More Recipes....

So, as promised, here is my French Dip recipe. Bear in mind that a great deal of my cooking is "a pinch of this, a dash of that" style cooking. Once I get a recipe down, it's never the exact same again.

This recipe comes from Taste of Home Magazine (and I hope I'm not completely in the wrong posting it here).

French Dip
1 beef roast (approx 3 pounds, trimmed of excess fat)
2 c water
1/2 c soy sauce
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp garlic powder
1 bay leaf
3 to 4 whole pepper corns
8 french rolls, split

(Now, the other night, I actually DIDN'T use the thyme & peppercorns or garlic powder. Instead I use a couple of cloves of garlic, sliced, a baggy of onion-soup mix, a dash of worchestershire sauce, 2 bay leaves, and some ground pepper. It still tasted great.)

Place roast in slow cooker. Add water, soy sauce and seasonings. Cover and cook on high for 5 to 6 hours or until beef is tender (ie: falling apart in the pot). Remove meat from broth; shred with forks & keep warm. Strain broth; skim off fat. Pour broth into small cups for dipping. Serve beef on rolls. Yield: 8 servings.

(I also serve this with cheese, mayonnaise, horseradish, or whatever other condiments we may desire & have on hand. I know it's not traditional, but who cares! Do what you like!)


I served this along with swiss chard with a warm bacon dressing.

Swiss Chard w/ Warm Bacon Dressing
1 large bunch swiss chard, or 2 smaller bunches, washed & chopped/sliced, stem & ribs & all!
1 pkg (12 to 16 oz, depending on the brand) bacon
1/2 medium to large onion, diced
2 to 3 hard-boiled eggs
1/4 c apple cider vinegar (can be made with white, but ACV tastes better)
1/8 c sugar
salt & pepper to taste

Fry up your bacon till crisp, remove to paper towels & allow excess grease to drain off. Leaving about 2 or 3 Tbsp of bacon grease in your pan, pour the rest into a seperate bowl (large enough to hold your finished Chard Salad, then discard HALF of that! (One pound of bacon grease creates far too much for the dressing.) In the bowl with the remaining bacon grease, combine the vinegar, sugar, and salt & pepper, then set aside. Place diced onion in sauce pan & start to sautee till translucent, at which point you should add your Chard to the pan and cover & maintain a low heat. You'll be basically steaming the chard in it's own juices & that little bit of bacon grease. In the meantime, crumble your bacon & chop your eggs (not too fine a chop) & set aside. Just before the Chard is done (wilted down & the stems pieces tender) give your dressing a good stir. When Chard has wilted considerably, remove it (leaving as much of the liquid as possible in the pan) to the bowl containing your dressing & then top with the crumbled bacon & chopped eggs & give a good toss. VERY YUMMY!!!!

I do suppose that one could start with the stems & onions & get those nice & tender before adding the leaves of the chard & steaming those only barely, but my DH likes his chard wilted to within an inch of it's life. Either way, be careful not to make too much dressing (as I usually do) because then you'll wind up with a chard salad SWIMMING in dressing.

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Tonight's dinner is fried cabbage & keilbasa. This is one I've never used a recipe for but remember watching my dad make often enough that I can make it off the top of my head.

Fried Cabbage & Keilbasa
1 link keilbasa (the big horse-shoe shaped link, can be turkey keilbasa, summer sausage, whatever)
a bit of bacon grease (kept in the fridge for cooking purposes) or other oil
1 good sized head of green cabbage
1 onion
lawry's season salt to taste
maybe a bit of water

Slice your keilbasa into bite-sized rounds & toss into a large skillet with a bit of bacon grease to keep the keilbasa from burning & sticking to the pan. Brown the keilbasa then remove to a seperate container & keep warm.

Dice your onion & toss in to pan & start sauteeing in grease while you slice your cabbage. Slice the cabbage finely enough to provide bite-sized pieces, and add to the skillet with the onion once the onion's had a chance to become translucent. Add a bit of water to prevent burning (no more than a couple of Tbsps, though, as the cabbage WILL provide it's own water) and cover with lid & allow the cabbage to wilt down. Once cabbage is reduced greatly in size & is now somewhat tender, stir your keilbasa back in, season with the lawry's to taste, and enjoy! May be served with Mashed potatoes for a bit of extra starch, or over boiled & buttered egg noodles. I just prefer it by itself, though.

So, Tori, there you are. Some more recipes for ya. I don't know how healthy they are *wink* but they're good and they're some of my family's "old stand-bys". I've gotta find my jumping-off-point recipe for Lasagna before I post that.

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As for the geese leaving early.... Technically they're not leaving early OR late, but right on time. We always see most of them heading out during moose hunting season, and we're right in the thick of that right now. BUT, as I posted a couple of weeks back, I do believe that we're going to see an early winter this year (based on how early the fireweed "cottoned out"), so I'm suprised the birds are waiting till this late to fly. I would have figured they'd all have been out of here a couple of weeks ago. A couple of folks at work seemed to feel the same way. We've had beautiful weather, but considering how early the fireweed cottoned out, and how quickly the leaves are turning on the trees, and how cool & brisk it's getting so suddenly..... It seems we're going to have a beautiful autumn, but an early winter. *shrug* Ah well. I just wish it was possible to tell down to the day, as I've got some seeds I wish to plant before right before the snow flies, but I don't want to plant them so early that they start germinating. But, for what it's worth, I do believe we're going to see our first snow-fall right around Sept. 23rd this year. Last year it was late in the day on Sept. 29th.

Have a Blessed Day!