Helen's BBQ Meatballs and a Walk Down Memory Lane

June 17, 1995

BBQ Meatballs

1-1/2 pounds ground beef

1-1/2 c. oats

½ c. milk

1 egg

½ chopped onion

1/2 t. garlic powder

¾ t. pepper

1 t. salt

Mix all ingredients together and form into 12 meatballs.  Place in a greased 9x13 baking pan.  Pour sauce over meatballs.  Cover with tin foil and bake at 350* for 1-1/2 hours. This recipe is easily doubled (or even tripled!)  just remember to double (or triple!) the sauce.  Enjoy~

BBQ Sauce

1 c. ketchup

¾ c. brown sugar

1 T. liquid smoke

1/2 t. garlic powder

½ onion, chopped

Mix all ingredients together and pour over uncooked meatballs.

This is my mother-in-law Helen’s recipe.  She made these meatballs one of the first times I visited their house in Iowa.  16 years later, I still enjoy when she makes them!  Since Jeff and I just celebrated our 16^th wedding anniversary, I decided to take a walk down memory lane.  We didn’t have the typical dating life, engagement, wedding or even first year of marriage.  (I think most military families can relate!) I’m not sure what I expected, but my life has turned out far better than I ever imagined! 

Dating:  Jeff and I met in Wiesbaden, Germany.  We were both in the Army and lived in the same barracks building.  One Saturday night in February 1994, Jeff and I went to a party together.  Two days later, he left for Norway for about 3 weeks.  The day he returned from Norway, there he was knocking on my door, still smelling like wood smoke, asking if I’d like to watch a movie. And the rest is history!  During the months we dated, we spent time apart due to Army life…field problems and work schedules.  (Throw in two broken arms from a bike accident and a 30 day convalescent leave to Maine)  

Engagement:  In March of 1995, Jeff’s two years in Germany were up and he was on his way to Ft. Rucker, Alabama for training and then on to Ft. Benning, Georgia.  I was due to move to Ft. Riley, Kansas in January 1995.    One night shortly after Jeff left Germany, I got a phone call from him.  You have to remember that this was before everyone cell phones…in my barracks there was one phone per floor, which was sitting on the floor in the hallway.  No table, no chair, just a phone sitting on the floor.  So there I was, in my pajamas, sitting on the floor in the hallway talking on the phone when Jeff asked me to marry him!  We decided to get married on June 17, 1995 in Maine and he would send me my engagement ring.  A week or so later, I got my engagement ring in the mail!  While I was waiting for my ring, I stalked the mail room every day.  I would check it at lunch, just in case, and then beg to leave work just a little bit early so I could check again.  Then one day, it was there!  I was officially engaged, ring and all!  I have never run into anyone else who received their engagement ring in the mail!    

Our wedding:  My parents pretty much planned our wedding (thanks Mum and Dad!)  I told them the date, the church I wanted to be married in, the color of flowers for bouquets and away they went!  I flew to Maine on Sunday, bought my wedding dress on Tuesday, Jeff flew in on Wednesday, bought our wedding rings on Thursday, his parents few in on Friday and we got married on Saturday.  I flew back to Germany on Thursday and Jeff flew back to Georgia on Friday.  Call it a whirl-wind wedding, but it was perfect!  Beautiful weather, beautiful church, beautiful reception at my parent’s house on the ocean.  I have such happy memories of our wedding…even though my mum fell down in the church and hurt her thumb.  In all of the pictures, she has her thumb up, Fonzie style…not because she thought she was cool, but because her thumb hurt!

Our first year of marriage:  We lived apart for the first 6 months of being married.  I lived in Germany, Jeff lived in Georgia.  On Christmas Day 1995, I left Germany.  Thanks, Kathy Silver for driving me to the airport!   I finally arrived in Iowa Christmas night and Jeff and I had our first married Christmas together.  1996 began with us living in a small apartment in Columbus, Georgia.  Jeff was on flight status and had a crazy schedule with lots of TDY’s, schools and field time…in short, he was gone a lot!  However, he was home on our first anniversary, 17 June 1996, which was spent with dinner out and tickets to an Olympic softball game a few weeks later.

And so there you have it,  the highlights of dating, getting engaged, getting married and our first year together!  All brought to you by my mother-in-law’s meatballs.

These are not my meatballs, they are from PW.

 I am at the car dealership...waiting for my car to be serviced and I forgot my SD card with my meatball pictures!  So, PW's picture will have to do!  :)

Johnny's Grub Rub by Johnny

JP and I headed northeast this morning to the big town of Manhattan and their farmer's market.  We got some fabulous fresh fruits and veggies...Swiss chard, beets, strawberries, tomatoes, asparagus, cilantro, peanuts, sugar snap peas and gooseberries.  Have you ever tried a gooseberry??  The lady who sold them to us described them as tart.  She said they were a little bit more tart than Sour Airheads (a candy) or sour gummy candies.  Um, I don't know when she last ate sour candy, but gooseberries are a TAD more tart than sour candy.  Holy Moly Macaroni, they are tart!  Pure Pucker Power.

I spent this afternoon cooking.  I made roasted red pepper hummus, couscous salad, strawberry/gooseberry crunch and a superb BBQ rub.  I'll share other recipes later this week.  But for today, I'm all about the BBQ Rub.  I kind of stumbled upon this recipe.  Earlier this week, I found a BBQ rub recipe that was actually 2 recipes.  You made a spice mixture, and then used that in the Rub recipe, along with other ingredients.  I had it scribbled on 2 sticky notes and those sticky notes got stuck to something and never found it's way into the kitchen.  So I quickly looked up BBQ Rub on allrecipes.com, my go-to recipe website.  I sprinkled the Rub on boneless, skinless chicken breasts and let them sit for about 15 minutes before grilling.  Oh, it was delicious!

I used Penzeys Chili 3000 for the chili powder.  Penzeys says it's the Now Chili, and it is good...a little more spicy than traditional chili powder. 

Johnny's Grub Rub  by Johnny

• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 2 tablespoons ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 tablespoon mustard powder
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 4 tablespoons ground paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

In a small, nonporous bowl, combine the garlic powder, ground black pepper, salt, mustard powder, chili powder, cumin, brown sugar, paprika and oregano. Mix well and apply to meat. 

Review:  I was a little worried about the amount of salt and pepper, but it worked well in the rub.  My chicken was tender and juicy with a little zing from the rub.  Some of the reviews on allrecipes.com said they thought there was too much cumin in the recipe,  However, I thought it was the right amount.  Next time, I'm going to use Penzys 4/S Special Smoky Seasoned Sea Salt
I think that will give it just a little bit more zing!  This rub would be great on pork chops, steaks, ribs and any other meat that is grilled.  I can't wait to experiment with other types of meat!  Enjoy~


By the way, if you're puzzled about who JP is...well, it's a funny story.  When Jacob was a toddler, we called his Jakey.  My niece thought we were calling him JP...and the name stuck.

BBQ Beef from Kelli

I made BBQ Beef on Friday night for my inlaws.  It was a new recipe and it was good!

For those of you who don't know, I am a full time grad student.  I'm also a full time GTA (Graduate Teaching Assistant), a full time mama and a full time military wife.  Those of you who are military wives (or military husbands) know what I mean when I say I'm a military wife...you get what all of that implies.  And yes, I'm very busy!  Soooo anyways, in my research class, we had a potluck on the last night of class.  Cassie brought Black Bean & Corn Salsa.  Check out her recipe on her blog, Thoughts from Casablanca.  It was good!  Kelli brought the BBQ Beef.  As soon as I took a bite, I knew I'd need the recipe.  It was good.  It was better than my BBQ Beef and as soon as there was a break during class, I asked her for the recipe.  And so Kelli sent out an email to everyone in the class with her recipe for BBQ Beef.  It's easy!  It's good!  It's easy!  It's good!  Make it this week!  You'll be glad you did!


BBQ Beef
1 boneless beef chuck roast (about 3 lbs)
1/2 c. ketchup
4 T. brown sugar
4 T. red wine vinegar
2 T. Dijon mustard
2 T. Worcestershire sauce
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. liquid smoke
1/4 t. black pepper

Place the beef in a crock pot.  Mix the sauce together and pour over the beef.  Cover and cook on low for 8-9 hours.  Shred the meat and serve with crusty rolls for a BBQ beef sandwich.  Easy Peasy.

Kelli suggested not to use the bigger crock pots because it doesn't cook the same.  So I stuffed the beef into my medium sized crock pot.  Kelli also said that she mixes up the sauce the night before, so she can just put everything together quickly in the morning.

Review:  It was good!  The meat was very tender.  The sauce was a little watery, but still flavorful.  I didn't use a beef chuck roast...I used a rump roast instead and it was fine.  Next time:  Before I shred the meat, I'm going to drain most of the sauce/liquid.  I will make another batch of the sauce and add it to the shredded beef, stick it back in the crock pot and voila!  This is an quick and easy recipe to put together, and oh, so good!  Enjoy~

Easy Grilled Chicken and Grilled Veggies

My inlaws left this afternoon after spending a few days with us.  They live about 260 miles away...close enough to visit, but far enough so they don't drop in unexpectedly!  It was great to see them and we had a wonderful time.  We traveled to the zoo in Salina yesterday and did some shopping.  My father-in-law, Leonard, did a few things around the house since Jeff is deployed, which I was very grateful for!  We played cards, did some geocaching, talked a lot and ate some pretty darned good food (of course, I'm biased a little bit!) 

Before they left this afternoon, I made a big dinner/lunch (another post for another day.)  It was terrific, but again, I'm a little biased!  The meal was different from my planned menu since we went out to eat last night and had a picnic lunch at the zoo.

Easy Grilled Chicken
Boneless/Skinless chicken breasts

Ken's Steak House Lite Northern Italian with Basil & Romano salad dressing
Gallon Ziploc-type Bag

Place the s/b chicken breasts in a Ziploc type gallon bag.  For every 3 chicken breasts, add 1/3 of the bottle of Ken's salad dressing.  So 3 chicken breasts = 1/3 of the bottle, 6 chicken breasts = 2/3 of the bottle, 9 chicken breasts = 1 bottle (you will need to use another bag if you're using 9 chicken breasts...it would be a little crowded in 1 bag with the dressing!)

Zip the bag and stick in the refrigerator for 4 hours, or up to 2 days.

Place the chicken on a med/hot grill.  Discard the salad dressing/chicken juice.  Grill 4-5 minutes and turn.  Continue grilling until chicken is no longer pink and cooked through....15-25 minutes, depending on the heat of the grill.

Review:  I've used a lot of different Italian salad dressings over the years and have found that I like Ken's Steak House Lite Northern Italian with Basil & Romano the best for marinating chicken.  It makes the chicken moist, and doesn't have a strong vinegary flavor.  Enjoy~

Grilled Veggies
1-2 medium zucchini squash
1 medium yellow squash
2 medium onions
1 medium green pepper
1 medium red pepper
1 pint cherry tomatoes
8 ounces whole mushrooms
3 T. red wine vinegar
2 T. olive oil
2 T. Italian seasoning (Penzeys makes a good one, as does McCormick)
1 t. garlic powder
1 t. onion powder
1/4 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper
Gallon Ziploc-type bag
Bamboo skewers

Slice the zucchini and yellow squash lengthwise.  Chop into 1-inch chunks.  Seed and cut the peppers into large chunks (2 inch x 2 inch or so chunks.)   Put the spices, oil and vinegar into the Ziploc-type bag.  Add the chopped zucchini, yellow squash and pepper chunks.  Seal the bag and squish around so that all pieces are coated with the spice mixture.  Shake it up, baby!  Twist and shout!    (Click on the link!  My mum sings this song every time something needs to be shaken....and so do I!)Place in the refrigerator for 4 hours, or up to 2 days.

When you're ready to cook the veggies, slice the onions in half, then with each half, lay the sliced part on your cutting board and cut at 10 o'clock, 12 o'clock and 2 o'clock (you'll get 4 chunks of onion per half.)    Take the marinated veggies out of the refrigerator.  Thread the marinated veggies, mushrooms, onions, and cherry tomatoes onto wooden skewers.  You can put them in any order, but I like the zucchini or yellow squash on the ends...they don't shrink as much while cooking and fall off less than peppers, tomatoes, onions or mushrooms.  (You may want to soak the skewers in water before doing this step.  I never remember to do it, and the ends get a little charred, but that's OK.  If you don't want the ends of the skewers charred, soak them in water for 20 minutes.  It's up to you...)

Place on a med/hot grill.  Grill 4-5 minutes and turn.  Grill 4-5 minutes more.  It may take you more or less time depending on the temperature of your grill.  I like my veggies a little crisp with a little char on them them.  (Cook according to your tastes...not mine!)


Review:  I LOVE these veggies!  I've experimented with more/less oil, vinegar, spices and ready made Italian salad dressings, and this is what I've come up with.  The veggies are moist, flavorful, without being too vinegary.  I don't like to marinate the mushrooms (they get soggy), the onions (they fall apart) or the tomatoes (they get squished.)  However, feel free to change a few things to make it fit your tastes!  Enjoy~