Meatballs!!

I have a meatball recipe that I sort of made from 3 other recipes and I promised Di that I would post it. Sorry it took so long Di. I normally use ground pork and make meatballs or loaf or cheese cups out of it. We really love this over rice with the tangy sauce. We like it best with pork but it's great with hamburger too. I never measure anything after the 1st few times I make something. This is great anyway I've ever made it. Except burnt. LOL. That only happened once and we had people over!! ACK. Do not over cook!! LOL.
Meatballs
2lbs pork sausage or hamburger.
2 eggs
1 cup Cracker crumbs or oatmeal. I almost always use oatmeal.
1 tbsp Seasoning Salt
1/2 tsp Pepper
1 tbsp Italaino seasonings. (or 1 tsp of each powdered onion and dried oregano if you don't have an Italaino)
1 tbsp minced garlic. ( I buy jars of it as it's easier and we go though a lot of it)
Thaw meat and mix everything together. Then form into meat balls or loaf or cheese cups. Cheese cups are muffin tins with a bit of meat mixture on the bottom, then a chunk of Cheddar cheese, then more meat mixture on top. Very good. Grease your tins well and expect to let them soak after. Bakes up in about 20 minutes at 350F. Loaf takes about a hour and meat balls about 35 minutes. Can be done ahead of time and frozen or kept cool until baking.
Sauce.
1/3 cup ketchup
1/4 cup corn syrup or brown sugar
2 tbsp Soy sauce
1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp mustard.
Throw everything in a small pot, mix and heat until thin. This keeps really well in the fridge for ages. We eat this meal mixed all together on a plate with rice and kernel corn. Be easy with the sauce as you do not need much. Papa loves this as meatballs as it makes it crunchy. This is making me hungry!! Maybe I'll have to make meatballs this week. The longest part of this meal is the shaping of meatballs. I often grab a melon baller and use that as a measure. Enjoy!!

Nov 16th Update!!

We are blessed here at the Griggs household. No one is sick, everyone is sleeping well, well fed and fairly happy. We have gotten a bit of snow these last few days which makes me think of winter projects and Christmas. The firewood wall is pretty much finished. We need one more big pine and a few boards put up on the side of the addition to hold it up and a tiny bit more poplar brought in from the back which will hopefully get done this week. We brought another hay bale home today so we have enough hay to last til mid January. Papa is loving his job and working great hours. We are having supper together every night and he is still getting 8 or 9 hours of sleep every night!! Praise God!! The boys go outside to play in the snow almost every day now which they love and I love as it gives me time alone with E as we are working on listening and following directions. E is almost fully toilet trained. As much as she can be without doing it all alone and that will come as she gets older. We are working on attitude and obedience and it seems to be sinking in. Baby R is scooting around backwards and getting caught in all sorts of places. She has learned NO and I think she is ready for crawling in that regard. I think she will figure out forward this week as she is on her hands and knees a lot and is really trying to GO GO GO!! But gets very upset that she can only seem to go backwards. L is talking up a storm and I've actually had to tell him to be quiet and eat at meal times which is usually reserved for J. L is also singing which is neat to hear and loves to draw on the chalk board in the living room. He draws very well for his age even if his people are heads with arms and legs (normal for a 3 year old). J is missing the active outdoors life we've had all summer and is finding it hard to be inside, so I'm sending him out weather permitting. I got to go to the library on Thursday and have been happily reading books in my spare time. I want to get yarn for L's big Afghan so I can work on that this winter as well. (I've made them all a baby afghan, Baby R's is the one in the picture, and now am working on twin sized afghans as they get bigger and have bigger beds.) Papa is designing a twin 4 bed bunk bed for the kids room, so we can have even more room in there for things other then beds, which we hope to get done this winter. Baby R needs a cross stitch wall hanging with her name and birthday and teddy bear ( I've made one for each of the kids) and today Millers lent us a cheese press!! Which I'm excited to try out. I rearranged the kids room a bit this week and now we have a bit more room then before. I need to go though the kids clothes and take out too smalls, add bigger stuff and pack up what ever is not needed or too small. What a job that is in such a small space. I'm not looking forward to it but I should just do it and get it over with. It won't be as bad as I'm imagining it to be. I hope. :) It's getting harder and harder to fit all our 'needed' stuff into our small living area (we keep out of season stuff in a shed out back as we simply do not have the room inside). I was recently told that this would make me so much more gratefully for our house when it is finished which I think will be true. All and all we are extremely blessed, loved, cozy, well fed and warm. God is good.

More Pictures of the Snow Family.

J and his Snow boy and the Baby R Snow Baby.
E and her Snow Girl.

L and his Snow Boy with ears!!

Days Off!!

Papa had 3 days off in a row this week. Sunday was the 1st day and we home churched with 3 couples at Millers and grabbed a hay bale for the cow on the way home. Papa was telling everyone about his hand and how he stuck a screwdriver in it at work on Saturday. OUCH!!! It went in about 1/2 an inch below the place where your 1st and 2nd finger join on your palm and nearly all the way though. It really hurt him for the 1st few days but I just had to tease him and say that he did it on purpose so he wouldn't have to milk the cow. As of yesterday it was much better and he milked last night and tonight. Great timing as he goes back to work tomorrow. We spent the rest of Sunday visiting with my Aunt and Uncle on my Dad's side who were in town. I found out that there is 114 grandchildren on my fathers side. So take off my 5 sisters and brothers and me and that leaves 108 1st cousins on my fathers side. Not bad hey?? My dad has 8 brothers and 8 sisters so it's no wonder. There are 28 grands on my moms side, from 8 children, so I have 130 1st cousins. Crazy. LOL. Age wise I'm right in the middle of them all. It's amazing how many of them are getting married these days. 5 on my moms side this summer and I have no idea how many on my dad's side.. LOTS is my guess.
Monday it snowed again and we went to the back of our 5 acres and pushed and shoved our little Toyota station wagon out of the wet slimy mess of snow. I pushed and Papa drove, I drove and Papa pushed and the kids laughed and had a great time in the back seat. We finally remembered an old trick and got some tire chains to lay in front of the tires. (they were to big to fit the little tires) It has winter tires on it but the snow was wet and slick and great for snowmen which is what we did after we got the car out. The car is going to be Papa's work rig as it makes more $$ sense. Well we changed our snowman habits. Instead of making one huge snow man we made a snow man family. J and L both made 'themselfs" and Papa and I both made 'ourselves'. L made Baby R and Papa shaped her up a bit. J made the bottom of E's snow girl, L made the middle and E herself made the head. Papa cut some willow for arms and noses and we all raided the carport for eyes and smiles.We found out that L is a snow genius and can stack up little snow men all over the yard without any help at all. We had a great time. And I took pictures which I will hopefully get to post. That evening my bulk food order was in so we drove out to get that and then we headed to the 'city' to do some shopping for Papa for work.The moon was full and we had a great ride home. The moonlight reflected off the snow and made for great driving. Even I, who am just about blind in the dark, could see almost as well as I could during the day. It was a bit foggy in the bottoms but the ride was pretty and we didn't see any Moose which is always nice. Moose have a nasty habit of stepping out right in front of you in the dark so we really rather not see them at all. They can do a lot of damage in short order. We got home late, thirsty and tired and I whipped up some quick Mac and Cheese and feed the little people and Papa milked. Then we all fell into bed and slept in Tuesday morning.
Tuesday morning when I got up I went out and yelled for Bindy like I do every morning. I open the window behind the wood stove, right by the milking area, and yell BBBBBINNNNNNDDDDYYYY. I normally yell 3 times then I can either see her or she'll moo at me to let me know she heard me and is coming. Well this morning she didn't. Didn't come in at all. I hollered some more and still nothing. So I left her. Ha so there cow. Really I did. I figured if she wasn't going to come in that was now her problem. Of course I also realized that she'd been milked late and that she really didn't feel like it was time to milk. We had breakfast and bundled all the kids up, put the baby to bed, and headed outside. We got up late and breakfast took awhile so we got outside at about 11:30 and here is Bindy!! Standing with her head over the fence, staring at me. Her big brown eyes saying 'milk me please'. Blasted cow. So I milked her. Milking the cow at noon. Crazy.
Tuesday was also our 'firewood' day. We had about 4/6Th (so 4 out of 6 months worth is done) of our wood in but we wanted to finish a bit more today. I was hoping we would finish it but life intervened. We did get 2 pickup bed loads done so that's not so bad. We decided to move the piggers so we built fence for them and moved them as well. That took some time, but that is likely their 2nd last move as we plan on putting them in Bindy's area for a month or so and then butcher them, so it was worth it to get done. It's a royal pain to move pigs alone so it was nice to be able to do it together. In the evening we had lots of fun putting the bulk food order in buckets, jars, and whatever else we could find for it and stacked it up in our pantry/back bathroom. Then we ate supper and watched "The Apple Dumpling Gang" with the small people before standing under a hot shower trying to remember that tomorrow our backs would feel worse but the day after that they should be feeling a bit back to normal.
All and all we had a great few days. We got quite a bit of winter ready stuff finished or close to it, had some nice family times, relaxed a bit, ate good food and J and I had a great snowball fight that had him giggling continuously while I tried to hit him as he ran around. It is raining tonight so the snow family is likely gone, this afternoon it got so warm that Snow Papa lost his head and Snow J melted almost gone. Tomorrow Papa goes back to work and the kids and I are going to take a day to recover from the short naps, late nights and hard work. Bible study is not happening this week so there will be no rushing here tomorrow morning. I made yogurt last night and so breakfast is made. And the only thing I really have to do tomorrow is milk that cow. Hopefully she'll behave herself and come when I call her!! Our snow family. Mamma Snow, L Snow boy, Papa Snow, J Snow boy, E Snow girl, and Baby R Snow Baby. L's snow boy even had ears!!

J's Snowman!!

Yesterday when I sent the kids outside they wanted me to come out and build a snow man with them. Because I couldn't I told J to make his own snow man. "I can't do it by myself" He whined. " TRY and make just a little one" I said. He did and he did a great job!!! Normally snow men are made with the whole family and Papa in charge of operations:) With me in charge of pictures. We end up with a such a HUGE snowman that Papa has to put J on his shoulders to put the eyes, nose, and smile on. Hopefully our next snow will be perfect snowman material and we'll be able to build our monster man. When and if we do, don't worry, you'll see pictures :)

E's Surprise!!

This morning I bundled up the kids, it's not that cold just wet, and sent them outside to play in the snow. We got another inch or so in the night and it's beautiful out there. I put E in her purple snow suit, boots and gloves and sent her out. I worked in the kitchen for a bit, feed Baby R some oatmeal, then went and sat in our bed, where I could hear the kids outside, to nurse her. Papa borrowed a western from Grandma F and as there is nothing else to read in the house that I've not read at least once before I grabbed it and set down to nurse. A few minutes later I heard E scream. High pitched 'I'm hurt' scream. My 1st thought was that she'd fallen off the porch. She did this legs 1st this summer and scared herself silly. Baby R was beside me on the bed, screaming mad at being interrupted, and I was to the front door before I could think. There she was standing at the bottom of the stairs her hands by her face. Nothing was bleeding or bruised or anything that I could see. When I looked closely though she was WET. Her face was soaked in line down the middle. The front of her snowsuit was wet as well in a line down the front. It took me about 30 seconds to figure out what had happened. The weather warmed up a bit this morning and the snow on our tin roof was warming up and falling off. She must have been standing under the drip line and got a dump of wet melting snow right on her face. It hit her face, slid down her neck and all the way through her snow suit to her legs. Because it was so warm out, just wet, I'd not put pants on her and she got cold wet snow from the top of her head, her hair was wet, all the way to her boots. She had a shirt on and it was soaked down the front as well. I laughed so hard. Poor kid. What a surprise!!! I opened her suit and got as much of it as I could but most of it was water by then. Then I gave her a little talk about walking around the drip line but it didn't take long though and she was done outside. Baby R was playing happily with my book cover when I got back to the bed and when I picked her up to finish nursing I could tell she'd forgiven me.

Baby R watching her siblings and the snow falling.

J's snow angel.

SNOW!!!

We got our 1st snow fall of the year today. When I last looked it was still falling. I wasn't sure how long it was going to last so we bundled everyone up, even Baby R, and headed outside. The kids made snow angels and played for about half an hour. Here they are on our 'redneck' trampoline. Works great when you have little kids. Can be raised or lowered at will. L did have gloves on when I sent him out but he shed them as he normally does. He dislikes gloves and would rather have cold hands. Then we came inside and did a tradition I started last year. Watch a Christmas cartoon and eat lunch. Great way to greet the winter!! It's been snowing most of the day on and off and now we have about 2 inches. This snow will probably stay as it is late for our 1st snow. 6 days late.