum with me, sent in recipes in different categories and we compiled a cookbook.
I decided to count those down!
Why?

Because  one night I was looking thru the cookbook and I said, "I should make every recipe in here for my blog"
The Handyman--who thinks he knows me better than I know myself, said,  "you'll never EVER do that."
Well,  maybe I will!  Maybe I'll show him!

Which brings me to recipe #206

I know that this can make a great freezer or make-ahead meal too.  Easy to make and easy to take---so pot luck also!

I made this last fall--that's LAST fall, as in a year ago, and the photos have been sitting in my drafts waiting for me to blog about it.  Maybe if I wasn't such a procrastinator I would be done with this cookbook challenge!

When we were at our cabin LAST fall, I was reading a book called "The Comfort Food Diaries" and I came across a bbq sauce I wanted to try, so while this recipe for 'easy Shmeesy BBQ Beef' says to use a bottle of premade bbq sauce--which is super easy and good--this time I chose to make a homemade sauce. You can do it however you want.

The Comfort Food Diaries is a memoir on the author's quest to find the perfect dish to mend a broken heart.

 After a bad break-up (and a drunk, embarrassing Facebook rant) the author finds a way forward and travels the country, cooking and staying with family and friends while searching for the perfect comfort food...she finds that food is a source of connection (just look at me here connecting with all of my friends!) and identity.

Fast forward to a chapter called 'Finding the comfort in comfort food." in which she makes her brothers  favorite bbq beef recipe. It uses ketchup.  I wanted to give it a try---because I was comforted and nostalgic myself about comfort foods while reading this book. It make me yearn for my mother's odd little side-dishes: a can of green beans with chopped onion and mayonnaise.   Eaten cold of course.  Or sliced oranges with coconut sprinkled on top.  Or a canned pear half with a dollop of mayo and grated cheddar cheese on top.  Things I haven't made in a million years, nor would I really want to, but they bring back so  many memories.

Anyway... here is the sauce I made;

(but I used a crock pot and let it cook all day while we hiked)

1. Boil a large chuck roast until tender.  Cool. Shred. Save the broth.

In a large pot mix together:

1 T. allspice

1 T. chili powder

1 t. celery salt

1 large bottle of Heinz ketchup

Dash cayenne pepper

Broth from meat

Salt to taste

2. Add the shredded meat.  Cook down very slowly to desired thickness.  Must serve on large buns, that have been toasted, with slaw.

Of course you can do whatever or however you want with Easy "Schmeesy" BBQ Beef, but the original is here:

I made FRIED APPLES  for a side dish---another little oddity food item my mom make when we were growing up.  She would just fry up some apple slices with butter and brown sugar and a bit of cinnamon.  Don't knock it till you try it!  

Texas Road House used to serve Fried Apples too.

And now I'm supposed to do photos of me and a story of me. I thought that I would put up some photos of the Handyman and myself up at our cabin.  Hiking photos or something, but just last weekend we attended the mayors ball.  I don't do sparkly very well--- I do hiking in the mountains better--but I found the perfect dress and  I think I pulled this off!

 Give me jeans and a walking stick any old time. Or jeans and a book by a fire and a glass of wine--the best!

We had a fun time at the Mayor's Ball tho.

We went with our friends The Engstroms.

We ate good food and drank good wine.

We danced

The Handyman looks like he's grabbing on to me for dear life!

Which is weird, as it didn't seem that way at the time.

OH-- I know, he grabbed my wrist to turn me around to get our picture taken.  😍

We saw other good friends.

All in all  a very nice evening.

This is recipe #206 only 161 left to go!

Friday Friend Recipe #154--BBQ Green Beans

Making my way thru my Friday Friend Cookbook, one recipe at a time.

What is the Friday Friend cookbook: I have about 50 of my closest friends and family on an e-mail forum which I called the Friday Friends (from all over the county). At first, most of them didn't know each other, (they knew me) but over the past 18 years, we've answered and shared silly--and serious---questions, exchanged Secret Santa Christmas gifts, had a dieting contest in which we paid a $1 a week and that money went to a scholarship fund for a Friday Friends son's memorial scholarship, and we went on a great vacation for my 52 birthday.

AND, we contributed recipes for a cookbook.

I was looking at the cookbook the other night and I said, "I should make every recipe in here for my blog."
The Handyman--who knows me better than I know myself (this happened to be a question on the Friday Friend forum once---does your spouse/partner know you better than you know yourself?)--said,  "you'll never, EVER do that."
WELL---maybe I'll show him!  Maybe I will.

Which brings me to this... recipe #154

My Mom's (or my brother's)

BBQ Green Beans

Please don't judge the green beans on these photos.  Taken in the dead of winter with no natural light!  (sigh)  I just don't want to do it all over again.

The beans are good!

They sound weird, true, but they are very good.

So...if I am being honest, my mom turned in this recipe as her's but the only time I've ever had it has been when my brother has fixed it and in my mind that turned into my sister-in-law, Sylvia, who fixed it.

So I was going to tell a story about Sylvia... seen here with my brother below.

So maybe this story is about them both?

In May, we met them at our family cabin in Oregon.

They are 'happy waker-upers' who talk happy talk and cook happy breakfasts, all the while BEING HAPPY!

HAPPY!!!

(I just sat and watched them cook for me!  With coffee in hand.  I am not so happy in the morning)

It was a cold, misty, drizzly weekend--we played cards, and Sylvia won, so she got her name on the family cabin-trophy, THE CABIN CUP.

I made everyone go for a drive--down to the lake,

In the country to see old barns....

Found an old country cemetery....

With graves dating back to the early 1800's.

(very interesting)

And I just like cows.....so I'm throwing in a couple of photos of cows we saw along the way.

But the most fun we had that weekend was going thru some more of my mom's old tubs of pictures and letters.

My mother saved everything and my dad was a romantic-- so, we have letters, cards, short love notes--you name it, we have it.  We are tossing things slowly, but we had some good laughs. Everything was fun to read.

We'll call this one 

"Even Richard: an ode to the Handyman"

in which my father writes:

Kiddo--because that's what he called my mom.

Then he goes on to 'type' her a love note.

(most likely because his handwriting was so bad!)

Where he says the famous line 'even Richard'

(aka The Handyman)

(and by great grandkids he meant wonderful, amazing)

POOR RICH!!  Poor Handyman!!

Even?

Even?

This gave us a great laugh when we read it!  We wonder what he had done?! Because by all accounts they loved him much more than me, their own daughter!

My dad always did think he was funny tho... I also found this note when I was cleaning out my own closets. 

Twenty years ago my dad sent me money for Thanksgiving Dinner.  They were coming down for the week and they always worried that we spent too much money at the grocery store for them.

(and yes, my dad was a private investigator)

(and I don't live at that address anymore)

But gambling?  Dad!  Yes, we lived in Nevada but we don't gamble!

I mean yes, we have a slot machine in our garage, and we don't NOT gamble--I mean if company from out of town comes, we take them, but  day to day gambling?  Nope.  No one who lives in Nevada does.  It's  (shhhhhh......) boring!

Well, I guess my grandkids don't find it boring... nor the Handyman when he passes by his slot machine in the garage on the way back from taking out the garbage--every single time!

(I don't know what the fascination is--you can't win, as we don't have a bank to pay it from!)

I meandered (again), the Handyman doesn't really gamble.  My dad just finds himself amusing.

(We all found him kinda amusing too!)

Anyway--  the BBQ Green Beans are good!

And my parents obviously liked my sister-in-law more than my husband.

Or maybe we just haven't found 'her' note yet.

Here Sylvia is about to become a mother of one of those FIVE (my dad wrote that note before number 5 came along. Or? He only liked 4 of his grandsons?  Who knows?)  great grandsons and the Handyman?  Was having sympathy, I guess.

They really are great in-laws!

They were the BEST when my parents were ill.  

THE BEST!

Even Richard.

Okay---this was recipe #154

140 left to go!

Friday Friend Recipe #133 -- Broccoli Salad

Come with me as I continue to countdown my Friday Friend Cookbook!

What is it, you may ask?

In a nutshell...
About 17 years ago, 50 of my closest friends and family, who had been on an e-mail forum with me, sent in recipes in different categories and we compiled a cookbook.
I decided to count those down!
Why?

Because  one night I was looking thru the cookbook and I said, "I should make every recipe in here for my blog"
The Handyman--who thinks he knows me better than I know myself, said,  "you'll never EVER do that."
Well,  maybe I will!  Maybe I'll show him!

Which brings me to recipe #133  Debbie E's Broccoli Salad

Everyone has a version of a broccoli salad (I have a few in the FF Cookbook), but this one is especially  good--it has cheese and chopped hard boiled egg in it.  (I don't think my mom's does)

Broccoli Salad

Debbie Engstrom

Winnemucca, Nevada

2 heads chopped broccoli

2/3 cup raisins

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 cup mayo

1/4 cup sugar

2 T. vinegar

bacon bits

shredded American Cheese

6 hard boiled eggs, chopped

Combine all of the above.

I think this is Deb E's  6th time in the countdown. 
It's hard to tell, because I've tagged her on other things too--she's in my cooking club also.

You can see all the posts she's in if you click  here.

We were having coffee this morning as we do every Tuesday at 6am, and I was thinking--I don't have many pictures of the two of us together!  I thought about taking one, but-- 6am? I didn't do it.

So below are two pictures of Debbie from cooking club. She hosted our "Let's all Go to Hawaii" themed dinner, and she sported a coconut bra!

(if you want to see our Hawaiian themed cooking club post, click here!)

She wore it over her top, Because, you know....  Cooking club?  It would have been  hard to cook shish-ka-bobs with ONLY a coconut bra on.

Let me tell you a FUN FACT about Debbie....

She is the best meal prepper EVER.

There have been many a Tuesday morning that she will chop onions, veggies, cook rice... anything to be able to have a short  cut to her meals when she gets home from work.

Unlike her dear friend, me, who usually doesn't even know what she's having and starts thinking about dinner at 4pm each day.  Nope, Debbie is a meal planner and a doer.

And she's great about using stuff up. She'll say "I had some chicken left over so I added that to the salad."

Me?  I forget about that leftover chicken until something begins to smell in my fridge.  (okay, I'm not actually that bad, but almost)

Debbie is my cooking hero!   My mentor, my muse. I once asked to borrow her recipe book and then I secretly copied all the pages.  Just so I have them! 

(then, neglected to put them into a binder or notebook and they are getting  a very 'used' look to them.

see....

it only looks like they are in a binder, as I copied that also--just laid her cookbook/notebook flat and copied it all! )

Look!  There is Debbie at Cooking Club with Shelly, our Friday Friend who is turning all this into a real cookbook!

You can see all of her posts here--just click!

She has been known to wear a coconut bra once or twice in her life also.

It seems as if my friends don't know how to do the coconut bra?

This is how you do it girls--

The Handyman and Barb!

I'm not sure, but I think she might be pointing out a nipple (?).

Also...isn't it amazing that I can always bring a theme around?  I mean,  Debbie E--coconut bra, with Shelly the maker of the designer cookbook, with Handyman sporting the way to wear a coconut bra fashionably, with BARB, the one who typed up all these recipes for me in the first place.

Whew.

And may I present, the Handyman and his mother.

That makes 133 done and only 165 to go!

oh...look! I found a picture of me and Debbie together!

This is not an easy thing.

We are in my backyard...must have been somebody's graduation party, circa 2003.

Still after all that I have 165 recipes to go!

Friday Friend Recipe #127 -- Chorizo and Eggs

Come with me as I continue to countdown my Friday Friend Cookbook!

What is it, you may ask?

In a nutshell...
About 17 years ago, 50 of my closest friends and family, who had been on an e-mail forum with me, sent in recipes in different categories and we compiled a cookbook.
I decided to count those down!
Why?

Because  one night I was looking thru the cookbook and I said, "I should make every recipe in here for my blog"
The Handyman--who thinks he knows me better than I know myself, said,  "you'll never EVER do that."
Well,  maybe I will!  Maybe I'll show him!

Which brings me to recipe #127 The Handyman's Chorizo and Eggs

First of all, let me give you the recipe.....

A few things:

1. The 'soft' kind would be Mexican Chorizo.

2. The Handyman never gets this fancy, he just fries up the chorizo and adds the eggs, scrambles them altogether. (correction, he just told me he always adds milk to his eggs.)

3. And as our editor/publisher , Barbara Brown asks:  How did HE get in this book?

Chorizo?

is a type of pork sausage.  Traditionally, it uses natural casings made from intestines, a method used since Roman times.

Spanish and Basque Chorizo is firm like salami---you can slice it and serve with crackers and cheese or THE BEST way is to grill them and have them at your Weinerfest!  (which is a hot dog party I have ever summer)

But Mexican Chorizo---  the Mexican versions of chorizo are made from fatty pork, but beef, venison, chicken, kosher, turkey, and even tofu and vegan versions are made. The meat is usually ground (minced) rather than chopped, and different seasonings are used. This type is better known in Mexico and other parts of the Americas, including the border areas of the United States, and is not frequently found in Europe

(I am quoting Wikipedia)

This is what we use:

Chorizo con huevos is a popular breakfast dish in Mexico and areas of the USA with Mexican immigration. It is made by mixing fried chorizo with scrambled eggs

(again with the Wikipedia)

We like it very much---it's easy, kind of spicy and good.   And of course, anything the Handyman cooks is good, because I can just relax and not worry about doing the work!

It's always been a family favorite, but especially for our Grandson Eli.  Eli is very picky, but for some reason he LOVES chorizo and eggs.   Now--- get this--he doesn't like eggs.  Won't touch them.  In any way or form--except when his Granddad makes chorizo and eggs.  He requests it every time he visits us and has also helped crack the eggs into the pan.  But when asked if he wants an egg (scrambled, fried or hardboiled) he makes a gagging sound.

You must add the spiciness to the eggs for them to be any good!

It's true!  He is picky, but he loves spicy stuff.

I took these photos of Eli and his twin sister Emerson over a year ago...on New Year's day.  I had to document everyone's  First book of the year.  We had Chorizo and Eggs the same morning.

One of my most favorite Eli stories is this conversation between he and his mom --  she sent this:

Eli: I'm playing tic-tac-toe with the stars.

Me: Are you winning?

Eli: I won the first game.

I have no idea how one plays tic-tac-toe with the stars, but as we drove home in the dark night and Eli would occasionally shout "3 in a row" the sentiment seemed both innocent and poetic. May he always play with the stars.

I, too, hope he always plays with the stars!

Recipe #127 down,  171 to go!