Wisdom From Grandma

Grandma’s meatballs were not quite world famous, but everyone who knew her raved about them. More recent family members have substituted turkey for hamburger and these new turkey meatballs are still wonderful.

Ingredients:
1 pound ground turkey (7% fat is best)
2 tablespoons Parmesian cheese
1/4 teaspoon parsley
1 tablespoon onion, chopped fine
1/4 cup cracker crumbs
1 egg
1/4 cup milk

Directions:
1. Mix ingredients together.
2. Form balls of one and a half to two inches around.
3. Brown balls in oil or in a non-stick pan coated with non-stick spray for about seven minutes.
4. Add balls to sauce and cook for three minutes.

During the summer months, Grandma always had plenty of fresh green beans and new potatoes, so it is no surprise that she had several recipes for cooking green beans. This was one of her favorites

Ingredients:

Salad:

2 pounds new potatoes
3 cups fresh green beans
1 cup tomatoes
Small sweet onion
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon of parsley
6 hardboiled eggs

Dressing:

1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons red or balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoons honey mustard

Directions:

1. Cook potatoes until tender (approximately 15 minutes) and cut them into quarters. Let cool.
2. Cook green beans approximately 5 minutes. Drain and let cool.
3. Quarter tomatoes.
4. Chop onion.
5. Combine potatoes, green beans, tomatoes, onion, salt, pepper and parsley.
6. Combine dressing ingredients and toss with potato salad.
7. Garnish salad with hardboiled egg slices.
Serves 4 to 6 people

Grandma loved to bake peach pies or top pancakes with peaches instead of syrup. During the summer months, she would buy baskets of seconds and freeze them. Freezing peaches was much easier and faster than canning them, so she rarely bothered with canned fruit. Since she didn’t have a vacuum sealer, she used containers to hold her peaches. However, Nan, my mother, and I all use a vacuum sealer to prevent freezer burn. I really recommend this recipe over the more traditional peach canning recipe, because it is so simple to do and is not as dangerous as using a pressure canner. (Those things make me nervous.)

Ingredients:
Fresh peaches
3 cups of sugar
4 cups of water

Directions:
1. Wash peaches thoroughly.
2. Cut the fruit in half and remove the pit.
3. Peel the skin from the peaches.
4. Bring water to a boil.
5. Add your sugar to the boiling water and stir it in until it is thoroughly dissolved.
6. Let the syrup cool. Grandma put hers in the fridge for an hour.
7. Put three to four peaches into your container. Add enough syrup to thoroughly cover your peaches, but be sure to leave about an inch of room if you are using traditional containers. (You should use approximately 1/2 cup of syrup for each pound of peaches.)
8. Seal and label your container and place it in the freezer. (If you use a vacuum sealer, freeze the fruit and syrup for an hour or so before sealing or the syrup may get sucked out.)
Your peaches should last for a year, but if you are anything like my family, you will run out before next spring.
If you plan to freeze a large quantity of produce, you may want to take a look at the Food Saver, my favorite vacuum sealer: