Nanie's Meatloaf

The recipe has been passed down and is more than yummie and not too expensive to fix. After all, Nanie had an entire crew to feed and not much money to do it on. Jillian has been over organizing recipes for me. I decided to make this for dinner last night along with some tasty homemade bread.

BASIC MEATLOAF from the Portwood family.

2 beaten eggs
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs

1/4 cup finely chopped onion
2 TBL parsley
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground sage
1/8 tsp pepper
1 1/2 lbs ground beef
1/2 cup catsup
4 TBL Brown Sugar
1 tsp dry mustard

1. Combine eggs and milk. Stir in bread crumbs and onion, parsley, salt, sage and pepper. Add ground beef in chunks.
2. Mix together till blended. Mix lightly or you get compact texture..yuck
3. Mold into a loaf shape ( I usually put it in a glass bread loaf pan.)
4. Bake at 350 degrees about 50 min.
5. Prepare glaze of Catsup, brown sugar and dry mustard.
6. Spread over top of meatloaf and bake 10 minutes longer.

Leftovers never last long as this is a family favorite for every one. I often make two at a time because of the loved leftovers!

Here is Audrey's Bread Recipe:

1 1/2 cup warm water
2 TBL Oil (I used Olive Oil)
2 eggs
5 cups flour ( you can add more if dough is too sticky... I had to)
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
3 tsp Bread Machine yeast.

Mix in bread machine on dough cycle. Shape into French Bread rolls. (You may have to add flour to do this) Place on greased cookie sheets and let rise covered with a towel. (40-50 min)
Bake at 350 degrees fro about 20 minutes or until light brown. This makes 6 loaves and you can easily wrap them in foil and freeze them.


Good luck with your cooking... I am off to clean out another box of recipes. Nanie was the best cook and I do not want to loose her treasures in the kitchen.

Lauren

Post Note: Jillian told me she is pregnant. Robert will be so excited! Well, so am I...very excited.

Birthday Celebrations

These pictures took me way back to the celebration of birthdays of the boys and their love of hero worship. Batman, Spiderman, you name it, they thought is was all thrilling.




Do you have any memories of childhood birthday parties? My earliest memory is of my 3rd birthday party. I wore a soft yellow sweater that had tiny rose buds in a row around my chest up near the neckline. I also remember having my cousins over and eating hotdogs and then throwing them all up. Today I know why they didn't stay in my stomach, but I don't think anyone knew back then. I have food allergies to Sodium Nitrate... top ingredient in those nasty things. I never gave them to my kids.

The kids always like wearing masks and taking on the personality of the mask. I think we all do that in our lives. We don't even need the masks....it is simply the front we put on with people. Then we carry through with acting like the person we are trying to be.

Make believe was something David and I were good at. He would sit with his notebook and write stories when we were young. I sat scrunched up tightly against him as he told me the tale he was inscribing on the paper before him. My pencil flew to sketch what he was describing. I have a whole trunk full of our stories and drawings. One day I will have to get them published.

Jillian has been over helping me label pictures this past weekend and these were some we came across. So many memories.

Lauren

I am the MOM

I simply could NOT pass this one up:





Lauren

OLD PHOTOS from early years.

Kendall was over last week and we began digging through boxes and boxes of photos. The girls decided I had to learn how to do scrap booking. OH MY GOSH.... that is like trying to put an artist in a box. Little stickers, letters, sticky three dimensions stuff and lots of colored paper. This is going to take years to put all of this together. I kept thinking she would feel sorry for me and take it all home, but NOOO, it is still here. It sat still only partially begun all the way through Christmas.

I cannot believe I have not posted in so long. There was so much I missed writing down this month because of the holidaze.

I promised to get back with it this next week. My tree is still up and needs to come down, but I always wait until after January 6th. David said he would help me. William helped me get it out of the attic, and the girls did the decorations. I think they had another motive though, as they both left with boxes of ornaments that did not use on my tree. They took them home to their trees.



David and I hosted Christmas this year and we had 45 guests for dinner on Christmas day. Wasn't the best time for the dishwasher to go on the blitz either. I used Nanie's china along with Mom's china and my china. It all had to be hand washed. I do not think I will do that again.
I am grateful nothing was broken.


I wish you a Happy New Year and we can share more memories from the past.... did you see that photo above??? Egads I was thin then.

Lauren