So How Do We Iron Chef?

April 29, 2009

One of our favorite family traditions is our Annual Iron Chef Competition at the Remix.

Since we are a family of foodies (people who love to read about, talk about, think about, make, and eat food) our very own Iron Chef Competition just makes sense.

Our rules are simple. The official judges (Nana and the grandkids) chose a secret ingredient and announce it a few weeks in advance. Any one – of any age – can enter as many entries as they wish.

The day of the event all of the entries are placed on a table, labeled and given a small plastic cup to hold the votes. Whenever we are all assembled and quiet (now that’s a major undertaking!), each chef shows their dish and describes the ingredients.

Our Iron Chef Dishes

Then we all go around the table taking samples of everything. We each have a small cup of M & M’s that we use for voting by putting them in the cups of our favorite dishes.

This year’s secret ingredient was apples.

We had everything from apple muffins to apple salads. We had apple brownies, apple snacks, and apple desserts. We even had apple butter pancakes!

Some of the amazing entries were:

Thick Skinned Apple

The simple: “Thick Skinned Apple” – an apple that was peeled, then peanut butter was used to re-apply the peel.

Chocolate Bars

The Chocolate: Caramel Apple Bars

Apple Salsa

The Unique: Apple Salsa

William Tell's Son Cake

The Artistic: A Rice Krispie sculpture of William Tell’s Son complete with apple and arrow!

It was a fun and delicious family activity!

By Country Gal | Posted in Cooking and Food, Family Traditions | Tagged , , , | Comments (4)

The Remix: A Family Tradition

April 27, 2009

I love my family.

I love getting together with my family.

With 2 amazing parents, three sisters, one brother, 4 in-laws and a large collection of assorted nieces and nephews, aged 3 to 24 , any gathering is an undertaking best described as “organized chaos.”

Our official spring gathering is called the Remix and is entirely grandchildren driven. Since we celebrate Christmas together over Labor Day they thought we should remix Christmas in the spring.

Now every year the grandkids (with Grandma’s guidance) plan a fun- filled week-end at Mom and Dad’s on the prairie.

Some of the traditions include:

White Elephant Bingo: Everyone brings a wrapped white elephant gift and one evening we play bingo. Every time you get a Bingo you get to chose a present – either from the table full of presents, or you can take a gift away from someone who has already chosen one.  Things can get pretty wild as presents start flying from one person to another!

When someone gets a black-out, the game is over and everybody opens their gifts. (Anybody need a talking Bob the Builder and Wendy who can no longer talk?!)

Dress-Up Night : No, we don’t do a white tie meal with tuxes and formal attire, instead, we dress-up as any assortment of strange characters. We had pirates, ninja’s, and some Lord of the Ring characters (swords were definitely a favorite accessory this year!)

But we also had a sweet old granny, door-to-door salesmen, a camel herder, and even Shaun Cassidy (complete with entourage).  The creativity among those young’uns was amazing!

Family Worship Service: On Sunday morning we gather together to sing, pray and share. This year was especially sweet as both of my parents shared their testimonies.

For my siblings and I,  it was a precious review of events we experienced together as our entire family of seven came to know the Lord in just a few years. But for our spouses and children,  it was a look at events that changed the course of our family for generations.

Tears were flowing freely by the time we sang our traditional closing hymn – “Blest be the Tie That Binds.”

There were huge meals, too  many desserts,  games galore,  a family sock hop, and lots of laughter.

What precious memories we made this week-end.

Yep…I really love my family.

By Country Gal | Posted in Family Traditions | Tagged , , | Comments (5)

Dating My Husband

April 13, 2009

465px-bundesarchiv_bild_183-2004-0512-507_spaziergangI was talking to a good friend in church yesterday when she said, “My husband asked me to take a walk in the moonlight last night…”

“How exciting!” I responded, not noticing the twinkle in her eyes.

“Yes”, she said, “we walked in the moonlight with a million stars over our heads!”

“Ohhh, how romantical!” I gushed. “Did he hold your hand?”

Then she laughed, “No, we were both holding flashlights in one hand and he had a calf puller in the other. My husband needed help finding a cow that had wandered off to have her calf.”

As I heard the story about the lost cow and their adventure in the moonlight I couldn’t help but think that it could be considered a date.

My definition of a date has changed over the years. I used to think that it was an official date only if we went out to eat and did something fun without the children.

As the babies kept coming and the finances got tighter, I soon realized that my idea was no longer practical.

I discovered that often it was those “stolen” moments in the day that became special.

Sipping root beer floats in the porch swing on a hot summer evening after the kids went to bed…

Cuddling on the couch while watching a movie…

Feeding the kids early and lighting candles to eat our supper together alone when he works late…

Waking up early and enjoying a quiet breakfast together before he heads out the door…

Holding hands on a family walk while we watch the children run on the trail ahead of us…

The secret is being together. It’s finding time to enjoy each other within the busyness of our day to day life.

It’s being creative with the time I have alone with my husband.

Even if it’s a walk in the moonlight to look for a lost cow.

By Country Gal | Posted in Family Traditions, Memories, Thrifty Ideas | Tagged , , , | Comments (4)

Swedish Potato Sausage

March 4, 2009

Potato Sausage

Having married a man of Scandinavian descent with roots deep in Minnesota (the land of a thousand lakes and lutfisk), I have learned to appreciate and even enjoy certain traditional dishes.

Potato sausage is one of them!

This spicy combination of beef, pork and shredded potatoes is a filling and very economical dish.

Traditionally it is stuffed in sausage casings and boiled in hot water to serve. But if you, like me, don’t have sausage casings sitting around, just make them into patties and fry them.

We like to make a batch before Christmas and freeze the patties to enjoy all winter. Our favorite way to serve them is with waffles and hot applesauce on a cold, snowy winter night.

Swedish Potato Sausage

15 pounds potatoes, peeled
3 pounds onion, peeled
3 pounds boneless pork roast
3 pounds ground beef
1/3 cup flour
5-7 tablespoons salt
4 tablespoons pepper
3 teaspoons allspice
1 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 – 3/4 cup milk

In a food grinder using the course disk, alternately grind the potatoes, onions and pork.

Combine with the ground beef, mixing well.

Combine all of the dry ingredients and sprinkle over the the meat and potato mixture. Add milk and mix well.

Stuff the sausages into casings or make into patties and freeze individually. (I like to lay them out on parchment lined cookie sheets in the freezer until they are frozen solid. Then I put them in zip lock bags to store in the freezer.)

This recipe makes about 20 pounds of sausage.  It can halved or cut into thirds, or even doubled or tripled if you have that much patience and potatoes!

Ja, Ja, is goot food.  Mange tak for stopping by.

Ha en god dag. (Have a good day – in Norwegian of course!)

By Country Gal | Posted in Family Traditions | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

My Quiddler Obsession

February 28, 2009

Quiddler

I have found a new obsession.

I was first introduced at my parents house over Christmas.  (Ah yes- the  infamous “truffle weekend“!) My sister brought this gift they had received for Christmas – this small, rather inconspicuous card game named Quiddler.

None of us had ever heard of it before, so we had no expectations.

After a nice snack of truffles we opened the game to check it out and were soon hooked!

It’s like Scrabble in a card game, but moves much faster.

Each card in the deck has a letter (a, b, c) or letter combination (like qu).

For the first round each player receives 3 cards.  When it’s your turn you can either draw a card from the draw pile or the top card of the discard pile. Then you need to discard one card.

If you can make a word with the letters in your hand, you can lay them down and receive the points on the cards. If you can’t make a word, the play passes to the next player.

The tension rises when one player can lay down a word – that forces everyone else to lay down whatever they can come up on their turn.

Each round of play you receive another card until you have 10 cards in your hand to make into word or words.

There’s bonus points for whoever makes the longest word and bonus points for whoever makes the most words in each round.

There are challenges if you don’t think an opponent’s word is real, and you can use a dictionary only when it is not your turn.  (We recommend The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary.)

All ages played together, from grandpa to the eight year old cousins.

Vocabularies were stretched and spelling was learned – all in the name of fun!

We played it all week end! I found myself forming words in my sleep. (Although, that could have been caused by the excessive number of truffles I ate while playing!)

This is a must-have game for all home schoolers! We now have our own set and have even learned Quiddler solitaire for one person playing.

Quash, Quatrain, Qat, Qi, Qoph….

By Country Gal | Posted in Family Traditions | Tagged , , | Comment (1)