Taco Sundays
Sundays are the days we like to just stay at home and relax. We might get some home maintenance tasks done around Our Little House, yesterday we took the recycling over to the fire station, but whatever we do usually doesn’t require much exertion.
Dale has been working lots of overtime and for the past several weeks Sunday has been his only day at home.
Whatever we do routinely involves cooking. At this time of the year, Dale will usually grill, but also for the past several weeks, we’ve fallen into the habit of making tacos on Sunday.
This requires my husband to blend and cook his family’s special sauce. It doesn’t require a lot of work and is so worth it when it’s done.
My husband’s grandmother got the recipe from a fellow worker where they both worked. It was her family’s recipe. My father in law picked it up and with a lot of coaxing; we finally got it out of him.
I can make the sauce, but I always ask Dale to do it, as it always seems to taste better when he makes it.
His dad’s dinners, which were reserved for birthdays, also involved frying up the shells, but we usually take the easy way out and buy boxed shells.
I can hardly wait for our tomatoes to start coming on so my aunt can teach me to can. I plan on having Dale make several batches of the sauce from fresh tomatoes and canning it so I can have the sauce anytime.
Does your family have a special recipe? Can you make it taste like the original?
I’m also asking Living Large readers for some help in passing small living tips onto our fellow community members. If you have a small living tip, we would like to hear about it! I will start running these tips on the Monday post. If you have a tip you would like to share with the Living Large community about living in a small space, or would be relevant to living in a small space, a tip on planning to downsize or building a small space please send no more than a paragraph to me at fivecoat@ozarkmountains.com You can also send me a photo of your small space or a relevant photo to the post. The photo must be no larger than 600 pixels in width and in jpeg format or in a compressed file (I’m on dial up here in the woods!) I look forward to passing along your tips!
I loved reading this article I will be sure to tell my friends about this and link to it as well. Thanks
Thank you so much, this was a good read. I was actually born in Madrid (I'm not telling when though!) but was moved around europe and lastly settled in England when I was 5. I dont remember an awful lot of the few years I was in spain, but the delicious smell of spanish food always seems to get me going or something. Funny, how I dont remember anything except the smells,isn't it! I actually found a internet site dedicated to spanish recipe, which gave me great delight and thought I really should to share. Anyway, thank you again. I'll get my husband to add your website to my rss thing…
Are you going to share your taco sauce recipe? I bet lots of your readers would like it.
That's a good idea, Heather. Look for it in the tips section on Monday!
There are several but the one that stands out would have to be Black Bottom Pie. It's my dad's favorite and he always requested it instead of b-day cake.
Some of my favorite recipes from childhood, I have mastered so I can continue to enjoy those favorites.
I've mastered a few myself, SABLE, and it always brings back memories of home.
Potato salad is a special family recipe. And it always tastes better if you're not the one stuck in the kitchen for hours peeling all those potatoes!
I know that! I will be peeling many this coming weekend!
Why peel the potatoes? Vitamins and fiber in the skin, you know.
Good point, AJ. I never really thought about it. I guess I just peel them because that's how my mother prepared the recipe!
Kerri,
A topic near and dear to my heart! And you've got me craving tacos now by the way! Maybe this weekend. We usually do our special dinner nights on Saturdays, and we often make pizza.
Some recipes that I'd call family recipes …
Johnny Appleseed Bars — it's from a recipe my mom cut out of a magazine and always made for us when we were kids. Fattening, but delicious. I like to make them once a year right after a visit to the apple farm.
My grandpa's sauerkraut recipe — it doesn't even really have a name, but my grandpa used to make it. We've vegetarianized it and still make it sometimes. It's basically throwing sauerkraut, potatoes, sausage and cut up hotdogs into a pot and simmering it for a long time. My dad likes to make it on New Year's (it came from his dad.)
Hillbilly Pickles — My grandpa (the same one who made the sauerkraut recipe) grew up poor in the hills of Tennessee, and always jokingly called himself a hillbilly. He called his pickles Hillbilly Pickles. You basically put vinegar, water, salt and garlic in a jar with cucumbers and let them marinate in the fridge.
Grandpa Johnson Salad — The same grandpa (are you noticing a pattern here — haha?) used to make a totally unhealthy but delicious salad using iceberg lettuce, all different veggies, tons of garlic and the Good Seasons dressing you make yourself, using lots of sugar. My sister and I like to make this sometimes for a total childhood nostalgia fix.
Thanks for writing about this!
Thanks for commenting, Allie! You've made me wanting several things too, including my mom's kraut and ribs recipe and homemade pickles!
I started a comment, but hit the wrong keys and it was either sent or lost…at any rate:
The best home canning project I ever had was to make a sort of universal tomato sauce with vine-ripe tomatoes and various other veggies like celery, peppers, some fresh herbs, a few carrots and plenty of onions. We cooked this mixture for hours over a slow fire in a huge pot, and once the consistency became thick enough we bottled and pressure canned the result. This was used for nearly a year for pasta sauce, pizza topping, casserole base–you name it. It was absolutely fabulous–and much less trouble in the end than trying to can tomato halves or whatnot, since the volume was reduced about half. This would also make a fabulous taco sauce base, by the way! If Iwere doing it today, I'd put a few hot peppers into the mix as well…
That sounds like a wonderful mixture, David!
We'll have to share our canning experiences together, Alexandra!
Strangely enough, the recipes my children request the most frequently are for the desserts I made when they were growing up! Apple Delicious is the most frequent request …My recipe comes from the Vegetarian Epicure. I love the way families pass on recipes and look forward to your learning to can because I want to learn this year, too!