Family Recipe Summer Project!

Last Monday, (June 7th) Dan got a craving for one of his favorite dinners that his family would make quite often - Boiled Dinner - Yum!

Dan hadn't made boiled dinner in quite while so he looked for the recipe in our "Family Recipe Box" that we use from time to time. As he was searching through the recipes, he would read random ones off - Christmas Breakfast, Grampie's Punch, Nana Jean's Ham Casserole.

Each time he read a different recipe off, we talked about the memories we had for that specific recipe. Like for Nana Jean's Ham Casserole - oh man, I told him how delicious it was. He said it didn't sound good to him. I told him I would make it one day & prove to him how fabulous it was. He laughed & said I never would. (I guess this is the time where I should mention that Dan cooks every night, when he's not home to cook I usually make nachos, a sandwich, soup, or something that I don't have to cook).

Then that got me thinking, there were so many recipes that we had never tried in our family recipe box that held memories of eating with our families when we were young, living in Maine or Arizona. It's funny how one recipe can bring back a flood of memories as we discovered as read all the way to "Z" in our recipe box.

Towards the end of the alphabet, we talked about how we should start trying some of those recipes. Dan suggested since he has Mondays off he could make a dinner from our recipe box every Monday (he's the one who does all of the cooking). Not wanting to be outdone, I suggested that since I have every Friday off for the summer I could do one every Friday. Dan says I won't live up to my end of the deal...maybe I'll do every other Friday! And so our adventure officially begins with this first blog post!

Monday, June 7th - Boiled Dinner

Recipe for Boiled Dinner:

1 package of Corned Beef Hash
1 Turnip
6 Carrots
1 Cabbage Head
1 White Onion
8 Potatoes

You need a large, tall pot to make this. The ingredients have to go in the pot of boiling water in this specific order or the ingredients won't cook correctly (we've discovered this through trial & error!)

Directions:
Corned Beef in pot for about 2 hours, Turnip & Onion for about 20 minutes, Carrots for about 10 minutes, Potatoes & Cabbage last & cook until everything is done. It usually takes about three to four hours for everything to be done.

****How'd it turn out?
DELICIOUS! This is one of Dan's all time favorite dinners. I had never tasted it until I met him & it's now one of my favorite :)

Lesson Learned:
Boiled Dinner ROCKS!!!


Dan also made Brownies! (The reason why he made these is because the night before, we went grocery shopping & I grabbed some brownie mix from the baking aisle, I made them when we got home & after I had put them in the oven for some reason Dan looked at the expiration date on the oil I used - it had expired in 2009! So obviously the brownies tasted like crap & had to be thrown away). So, since I was still craving brownies he decided he would be nice & try brownies from scratch for the first time for me!

Recipe for Brownies:

2/3 Cup Cocoa
2/3 Cup shortening
2 Cups Sugar
4 Eggs
1 & 1/2 Cups of Flour
1 tsp. Baking Powder
1 tsp. salt

Directions for Brownies:
Cream cocoa & shortening together. Beat in sugar & eggs. Sift flour, baking powder & salt. Stir in after sifting. Bake for 350 degrees 30-50 minutes.

****How did the turn out?
Mmmm....well, let's see. First of all, I love dark chocolate & Dan decided since I love dark chocolate so much he would use dark chocolate cocoa instead of the regular cocoa. They didn't taste as sweet & I think it was because of the dark chocolate. Also, we couldn't find our sifter (we are moving -into our brand new house!!- at the end of the month so I've started packing things we don't use on an everyday basis) so didn't sift when the recipe told us to sift, we just kind of threw the other ingredients in. Also, they had more of a cake texture than brownie texture. So, they were OK, not wonderful. They tasted better after we put frosting on them. I definitely want to try this recipe again! Dan thinks they were fine haha!

Lesson Learned:
1 - Use the kind of cocoa a recipe calls for
2 - Sift when a recipe tells you to sift!
3 - Check expiration dates :)