Tender Stove top Spare Ribs

Easy Spare Ribs

Easy Spare Ribs

This recipe, just 30 minutes start to finish, is amazingly simple. Use the marinade for vinho d’alhos if you are looking for a more traditional Portuguese dish. Or try this simple finger-licking recipe.

Last week I visited my Grandmother Rose’s niece, Margaret De Mello. I had taken a few old photographs I inherited from my grandmother … hoping we could identify family or friends. Margaret was generous with her time and recipes. We talked about years past … her family’s home was the hub … We, cousins and second cousins, remember Aunt Alice’s as an adventure … kinda like another world.

Being the eldest daughter Margaret was right up front when the annual ritual pig slaughter took place. She helped with cleaning the casings for the linguica and preparing fifty pounds of onions for the morcellas among many other chores. All the daughters in the family became great cooks. It wasn’t unusual to visit and find one of the girls in the kitchen baking a cake.

Margaret shared many of her recipes with me. This spare rib recipe is one. The ingredients, you’ll agree, are not Portuguese cuisine in origin. But Margaret has years of experience cooking pork. I knew the recipe would be impressive. And it is so simple. This method of cooking can be used with any sauce you choose. I am hoping you choose to try this one.

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Portuguese Meatballs and Pops for Super Bowl Sunday

Portuguese Meatballs and Pops

These savory Portuguese meatballs cannot be mistaken for Italian or Swedish meatballs. They have a taste all their own. If you cook Portuguese dishes you will immediately recognize the spices used as Portuguese cuisine favorites. The meatballs are formed, dipped in egg, rolled in fine bread crumbs, and precooked slightly in hot olive oil. Then the meatballs are transferred to a red sauce of tomatoes, paprika, pickling spices and red pepper flakes, to finish cooking. The breading is a good finish for small meatballs to be served as appetizers. For meatballs sandwiches I opt out of the breading process and brown the meatballs without it.

These pops were a cinch and can be mixed up quickly. The time to process the rolls is somewhat lengthy. But if you are putting together the meatballs and sauce the preparation and rising times, meatballs and pops, knit nicely.

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Oatmeal Raspberry (Valentine’s Day) Cookies

Oatmeal cookies With A Taste Of Raspberry Or If You Like, chocolate

This not too sweet Oatmeal Raspberry Valentine’s Day Cookie is a mouth-watering surprise. This recipe is not labor intensive but gives that impression. Your family, your Valentine will enjoy this tasteful treat. If raspberry is not your favorite try strawberry. Or for a really decadent surprise sandwich these with a chocolate filling … maybe even white chocolate with a drip of red food coloring mixed in for the occasion.

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No Worries Oven Braised Beef Stew

Oven Braised Beef Stew

This oven braised beef stew only needs your attention for a few minutes. Then you pop it into the oven to slow cook for at least 4 hours. It does tolerate longer cooking if needed. This is a treat for my visiting daughter. Yep, we are back with the family favorites and comfort foods. But I’m moving to tapas next. Everyone loves tapas, don’t they?

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Best Peanut Butter Cake

Peanut Butter Cake

Eating habits have changed over the years. And so have many old recipes. We are more conscious of the nutritional value of what we eat. We scrutinize  ingredients. We change up recipes adding good ingredients and eliminating the bad. One of the ingredients we now change out is vegetable shortening, substituting vegetable cooking oil or butter. Vegetable shortening has had a facelift, too, however. Crisco, for one, changed their almost 100 year old formula to remain in the competition. Trans fats have been eliminated. But still we gravitate to the oil and butter. What really competes well with the taste of butter!

Old cake recipes most often use shortening as the fat ingredient. Substituting oil or butter for the shortening can be tricky. The texture of the cake changes and often times not for the better. There are just some cake recipe ingredients better left alone. This Peanut Butter Cake’s ingredients are from the 1950 edition of Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book with slight variation. I’ve just simply made this a quick one bowl mix.

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Spicy Mexicali Casserole

Mexicali Casserole

Family is visiting and the Mexicali Casserole was requested for dinner. The Mexican spices are not too hot for the kids and the flavor is amazing. So rich! It’s one of our family favorites! If you are into cheese, egg noodles, and Mexican spices you are going to love this too!

Throw out the boxed instant hamburger meal and try this!

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Buttery Chewy Oatmeal Cookies with a Crunch

Buttery Chewy Oatmeal Cookies

This recipe is a keeper. Not only are these cookies buttery and chewy they have a surprise crunch from the nuts and cereal flakes. A Great Sweet Treat! This is another one of those recipes I inherited years ago from someone who liked to bake herself happy. We know you will be happy with these cookies too. Yummy ingredients. Take a look.

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Light Vegetarian Black eyed Pea Soup

This soup is a great option for lunch during these cold days. It is thick with vegetables and can second as a side dish instead. I use frozen peas. The nutritional value is similar to fresh picked, and it is convenient.

The ingredients for this soup might already be in your panty. Let’s see!

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Sunday Sausage, Peppers, Onions Recipe

Sausage, Peppers & Onions

Rizzo inspired. Hearing the story more than once about a Connecticut family’s love for Sunday Sausage, Peppers and Onions inspired me to put this dish together. Only the three main ingredients were mentioned. So, the rest was up to me.

Guys like to throw this together, too. And of course, eat it! Fast, Easy, Tasty … Rizzo Inspired Sunday Sausage, Peppers and Onions. You’ll love it! But maybe not every Sunday!

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Spicy Portuguese Sopas

Portuguese Sopas is a traditional soup from the Azores. It is made each year for a celebration occurring about two months following Easter. For seven years my brother, Dan, helped with the preparation of this sopa do Espirito Santo for our hometown celebration.

We enjoy eating this soup, his recipe here with my tiny variation, throughout the year especially in the colder months. To us it’s a comfort food. Yep, some of the guys in our family can eat this morning, noon and night … loving every spoonful. Dan’s son Stephen admits!

All ingredients with the exception of the cabbage, bread and mint have been added. My Grandmother would say, don’t be afraid of spices!  Now for the long cooking to meld the flavors.

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