I remember when I first started to really think of the kitchen as my domain. It was the summer of 1984 and I was 18. I went away for the whole summer to work as a babysitter. I travelled from Cape Breton, NS to Massachusetts (can’t remember the name of the town, but it was outside Boston somewhere). Well, while I was away, I got a call from my mother. She told me that my father wanted sweet & sour meatballs and she tried to make them using my recipe. When they ate them, my Dad said they weren’t right. He told her to call me and find out how I made them so she could try again next week. *See my recipe at the bottom of the blog*
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Just a bit of background info here: I learned how to make them in Grade 8 Home Ec. class, but over the next few years I modified the recipe to my own tastes. I guess I never wrote down the new version.
I guess you could say that I developed my love of cooking and baking because my Mom worked shift work so she wasn’t always home to put dinner on the table. Come to think of it, even when she was home, cooking wasn’t something that she was very passionate about, so our meals were tasty, but basic. On top of that, we lived in a small town with very few shopping options, we had a limited shopping budget and a dad who had his own ideas about what foods should be served (you know…total meat and potatoes kind of guy). When Mom worked evening shifts, I took over some of the cooking and tried to add some different variations on our regular menu. Sometimes it worked…sometimes it flopped. But I always learned from my errors! And I never gave anyone food poisoning. (Yes, sister dear…that is totally aimed at you…LOL)
My grandmother was a great cook (other than her belief that a pork chop had to be the consistency of shoe leather before it was cooked enough and safe to eat…sorry Gram!) and her baked goods were amazing. Since I spent a lot of time with her when I was younger, naturally I picked up her love of cooking and baking. She always had a few pans of lasagna, meatballs and sauce, assorted casseroles and lots of baked goods in her freezer, ready to pull out and put in the oven when company stopped by. Some of the best times I had with Gram were in the kitchen, helping her cook or bake. I’m pretty sure she thought the answer to all life’s problems was to have something to good to eat. I remember countless times she would say to me “You could lose a few pounds…here, have a slice of apple pie.” And of course, it was kind of defeating the purpose…but hey, I ate the pie…
Holiday meals were almost always at my Gram’s place. She would cook a turkey, a roast, or a baked ham with all the fixin’s. She was the type of grandmother who would flit around, putting the food on the table, shooing people out of her way because it was her kitchen, refilling serving dishes and nibbling on food while doing this. I very rarely recall her actually sitting at the table and eating with us. Now that I am the one who usually cooks and has people over on the holidays, I see so much of my Grandmother in me. I flit, I shoo and I nibble. However, I do try to actually sit down and eat some of the meal with my company…especially dessert!
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Sweet & Sour Meatballs
Meatballs:
1 lb extra lean ground beef
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup of uncooked minute rice
1 egg, well beaten
garlic powder to taste
Direction:
- Add all ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix together thoroughly with your hands.
- Form into small balls and put aside.
- Start sauce.
Sauce:
1 cup ketchup
3 TBSP white vinegar
4 TBSP light brown sugar
1/2 to 1 cup of water
Direction:
- Add ketchup to a heavy bottom pot, deep enough to hold the sauce and meatballs.
- Turn the burner on to medium heat.
- Add the vinegar and stir.
- Add the brown sugar and stir.
- As sauce is heating, add the water small bits at a time, to thin (half a cup for thicker sauce, full cup for thinner sauce).
- Once the sauce starts to bubble, start adding the raw meatballs. (To speed up the cooking time, you can brown the meatballs in the oven in a shallow pan. This will also reduce the amount of grease.)
- Simmer the meatballs in the sauce until they are cooked thoroughly and the sauce coats them.
This can be served with rice or potato salad.
**If I am making this to take to party or function, I triple the recipe for everything.**